Michael Hudson has joined real estate consultancy CBRE as associate director in its digital strategic advisory arm.
Previously an associate director at Turner & Townsend, Hudson is now part of a team led by Harri John, director and head of digital advisory.
Hudson explained the role of the team to BIMplus: “People are more familiar with CBRE as an asset owner and manager, which is the vast majority of the business. CBRE is also known for managing and dealing with the sale of properties. The digital strategic advisory team interfaces with those parts of the business at various touch points. We’re an agile team in a large corporation that encourages innovation.
“A lot of our clients have started to set quite ambitious ESG targets, and one of the critical enablers for sustainability is a digital strategy.”
While continuing to build on the success that digital advisory has had in driving digital transformation for CBRE’s technology and financial services clients, Hudson will use his experience to help to grow relationships with higher education and residential clients.
Focusing on the operations phase
Hudson notes that in the role he will focus on BIM with clients and their existing portfolios and assets rather than working with clients in the procurement phase of capital expenditure on new assets, which has typified his career to date.
He said: “Our clients are asking: ‘Where’s the return on investment on going digital? Where are the quick wins? How can I make my estate smart? How can I start to see those benefits?”
It’s also about thinking long term, Hudson noted. “In the building operator/owner space, your timeframe is five to ten years, so there’s more time to implement a strategy.”
Smart buildings and digital twins are also on the agenda. Hudson said: “A bonus in joining CBRE is the chance to further my involvement in digital twins. I’ve been working on various iterations of what a digital twin may or may not be for the last few years. And the stumbling block was always who was going to own it and who was going to maintain it.
“CBRE maintains loads of assets. And they’ve already got a technology stack that solves a lot of those problems – they just use it internally. So, they’ve already got that capacity and capability to provide clients with entire lifecycle digital strategies and solutions.”
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