The vision that guides Mestro's product development

What fuels the product development at Mestro

For over 18 years Mestro has been looking for ways to make properties more energy efficient. The approaches vary - different departments assisting the customer achieving its goals. But at the core lies the product, the platform that shapes both our and our customers' future opportunities. What shapes the product's journey forward and what ideas guide the direction of our development? Mestro's Product Manager Jesper Stenberg tells all about how ideology, vision and belief in the future are constant companions in the company's product development.

Mestro will be the core of the sustainable property portfolio of the future. This is both an ideological and visionary position – a collection of ideas, principles and values that guide our company’s view of society and the direction in which it should move. When I will answer the seemingly simple question of what shapes Mestro’s product development, I will talk about selected areas such as data and sustainability and how these are ideological and visionary cornerstones in our journey forward.

As important now as it was back then

Let’s start from the beginning, which in the case of Mestro, means data. Our business focuses on the measurable, where data is everything. All decisions made, everything to be reported, everything to be interpreted, and everything that gives our product value, is based on high data quality. As a company, Mestro has been born, grown and matured in an era of digitalisation, a journey that has not only shaped the company’s view of the importance of access to data but also its quality. By growing together with our customers for a long time, the focus has always been on its functionality, how we can ensure a data quality that actually offers us ways forward. This mainstay of our business has shaped a perspective that highlights the value of owning the entire chain, from collection, through quality assurance and processing, to analysis and ultimately visualization.

This chain is based on transparency at all stages. By this I mean that Mestro can offer full visibility in all the previously mentioned steps; We can show all calculations in an audit to be able to offer the customer security, a security that has an enormous value when it comes to the applicability of this data. The idea, the view of data quality and the role it plays, is at the heart of our business and one of the few things that has not changed in the last 18 years.

A vision powered by data

We want to see  a property world where data leads to decisions that can actually improve property performance. Reporting and transparency will not on its own make properties more sustainable, for this to happen, the strategically sound decisions are required. With all the data Mestro have access to, we can answer the question How is my building performing? Our data analysis and extensive database allows us to offer future insights to help property owners prioritize and maximize the results of their improvement efforts. None of this is possible without comprehensive, high-resolution data. 

Anyone can build a visualization service for sustainability data, but often the resolution is not high enough to draw relevant conclusions. Mestro has from the very beginning been shaped by the idea that data must offer just that. If you as a decision maker want to take the business in a more sustainable direction, you will want to base your decision on the right data. This is why the aforementioned transparency becomes invaluable. Many are the reporting softwares that struggle with this transparency – they can present a value but find it very difficult to explain what it is based on. This must never be Mestro. Therefore, our product development is shaped by a principle that says that we will cooperate with everyone, we will not compete, we want to move forward to a place where the data quality can never be questioned.

Visualized data

We realized long ago that the data we collect is relevant for a group larger than technical managers. Visualization is appealing in itself but will play an increasingly important role in a future where the need for the narrative presentation of complex data meets the recipient’s level of knowledge and needs, whether it is an operations engineer or a sustainability manager. The fact that Mestro has contact, from the data source all the way to the presentation, means that we know more in several stages. We can apply several factors in our calculations such as weather and external data points taken from a variety of sources. In other words, we can refine the data by knowing what has happened in the property and what external factors have influenced its use. This makes the story we tell with data infinitely more relevant and rewarding than blindly staring at a meter. 

In other words, data quality  is not just a tool for us to do our job. Data becomes more valuable when it can be understood. But this also requires great responsibility in managing the data that our customers have made available to us – perhaps primarily from a security perspective. What we want to do is to share anonymously all the insights we can glean from our broad databases. Because by working with 5 of the country’s 10 largest property companies, we have knowledge that has proved invaluable for this process. We do this by publishing data reports such as Energy in Real Estate to build insights that can guide the industry on its journey forward.

An ideology shaping Mestro’s future

Mestro’s ideological starting point is that our future should be better than our present. This may sound like an ideology formulated with the simplicity of a child, but it will require revolutionary changes our species behavior. It is clear that we will need to find a more sustainable way of living and this requires a change in the use of energy. Buildings account for over 40% of Sweden’s energy use and 25% of its emissions. In other words, for our climate goals to be considered realistic, properties will need to be made more efficient and this fact governs Mestro’s product development to the highest degree.

Under package names such as the green deal, the circular economy project, the taxonomy regulation, fit for 55 and the clean energy package, the concept of sustainability has been concretised. These packages are full of good intentions and high ambitions and are starting to result in laws – adopted at varying speeds. Laws that have brought profitability closer to sustainability. By this I mean that sustainable investments in a property in the long term, today gives the property a higher value, perhaps mainly due to a number of regulatory requirements. Property companies must report on sustainability, reports that in turn determine whether the companies are eligible for green financing, a model we want to see contribute to a more sustainable property market. Therefore, our products should make it possible for our customers to obtain the certifications necessary to make the journey forward. 

Today we see banks starting to decline applications, questioning whether the applicant has taken any action at all. Sometimes this is just an expression of the fact that the ESG systems the companies use often lack the data quality necessary to offer the full picture. They simply collect data points without understanding environmental factors ranging from weather to what actually happened in the property.

If a property company, regardless of its driving force, is aiming for a sustainable future, the monitoring service must match their ambitions. Investments and reports should be based on the best possible data and that’s what Mestro’s product should offer.

At the end of the day

We continue to refine our data processes and multifactorial analyses. Mestro can’t say what the future looks like, when and if we will reach our sustainability goals and what the journey there looks like. What we do know is that our product  will place the customer in the best possible position for this future. This requires tools and data quality that lead to the right decisions, decisions that puts the company in line with current requirements and guidelines. 

We have ongoing conversations with existing customers to hear about their needs and goals. To develop a product that works for them, is indirectly a way to develop a product for all of us. Because Mestro’s vision is characterized by our belief in the role the real estate market will play in the green transition. We exist for the property companies whose values lead them towards a future that is better for all of us – a place where sustainability is not a goal but a mindset that characterizes all aspects of our actions.

Dela detta inlägg

Enjoy the latest news from The Mestrosphere

Nyhetsbrev från Mestro

Enjoy the latest news from The Mestrosphere

Nyhetsbrev från Mestro

Här lägger vi en Iframe