EDM MSS Commercial VEX will enable lenders to distribute work to and receive work from qualified surveyors.
Joe Pepper, managing director EDM MSS, said: “Lenders’ commercial valuation teams need to ensure that they allocate the most appropriate surveyors to individual valuations, whether that requires expert knowledge of industrial, commercial or agricultural properties or specific regional insight.
“Just as importantly, they need to be able to demonstrate a clear audit trail to show that this allocation process has been handled fairly and effectively.
“As demand for commercial property continues to grow and availability continues to shrink, the need to provide a highly efficient and transparent service will only increase.”
Based on a single, centralised platform that allows commercial surveying businesses to communicate efficiently with their surveyor panels and allocate valuations to the most appropriate surveyor, EDM MSS Commercial VEX will establish a process that clearly demonstrates that the surveyor allocated to a valuation has the most relevant experience and knowledge.
The product will provide a fully transparent, centralised platform for all stakeholders in the commercial valuation chain as well as cut down the time and administration required to fulfil successful transactions. It will also provide clear validation and valuation checks on property portfolios and help identify qualified, experienced valuers across industrial, commercial and agricultural sectors. By providing a full audit trail, EDM MSS Commercial VEX can also help to dramatically cut down instances of fraud.
The launch of EDM MSS Commercial VEX, currently in use by commercial valuation teams at a number of leading organisations including Barclays Bank and Santander, comes at a time when the UK commercial property market continues to show strong growth.
According to the latest RICS UK Commercial Market Survey, nationwide occupier demand increased in Q4 2014 for a seventh consecutive quarter and available space declined for the sixth consecutive quarter.
The valuation process is likely to come under greater scrutiny as the market continues to tighten, with a clear need for a platform such as EDM MSS Commercial VEX, which provides greater administrative efficiencies and user benefits.
EDM Commercial VEX is integrated with EDM Forms, another new product from EDM, which provides a web-enabled front-end that allows users to access information via laptops and other mobile devices to complete documents.
EDM Group has an annual turnover of around £70 million and provides a range of information management services to both the private and public sector, including the digitisation and correct routing of incoming information and the scanning and online hosting of documents. It has a strong presence in the UK, and entered the US market in March 2013 with the acquisition of Diversified Information Technologies, an information management company now trading as EDM Americas. Its turnover and staff numbers are now roughly equally divided between the UK and America.
