Strategic vision

When Tony Martin took over as President at the Ayala Property Management Corporation (APMC) just two years ago, he was tasked with managing one of the Philippines’ most extensive and geographically dispersed property portfolios. Instead of immediately focusing on expansion, Martin set out to embed cutting-edge technological tools throughout the organization.

“The changes we have made have been mostly on the technology side. We’ve brought digitization and automation into the processes of the business,” he explains.

At the same time, the leadership team made a concerted effort to build on the tech advances to shift how the business operates, with APMC establishing a business excellence function to ensure all elements of the company align on values and service delivery.

More effectively managing property assets spread over residential, commercial, retail, hospitality and industrial didn’t just require new digital tools but rather new skills at the C-suite level.

“It’s the scale. That was one of the skills I had to pass on to the leadership team here at APMC. Ultimately, it was telling them that the teams at the site are the ones who will deliver the service and consistency and they had to be more strategically minded,” Martin says.

In practice, frontline employees needed to be empowered to maintain a consistent service delivery, with senior leaders setting the strategic goals of the business and ensuring overall performance targets are met.

“We standardized APMC across our portfolio first and then we standardized across Ayala. With that comes centralized governance. This is where APMC comes on top with this center of excellence for engineering,” he explains.

True sustainability

Sustainability sits at the heart of APMC’s core strategic priorities. Unlike some organizations that prioritize environmentally friendly rhetoric, Martin is constantly working to turn corporate commitments into on-the-ground action.

“All the talk is easy. Nice big words and nice phrases, but it’s actually about doing it at the site level. We are the ones who are on the ground and actually driving sustainability,” he says.

For example, APMC has introduced water conservation and energy optimization schemes to help embed sustainability across the business.

“Air conditioning, especially in a country like the Philippines, is about 60 percent of the power use within the country, and we’re reducing that constantly,” he says.

---

---

Advertisement

Sustainability goes far beyond one-off measures and an equally important cultural transformation is happening alongside more technically focused initiatives. Property assets, of course, need to be managed with long-term plans in mind, with staff who work on these locations being critically important to future success.

“We had to empower them fully. We had to pass on to them that this building is your pride and joy. Take ownership,” Martin says. “These assets, we have been provided the stewardship, the honor to look after Ayala’s properties,” he explains.

By integrating life cycle planning into operational decision-making, teams can think about maintenance frameworks that last many years into the future.

Data-driven tools are helping enable predictive property management across the portfolio and give staff the insights needed to be better stewards. Tenants and occupiers, too, are now more engaged in property management and have higher service standards today, compared to before the pandemic, according to Martin.

“They wanted fresh air, they wanted cleaner air, they wanted their air tested, they wanted energy savings. It’s all transparent and clients can also use this technology in their own dashboards,” he says.

Prioritizing partnership

Holding a portfolio of over 500 properties with dozens of shopping centers, golf courses and hotels, scale is one of APMC’s strengths. But Martin is acutely aware that the business’ real competitive edge lies in its employees and partners.

“We treat suppliers like partners, not like vendors. We introduced service level agreements and KPIs, which we both agreed on. It wasn’t forced upon them,” he adds.

Focusing on a reduced number of partners, including its relationship with D’peeasia Power Corporation, a comprehensive electrical contracting provider, Martin has extended the contract lengths with suppliers.

“We went from 12-month contracts to 36-month contracts to 60-month contracts to show our trust in them. We basically removed that master-servant relationship and we sat them down, we looked them in the eyes and we told them, ‘We are now partners, so let’s act as partners,’” he explains.

With ambitions that go past property management, Martin sees APMC involved in national conversations around energy and sustainability.

“We are constantly in talks with the Department of Energy here in the Philippines. We are part of discussions and consultations about bringing more renewables to the Philippines,” he continues.

Looking to the future, Martin wants to redefine what facilities management represents in the Philippine context. While many view the sector as simply focused on operational maintenance, he believes APMC is showing how value can be created.

The creation of a central hub for technical guidance, standard setting and systems development across the group is a move to make this goal a reality.

“We now have a center of engineering excellence where we provide many guidelines and solutions to Ayala overall,” he says. The core of this aim rests on employees having the skills and ability to make decisions on the ground.

“One of the toughest things that we’ve had to guide staff on is making decisions instead of passing up the chain. The biggest decision you can make is to actually make the decision.”