The challenge: growth ambitions calling for smarter workflows

Bidwells is a leading UK real estate adviser specialising in science & technology, sustainability, and modern living solutions. With a team of 600+ experts across 10 offices - Cambridge, Oxford, London, Norwich, Milton Keynes, Perth, Inverness, Fort William, Bristol and Manchester - the business manages over £5.2 billion in property assets and advises on more than 4 million acres of the UK's countryside and coastline. Within this business, the transactional teams for Commercial space (Business Space Agency, Capital Markets, Rural and Land & Development) needed a platform that could keep pace with Bidwells' ambitious 2030 growth strategy. But their existing CRM was standing in the way. The existing CRM had struggled to gain full adoption. Some users found the interface difficult to work with, leading to work being taken offline into Excel, Word, PowerPoint and day books. Usage was inconsistent across teams, offices and individuals.

Commercial enquiries from websites and portals arrived across different inboxes, adding extra steps to lead management. Deals were manually entered into interest schedules, PDF particulars fell short on brand-quality, and the platform didn’t support HTML email campaigns.

Comparable data and reports lived across multiple Excel spreadsheets. Availability reports were manually created in PowerPoint. All functional, but time-consuming and hard to keep consistently on brand. Marketing lists were manually exported from the existing system to Excel and uploaded to HubSpot, making the process inefficient.

There was little to no platform development from the previous provider, and the system didn’t integrate with HubSpot, a major investment and business-critical system. Support,
account management and training were limited, too. In summary, the team was spending more time than they wanted on administrative tasks. Time they’d rather spend with their clients.

"It's critical we have efficient workflows to help us achieve our ambitious growth targets over the next 5 years. Kato is so much more user friendly than the previous system, meaning everyone uses it daily."

Chelsea Jarvis, Head of Digital Marketing & Creative

The transformation:  one connected platform powering every team

Bidwells implemented Kato across the Business Space Agency and Capital Markets teams all at once, completing the rollout within two months. All disposals, enquiries, transactions and contacts were migrated from the existing system, including a significant volume of data: 13,000 enquiries, 6,500 disposals, 6,000 transactions, 15,000 contacts and 10,000 companies across all teams.
The shift required a change in working practices. Agents began reviewing and responding to all enquiries directly within Kato. A champions initiative was introduced, with a key champion in each office responsible for driving adoption. A dedicated customer success manager assisted with change management, walking teams through the new processes and providing comprehensive training. An online help centre and help bot with instant AI and human support were also made available.

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With Kato connected to the Bidwells’ website and portals including Rightmove, Proplist, LoopNet and Society, disposals are now created once and pushed live across all relevant feeds. Enquiries from every source are centralised into a single, trackable workflow.

Around 700 leads were received through Kato in a three-month period shortly after launch, with 97-98% handled directly through the system. Across the Cambridge, Milton Keynes, London, Norwich and Oxford offices, 46 users were onboarded and Kato became the central operating system for deal flow.

"It's brilliant to have all our enquiries in one, central place to make sure all leads are captured and responded to. The auto generated particulars and email campaigns look great, and being able to instantly generate these in our branding is a real game changer."

Walter Scott, Partner, Industrial & Logistics Agency

The impact: faster publishing, stronger oversight, better decisions

Disposals that previously took days to publish now go live in a matter of hours.
Workflows for managing enquiries, finding availability and marketing disposals are now consolidated into one tool. Agents spend less time in documents and spreadsheets, and more time speaking with clients, being present at viewings and winning new business. They can support assumptions and insights with reliable, internal data. Reporting is now far more streamlined. Leadership has full confidence that no leads are being missed, with complete visibility across these teams. They can understand performance to optimise processes and strategy and realise cost efficiencies through workflow optimisation.
With Kato integrated into their website, portals and MailChimp, the business can now send polished email campaigns with in-house templates, generate high-quality branded PDF particulars in minutes, and produce professional PowerPoint availability reports. The platform provides a central source of truth for interest and viewings.

"My team are now collectively saving hundreds of hours per month meaning they can focus all their time on generating new business and closing deals rather than being constantly stuck in Excel spreadsheets!"

Max Bryan, Partner, Head of Office & Laboratory Agency

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