A friend who is the Chairperson of a management corporation (MCST) of a 300-units condo met me recently.
He asked: “How is value in condo service measured?” He asked further: “You are the Founder of Wisely 98 Pte Ltd and the President of the Association of Strata Managers , surely you want to bring value to your clients to differentiate yourself from others!”
He has asked very hard questions.
We started to evaluate the reasons why a managing agent should bring value to the table and the attributes in the selection of a managing agent.
There are about 430k condo units in Singapore. Each unit of the condos could be easily valued at $1 million.Collectively, these condos are worth more than $430 billions . Condos are high value assets. These high value assets must be preserved and enhanced.
The attributes in the selection of a managing agent can be quantitative and qualitative.
Among the attributes counted, how a managing agent could save cost for an MCST and if not, contain cost were ranked at the top of the list. We argued on why and how a managing agent could generate income for an MCST.
We finally touched the most sensitive topic about how a managing agent should be remunerated. We agreed that the bid submitted could affect the quality of the staff provided. We also agreed that the skillset expected of a condo manager can be wide, broad and deep. How could someone be a professional if he is not trained? There must be a minimum standard of skills from anyone who profess to be a condo manager.
When approving a repair for an equipment, the MCST does not have a comprehensive record of repair history. That caused him doubt. I advised him to digitalise the common property by investing in a digital tool that allows him to tag repairs and purchases made to every equipment or system.
The Chairperson asked whether he could be allowed access into such digital tool to view a summary of responses that his managing agent has made. I replied that a good digital system could provide an overview on fault reports and status related to financial matters via an APP by using his fingers . He should allow all his MCST document be stored in the cloud to mitigate loss of document and provide him access 24×7.
We did not conclude all the attributes but we agreed that expectations and deliverables must be specified at the onset when an MCST entered into an agreement with its selected managing agent. These deliverables could be measured via an agreed matrix on a regular basis.
#matrix #stratamanagement #managingagent #deliverables
Image credit: Designed by Freepik
