Savills Australia

All About Connections

Business View Oceania interviews Lawson Katiza, Director of Savills Project Management (QLD) at Savills Australia, for our Technology View.

From its humble beginnings as a small family practice founded in 1855 by land agent, surveyor, and auctioneer Albert Savill, UK-based real estate services company Savills has scaled to unbelievable measures over its 167-year lifespan. With more than 39,000 experts working across 600 offices in the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East, Savills is always local to its client base. Across Australia, Savills employs approximately 600 people and has 11 offices nationwide. Savills Australia offers a range of agency and consultancy services across its diverse portfolio. The life sciences offering in Australia is largely led through the Savills Project Management division- specifically the Strategic Property Consulting stream.

Life sciences cover a variety of fields in Australia’s medical sector, from biotechnology to pharmaceuticals, to cell and gene therapy and genomics. The sector is predominately driven by the globally significant ageing population- fueling a rise in demand for healthcare services, drug discovery, and the development of more personalized medicines. Savills are committed to their role in supporting this new image for old age; the company anticipates massive growth in the sector over the next few years.

Lawson Katiza is Director of Project Management and Strategic Property Consultancy in Savills Australia’s Brisbane office. He begins, “I work within the project management division, which is the area that provides life sciences and knowledge economy advice throughout the country. I also lead the knowledge economy stream nationally. In the Australian landscape, we’re certainly considered one of the frontrunners in terms of life sciences, not just because we collaborate across the global office platform, but because of the practice-based approach we take. Australia is still immature in terms of the development, management, and research that goes on in our innovation precincts. Most of these precincts tend to be government owned, as opposed to commercially run, so aren’t meeting the expectations of more commercial markets, research bodies, or pharmaceuticals. To support and inform our approach, we borrow a lot from our international colleagues, who have run some of the largest innovation hubs and science parks in the world. We develop a beginning strategy that is applied from front-end business processes right through to the delivery stage. I’d say we are unique in that regard, and it’s an approach that really suits the Australian market.”

Considered one of the ‘Big Four’ in the global real estate space, Savills has made a habit of pooling its consultancy and agency resources to encourage the sharing of knowledge and inspire a collaborative approach to innovation. Mr. Katzia shares, “Our motto is getting property and people to connect. Our core advisory elements allow us to connect with clients through strategic and targeted advice, which then flows through to our other streams such as integrated property solutions and agency consultancy. We provide the thought pieces, the emerging trends, and their translation into practical use. Having multiple divisions working together on various project streams and bringing relevant knowledge and expertise from other sectors, is what makes us so good at what we do.”

By way of example, Mr. Katiza highlights the agri-science precinct project for Charles Sturt University’s Wagga Wagga campus. Known as AgriPark, the research and business park facilitates cross-disciplinary collaboration, from farming systems and weed management through to market analysis and biosecurity, in support of Australia’s agricultural sector. “AgriPark was an ambitious project that wasn’t something we had ever done before. To initiate its success, we worked in partnership with our London office to bring in skills and expertise that had supported similar facilities overseas and combined them with local knowledge to adapt to the Australian context. It’s a very collaborative, global setup with fantastic potential to support our national life sciences sector.”

Rather than aiming to be the biggest, Savills strives to be the best as judged by their peers. The organisation works to achieve this by continuously honing their internal policies and environmental, social, and governance standards, to ensure consistency with community expectations. “Woven into our corporate fabric is our ambition to continuously improve the way we do things. We value diversity and inclusivity, so we are always looking for individuals who can bring something new to the table- diverse skills, ambitions, knowledge, culture, values, and perspectives. Having a lateral approach to resourcing allows us to present more creative solutions to our client base, rather than reusing offerings from the past simply because we know they work. Innovation breeds positive creation. Ultimately, we work to maintain a culture of inclusivity, not just within Savills Australia, but everywhere. We want to break down borders across the globe and bring the whole world into one office.”

Savills Australia supports clients across public and private sectors alike. Typical private clients tend to be institutional funds and investors with large asset bases, such as Charter Hall, QIC, ISPT, and Dexus. In the public sector, the organisation broadens their reach from not-for-profit organisations to local, state, and federal governments. Mr. Katzia explains, “Our project management and strategic property consulting division advises everyone from office towers, hospitals, art galleries, public realms, and government infrastructure.  We don’t do rail, road, or other areas of hard infrastructure, but we do advise on sports and social infrastructure.”

Recent challenges for the life sciences sector, Mr. Katzia shares, include the need to plan for Australia’s potential transition of innovation precincts from government-led to private sector models, as has been seen in overseas knowledge economies. “Current emerging trends show our government spending less and less money on knowledge infrastructure, and more on research funding. We need the private sector to step in and start taking the lead in terms of developing knowledge infrastructure on a sustainable, commercially viable basis. Issues like these are why we interface with a variety of investors, both private and public. For example, we work with a lot of property funds, and apply their influence as our clients to leverage positive relationships for infrastructure provision to public causes.”

Moving forward, Savills Australia will continue supporting our national life sciences sector and working towards greater alignment between research disciplines and industry partners.

AT A GLANCE

Savills Australia

What: National real estate and property consultancy firm working to fuel collaboration and innovation in Australia’s life sciences sector

Where: Savills Australia is headquartered in Sydney, New South Wales.

Website:  www.savills.com.au

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