BROLL PROPERTY GROUP: Broll’s Strategic Shift for Core Growth and Innovation

The past five years has seen Broll – one of Africa’s leading commercial property services groups – actively seeking new opportunities, sourcing growth strategies beyond the traditional, and focusing on IT capability while it became ever closer to clients in a bid to provide a turnkey solution as a true problem solver.

Today, looking forward to the next five years, Jess Cleland, Broll’s COO for Africa, tells Enterprise Africa that despite challenging market conditions and a change in workplace dynamics, the company is continuing to push for growth through new solutions, innovative offerings, and world-class service for clients as it helps to navigate a changing property market.

“There are so many opportunities out there,” says Cleland on the vast area covered by Broll across Africa. “One has to shift away from this idea that investment property is only retail, office, industrial, and residential assets,” she warns. “Now, especially in Africa, real opportunities lie in segments of the market where there is the greatest socio-economic need – property that meets a social need – services that a government would normally provide but where they might not have been able to keep up with demand. I’m talking about things like healthcare, education, infrastructure, affordable housing, student accommodation, data centres – those segments of the market, because of the pure supply versus demand, are where we will see real growth in the next 10 years.”

Broll has been delivering a wide service portfolio – including sales, leasing, facilities management, occupier services, property management, valuations, research, and much more – since its establishment more than four decades ago.

For CEO Malcom Horne, rich market knowledge is helping to differentiate the business. “Our success is built on our in-depth knowledge and expertise, based on our tangible understanding of local markets across Africa. This allows us to provide end-to-end real estate solutions based on strategic, fully-integrated property services for both the occupier and investor segments,” he says.

With more than 2000 employees active across 13 African countries, and $17 billion total assets under management, this 51% black female owned business is perfectly positioned to guide clients across the continent, even as it shifts internally.

KEY SHIFT

“The beginning of 2020 was a key moment and a key shift for Broll,” explains Cleland. “It quite serendipitously coincided with start of Covid, but it is something we were working on anyway. We were focusing ourselves with a brand-new core strategy and a five-year vision for the group in terms of where we want to go, who we want to be, and with whom we want to partner. It’s about concentrating on our core strengths and core abilities.”

This new strategy is people focused, centred around partners, clients, and employees. It aims to bring the company and clients closer together through new offerings driven by matching the needs of clients with the innovation of Broll people.

“We are investing in and scaling our own Broll Online Software, positioning that in the market to maximise how it can benefit the real estate service industry across the entire continent. We are also focusing on our strengths while being ambitious,” states Cleland, adding that the company did not slowdown during the Covid-19 and resultant economic contraction.

“We did launch new businesses in some new areas. For example, we now have Broll Risk Management service which manages security issues and provides market entry advice for companies moving into new geographies. We launched ID (Internal Developers), which is interior workplace strategy and consulting, including fit out projects. We also launched BSS (Business Solutions Specialists) which is a sub-provision of facilities management solutions. The last year or two has really been all about focusing the energy of the business in conjunction with a new structure in the leadership team – putting the business into clusters, each with their own COO, which results in sensibly grouped divisions and empowers tighter collaboration.”

This renewed focus, and display of ambition, has driven a new energy internally and, according to Cleland, sees everyone now clearly pulling in the same direction.

“It’s about taking a more considered approach about where we want to focus. Obviously, for the first year or so, the focus was primarily on getting through Covid and navigating rapidly changing markets, but we have certainly not slowed down at all,” she says.

New offerings are being delivered where they are most suited and not in a blanket approach to the continent. The risk management business is focused on African projects, with a lot of interest in Mozambique and Uganda. ID has worked on projects across the continent with notable success in Kenya where it completed a major multinational head office fit out last year. 

COVID CLARITY

For property owners and those in the market – all over the continent – the pandemic brought challenges that required unique responses. Different restrictions, different vaccination policies, and different support packages from government. Businesses were forced to reassess the cost base, and for some, property was the first element to be axed as times got hard. A complete reimagination has taken place since, and the African workplace is no longer standard or predictable. Thankfully, Broll is an expert in transition and upscaling or downscaling of requirements.

“Throughout this period we have seen ups and downs, of course,” admits Cleland. “But on the commercial side, a number of corporates didn’t just jump into decisions. They wanted to see where things were going and assess the needs of their workforce. We are now starting to see decisions being made, which provides certainty. There have been some space reductions but in some cases there have instead been reconfigurations of space. We have seen a lot of assets come onto the market in the last 18 months. For a long time, there was a gap between what the sellers were expecting compared with what buyers were looking for, and so there was not a lot moving and we needed something to bring those closer together. Now that we are seeing borders reopen and people traveling to view properties, we are seeing things happen again. The inertia of the past couple of years is lifting.”

Already well-positioned to run its own operations on a remote basis, Broll was able to help clients through an unprecedented period, with most coming out in a strong position. Thanks to the forward-thinking Broll risk team, the company had tested remote working prior to lockdowns and closures. With operational efficiency unaffected, and client management ongoing successfully, Broll entered the ‘new normal’ in pole position.

“The success of that is partly down to the system we use – the same system we use to service our clients: Broll Online,” hails Cleland. “That captures everything related to the management of our client’s portfolios from their leases and call logging through to accounting and finance, both for clients and our business. It’s all cloud-based with an app that can be accessed from anywhere and so everything had already been set up for us to transition to this new world of ‘do anything from anywhere’. So, for us, it was quite painless and we are seeing clients across the continent also enjoying the benefits of that sort of approach.

“Having true transparency, everything systemised, and all of your accounting at your fingertips, brings great benefits and efficiencies,” she adds.

ON TOP OF TRENDS

The purpose of Broll is to be the leading real estate services provider and the preferred place of employment for industry professionals. To achieve this mammoth task requires continued innovation and value add. The self-proclaimed ‘Progressive Property People’ manage such a range of clients that keeping fingers on the pulse is vital.

“We manage the portfolios of some of the largest multinational investors and corporates in Africa,” states Cleland. “At the same time, a lot of African markets are not characterised by large, professionally-managed, listed funds; they might be local family owned or a single asset business – we cover everything.”

But covering everything is not easy. With 33,000 tenants and 19,000 leases being managed, 43m m² of space under management, and $2.5 billion under facilities management, insight developed by Broll through relationships with its clients helps the company to build strategies and advise clients ahead of the curve. Right now, there is huge potential for local businesses to grow.

“It’s different by sector and different by country, and there are also different segments within each sector. For example, office space within a certain band might see a lot of stock moving but outside of that band things might be slower. In Ghana, we are seeing quite a lot of transactions go through, especially in sales, in certain residential slices of the market. We have been very successful with commercial leasing in Uganda. The face of retail in Africa is also changing. Over the past couple of decades, we have seen the formalised retail market largely underpinned by South African retailers, and the shift that was starting to happen pre-Covid was accelerated strongly by several South African retailers moving out of other African markets. The composition of retail has adapted and changed slightly, with a stronger portion of local tenants, supplemented by international retailers mainly from Europe and the Middle East. So, we see a great opportunity for the building of local businesses in each of these markets,” Cleland explains.

Other notable trends emerging in the market include a significant focus on logistics space, warehouse space, distribution centres, and particularly heavy attention on data centres as the continent drives connectivity as part of the continued digitisation of economies.

“E-commerce is taking off across the continent, and each country is at a different stage of the growth pathway. For example, at the start of lockdowns, Mauritius did not really have a major online shopping capability, and then suddenly we started seeing a lot of enquiries for warehouse and logistics space. In Kenya, which by contrast was already much further advanced in its take-up of digital services, we saw stronger interest for data centre capacity.

“There is certainly a lot more interest in African data centres and a lot of international players are looking at the growth that Africa will provide over the next two decades,” confirms Cleland.

Importantly, Broll has a commitment to its clients that goes beyond profit. It stands ready to advise whatever the scenario, building lasting relationships. If a client requires a temporary downsizing, even to the detriment of Broll, it is ready to assist to ensure the best outcome. Cleland is proud of this company-wide ethos towards building relationships for the long term.

“We have an arm dedicated to working alongside corporates, focused purely on their interests, separated from the landlord. Strategic consulting is important, and we look at work patterns, what sort of space is required, where should the space be, how it should be configured – we can do everything including going to the detail of calculating how long it will take your staff to drive to work for different office scenarios. Being able to source space and handle all negotiations on a corporate’s behalf is a very important part of our business.”

A longer-standing trend in the market is the growth of mixed-use developments. In South Africa, this concept has become popular, and the continent is realising the opportunities for property that has multiple uses, combining different lifestyle elements.

“I can’t think of many new developments in east Africa in recent times that don’t have some sort of medical clinic included, for example,” says Cleland.

“It requires partnership, as each of the elements are so different in how they are operated and designed, so you need specialist knowledge. Having education sitting alongside retail and residential is so complementary and this is the philosophy of where we are moving. With the remote/hybrid work, there will still be centralised commercial hubs but there will be a larger focus on providing decentralised services to bring work, live, play and learn closer to each other.”

The success of Broll’s service delivery, and the quality of its offering to the market – helping to understand trends and act appropriately – was rewarded in both 2020 and 2021 when the company was awarded a prestigious Golden Arrow Award from PMR.africa for its Facilities Management range. Malcolm Horne paid tribute to Broll’s people, saying: “I wish to congratulate our Facility Management teams for always innovating and adding value to our client-centric service approach.”

Cleland reiterated the company’s commitment to its people and their development.

“We have some really excellent people in this business and we want to give them everything we can to allow them to succeed. My philosophy is always to give people the opportunity, the tools they need to succeed, and the support to get there, and see where they go – it is very rewarding for everyone,” she concludes.

Clearly, over the past six years, Broll’s appetite has not been dampened. Operating through some of the most challenging economic conditions ever, the company has always delivered – both for clients and employees. With results being achieved across the continent, and expertise being nurtured within, this is a company that will continue to find and develop opportunities.