Photo: Erik Hannemann Text: Grethe Rønningen s360
Why should there be an app for everything at work - canteen, booking meeting rooms and parking space? And how can farm owners get everything together in one digital solution, entrepreneur Ole Aabel once pondered in 2018. It was to be the start of the Izy adventure.
The idea of a technological solution for smart operation of real estate, came about over five and a half years ago. Back then, there were no pure Facility Service applications and no holistic digital solutions within the area.
In just a few years, Izy's digital platform has become Norway's fastest growing tool for farm owners within FM - facility management, and FS - facility services management.
The platform consists of the Izy Portal which is a management tool for the farm owner and service provider, and the app “Izy App” used by the tenants on the building.
Ole Aabel was not alone in booting up Izy. From the start was Tor Rønhovde, CEO of the company 4service — a company with several thousand employees divided into the Food and Facilities, Cleaning and Maintenance and Accommodation divisions.
With a background in facility services, Tor Rønhovde had long since experienced the need for overview and more efficient operation in areas such as cleaning, canteen, maintenance and rental of premises. At the intersection of effectuating services and technological solutions, Ole and Tor saw opportunities for a company like Izy.
Tor from the “service side” and Ole from the “tech side” became a good match in the job of finding smart solutions and useful tools for the management and operation of commercial real estate.
“Many people fall in love with technology, but not what and how it can solve the challenges and needs of farm owners and service providers, which in turn provides satisfied tenants and employees. With Tor, we had the professional weight and experience in the management and operation of buildings from the start. He has known where the shoe presses in everyday life and where smart solutions are needed,” says Ole.
Today, Tor sits on the board of Izy, while Ole is part of day-to-day operations as CVO - Chief Visionary Officer, a role that suits him well and is a necessity for a company that is going to reach new markets.
The two entrepreneurs weren't exactly lying on the lazy side. Within a year, a solution had been developed with Izy App for booking resources and services in a commercial building, including booking meeting rooms and canteen services. And now the first customers arrived: the Directorate of Health, TV2 and Vinmonopolet.
It didn't take long for farm owners to get on the field. They wanted to develop an app for managing services in their commercial buildings.
“Some large real estate companies had come a long way with their own technology, but not in the field of Facility Management. One example is Braathen Eiendom, which dropped its own development project and instead joined Izy as a sparring partner from early on, says Ole.
Initially, the idea was that all customers should have their own app available in the app store. But when the number of apps reached 60, Ole and his colleagues at Izy realized that maintaining the apps became impossible. It resulted in Izy App 2.0 becoming an application for all users
“With standardized solutions and good modules, it became easier to further develop and adapt the solutions from there to meet different wishes and needs of customers. This allowed us to deliver customized and unique solutions for each building and at a much lower cost than if the customer were to develop their own app from scratch, says Ole.
Version 2.0 of Izy App was first introduced at 4service. This was to become a digital spearhead for the company.
“When we saw how this developed, shouldn't Izy be sold to everyone? There was no reason to limit ourselves,” Ole says. A decision was made in 4service not to make such large investments in Izy anymore, and two years ago Izy was separated to build itself up with its own organization. From being two people at the start, there are now 23 employees in the company, many of them developers.
“With a target of 1 million users, we saw that we had to build out the technology,” Ole says. Now Izy has just launched version 3.0 of the Izy App.
Ole must be said to be an entrepreneur at his neck. He is at work pretty much all his waking hours, which is necessary when often working with people from different time zones.
It's fun, but unfortunately everything doesn't always work out. Then it helps with a good dose of stubbornness,” says Ole. He works to stay ahead, look mostly ahead and think about possible scenarios. And as an avid sailor, there are, of course, references from the sea.
“A year and a half ago, we plotted the journey in a map with which reefs in the sea we would walk on. It was a lot about challenges around technology, funding and GDPR. On the way we hit all the cliffs, but we never knew when We met them,” says Ole.
“We are working on the same thing as at the start of Izy, but there is more to it than what we have developed so far,” says Ole. He believes that Izy is one of the companies in Norway that has the greatest potential.
“There are already many digital solutions for the operation and management of buildings, but none of the solutions on the market are complete. With our solution, you have everything you need from guest registration to extracting reports from the canteen, believes the entrepreneur.
A lot of work is done on prediction using machine learning and artificial intelligence. Data collected from the digital platform can be used for efficient management and operation of the customer's commercial building. Planning and using resources becomes easier and more accurate. This means that, for example, providers of canteen services in commercial buildings, can use the information to calculate the number of visitors long in advance and make purchases more accurate.
“The use of prediction will affect the entire ecosystem of the building and make operations more sustainable and cost-effective. Here, a lot of money can be saved on improving management, operations and maintenance.
“Predictions are expected to be 97 percent certain three to four weeks ahead, but we are focusing on solutions that can predict resource use and operations as much as one year ahead,” he says. The choices we make are made for various reasons and factors that occur: trains are cancelled, poor driving conditions, flu contagion in the office, etc.
For prediction, several types of data are used, including:
“All this together becomes a fortune telling with a very high degree of certainty. The operation will be more sustainable and convenient for the users of the building, says Ole.
On the way, Izy has had good helpers. In order to obtain financial support for the development of Izy, the company has received funds via funds and investments.
“We are now moving from being a start-up to becoming a scale-up company that will reach out further. Apart from a handful of other Norwegian tech companies, not too many have made it,” he says.
The goal is to become a leader in Scandinavia in 2024 and then move on to the rest of Europe in 2025. The entrepreneur believes that the foothold in Norway and all the lessons learned from the Norwegian market, will come in handy.
“Norway is a perfect place to start and test. Here there are large and small players in real estate, and there is a wide range of users. At the same time, Norway is very integrated into the EU,” says Ole Aabel.
