The institution of professional trophies makes you smile. These fraternal competitions, which have always existed and ultimately inspired successful television shows in the world of gastronomy, pastry or artistic talent, seem at the same time light, unnecessary and self-centered. However, it is now essential and the professions concerned, who organize them in a more playful than serious way, undoubtedly do not measure it enough: these events constitute catalysts for innovation and the real estate and housing sector will increasingly have a vital need for this innovation.
He lived too much on the reiteration of perpetrated practices, which had certainly proven their worth, in other economic and social contexts, without imagination or almost. Of course, the role of the State and aid is part of this comfort equation, and we realize that times are changing radically in this regard. In the best case scenario, the State will work to alleviate the constraints it places on professionals, from production to services, failing to ensure the solvency of their clients or to support them financially as entrepreneurs. A surge of simplification is to be expected and it seems that it is coming: as of this week at the National Assembly resuming its work, the proposed Huwart law to simplify town planning and housing law has been definitively adopted, which includes around forty valuable measures to accelerate and facilitate the act of building.
Major competitions, not just kind
For the rest, it will be up to professionals to improve their collective performance, to lower costs and prices, move faster and deploy more added value. It will also be up to them, because in all professions in the sector efforts are already made in this direction, to promote them in the eyes of public decision-makers: the State will increasingly have the mission of boosting business creativity and supporting it. We learned with relief that the CIR (research tax credit) would not disappear: the quantity of fraud and the financial situation in France had made it feared, while this aid is a powerful lever for those who make good use of it. Emulation between players will in the coming times, and without return, be the main contribution to the market and consumers. Planners, promoters, builders, managers, negotiators, diagnosticians, architects…must deploy their inventiveness better than in the past. Purring is no longer allowed.
For this, the Pyramids organized by the Federation of Real Estate Developers, or even the Innovative Housing Challenge of the Pôle Habitat FFB are major competitions, not just friendly ones. They are encouraged and supported by industrialists who themselves carry this momentum into their own activity, and who are for many French flagships. We underestimate the progress that these demonstrations, unknown to the public and most political leaders, have made in the evolution of construction processes, the diversification of the choice of materials, the modernization of the ergonomics of housing or even the digital equipment of housing. This week will take place, in the same vein, the tenth edition of the elevator trophies, at the initiative of the Elevator Federation, bringing together some 190 companies, from international majors to family businesses with great tradition that span the region. Without distinction of size, these operators compete in creativity, technical, architectural, economic, with concern for ecology, and we benefit from it without knowing it.
Competition can lead to better business management
Our elevators continue to improve in reliability, comfort, aesthetics and energy efficiency. Elevator manufacturers know how to comply with the constraints of existing buildings and there are few in which installation is impossible. Thanks to this equipment, the home support of people with reduced mobility, whether their disability is long-term or temporary, such as the injured or pregnant women, is ensured and our collective housing as in individual homes – thanks to domestic lifting devices – is inclusive and welcoming. Here again, emulation is at the origin of many of these decisive advances.
Competition, which is an effective means of improving practices, can go so far as to lead to better management of companies and to their security. This year, the Imogroup network of agencies and firms wanted its annual convention, Up’immo, which it ambitiously designates as “the University of real estate professionals” to provide an example of companies in the sector presenting the strongest fundamentals in terms of profitability and growth in particular. Too many players will have disappeared because of the crisis that the sector has gone through and is still going through for many professions due to lack of sufficient solidity. Performance begins with the resilience of the production or service device, for the benefit of the end customer, protected from any risk of failure.
Trophies, seeds of progress
In short, professionals in the sector will have to put all-round progress at the heart of their logic, and regain power. We cannot hide the fact that in the sector they have been excessively dependent on the State and that for the State these tutelary vestments have become too big. He wears them with difficulty. It’s basically exhilarating. A requirement also for schools that train for real estate professions: the state of mind of competition which pushes for excellence is now the right one, on the condition that it inspires surpassing oneself in brotherhood, that is to say the awareness that progress must involve the professional community and not leave actors behind.
Professional organizations find themselves re-evaluated and they must measure this responsibility. They indeed have a major role to play in this matter: to advance the members of the professions they represent on all subjects, undoubtedly more than soliciting the State. This is what these trophies and prizes have become: ferments of progress more powerful than public support and training.
