September 07, 2022

Iain Wilcox: Why IoT for commercial property?

50 minutes

On this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VdL talks to Iain Wilcox, CEO of GWT Insight, a tech company focused on making cost-effective commercial building data available to their owners, operators, and advisers.

Iain is an entrepreneur, leader, and visionary who successfully launched new businesses from scratch, balancing strategic planning with practical implementation. Over a 30-year period, Iain worked with companies including AT&T and Cognizant, and 5 years ago, he launched GWT Insight.

During the conversation, Sabine and Iain discussed four topics: What is GWT Insight from a company, branding, and team perspective? Why both, property and commercial building IoT, are unique markets around which to build a risk mitigation ecosystem. Benefits that are delivered to the property and insurance markets (including preventative maintenance). Lessons learned from moving to the entrepreneurial space after years of working for large companies.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

I’ve been delivering consulting services to large corporations for 13 years and have witnessed just how difficult it is for them to balance the need to provide structure and control over their investments with ensuring they do not hinder their innovation initiatives. The Tier 1 carriers recognized they needed to start working with startups. I was working with a large India-based IT company, and they recognized that both organizations needed the agility and speed-to-market of a startup. This led to the formation of GWT Insight.

When we were formed in 2017-2018, it was in the very early days of people realizing they could save money by how they use and consume energy. Now, with rising utility prices, people are very focused on energy optimization and we see ourselves as not only being able to deliver on the governance part of an ESG model, with the risk management solutions that we develop with our partners, the insurers, and their brokers, but we’re also being able to deliver on commercial property owners’ desire to deliver a better understanding of how their buildings are performing and being able to reduce their costs.

Property can account for 20-30% of the overall premium on a portfolio when you’ve got business interruption, public liability, and employee liability. You’ve got an area of the insurance paradigm and the value chain that impacts quite a wide area.

We’ve got use cases across a variety of different examples and verticals. We use real-time data from manufacturing units, offices, hotels, schools, hospitals, and central government departments (MoD and local authorities). Some of the use cases and benefits we’re looking at are picking up fire control data, so you know that if there is a problem with the alarm, it helps them to proactively go to their clients and warn them. We’ve also been able to identify loss events with our insurance clients and stop them from happening.

BEST MOMENTS

‘When buildings are built, they have a number of IoT sensors built in already. Even though a standard office will have 5,000-10,000 data points, GWT Insight recognized an opportunity to capture that data by listening to the existing in-house building management system. We developed the GWTI Observer to do just this and create a better understanding of risk for our users and customers.’

‘Risk managers want real-time data because it’s about loss prevention. We’ve still got a little bit of education to go through in the underwriting community; a lot of that community still has a very traditional viewpoint on how to use data and what is out there. With regards to owners, a third of this market is bleeding edge and wants to risk manage their properties, a third is interested but not ready for it, and a third does not manage that data and insight proactively.’

‘I think the "data" topic will change the way insurance is sold, because when you’ve got the data, you can make better, informed decisions about how you’re managing your property, the risks impacting your property, and how that impacts the rest of your business.’

‘In every building in every portfolio, there have been areas where we can help improve the operational efficiency of the building and provide a better customer experience for their own customers, employees, and stakeholders.’

ABOUT THE GUEST

Iain Wilcox is an entrepreneur, leader, and visionary who has successfully launched new businesses from scratch, including software, IoT hardware, and services companies in the UK and Europe. Primarily worked in the startup development phase, building a unique customer base and revenue streams from the start.

Iain manages the delicate balance between strategic planning and the practical implementation of market entry, business development, and revenue delivery for new and established operations.

Iain set up GWT Insight approximately 5 years ago.

GWT Insight is a tech company focused on making cost-effective commercial building data available to its owners, operators, and advisers. Whether reducing risk, improving the quality of customer experience, or saving money, access to reliable, real-time, and relevant data is now underpinning new ways to improve business performance. With origins in the insurance industry, GWT Insight has developed technology to address complex data-capture challenges in commercial buildings. GWTI's device is simple to install and works across open protocols and many widely used closed-protocol systems. It is plugged into the building's BMS. Once connected, it listens to building systems, sensors, or business-specific equipment without affecting their operation. Unlimited data can be captured, classified, standardised, compressed, and protected with advanced security protocols. The data then flows via the cloud to client information systems, dashboards, and user interfaces, including tablets, desktops, and mobile phones in near real time. The unique approach to data management and the ability to deliver real-time data on what is happening, and to critically inform ‘why’, make GATTI's solution a highly cost-effective platform to drive material benefits for anyone involved in the performance of commercial property.

ABOUT THE HOST

Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.

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