Risk Management is a hot topic in the financial sector especially in the light of the recent losses of some multinational corporations e.g. collapses of Britain’s Barings Bank, WorldCom and also due to the incident of 9/11. Rapid changes in business condition, restructuring of organizations to cope with ever increasing competition, development of new products, emerging markets and increase in cross border transactions along with complexity of transactions has exposed Financial Institutions to new risks dimensions. Thus the concept of risk has captured a growing importance in modern financial society.

By facilitating transactions and making credit and other financial products available, the financial sector is a crucial building block for private as well as public sector development. In its broadest definition, it includes everything from banks, stock exchanges, and insurers, to credit unions, microfinance institutions and moneylenders. As an efficient service provider, the financial sector simultaneously fulfils an important function in the overall economy. Various types of Financial Institutions actively working in Financial Sectors include Banks, DFIs, Micro Finance Banks, Leasing Companies, Modarabas, Assets Management Company, Mutual Funds, etc.

Property Management is a career profession. The industry allows for employment growth, continual learning experiences, and the opportunity to work with diverse people and income groups. The Property Manager can work either directly for an owner of real estate properties, or for a property management company, contracted by an owner or legal entity to care for the real estate over a specific period of time.

The Property manager has a fiduciary relationship with the management company and property owner. A fiduciary relationship is one that is based on a mutual trust and complete confidence in one another.

The Property Manager is provided an owner’s real estate portfolio to manage to its “highest and best use” in exchange for an employment contract or salary. Real estate assignments for the property manager includes apartment buildings, condominiums, hotels, storage facilities, shopping centers, office buildings, government subsidized properties, rooming houses, abandoned buildings and plots of vacant land, to name a few.

I have managed almost all of the above types of properties for over twenty years. I have managed public and private housing, for non-profit organizations, for the federal government, and for private developers and real estate investors. I also owned my own property management company for eight years. I now teach, speak, and write about property management standards and techniques. Here are some crucial skills, which I know from first hand experience, must be accepted as required attributes and learned skills in order to be a good property manager.

News of the invention of the wheel must have traveled in every direction as quickly as horse or camel could run. Those who learned of its advantages over the litter and the sledge adopted it right away. And no sooner was it adopted than it began to be adapted: made lighter, stronger, faster. Wheels were soon attached to axles, then to axles with pivots.

The idea catches on

Then transportation lost its monopoly on the new technology, and wheels helped to make pottery, lift buckets out of wells, steer ships, grind grain, keep time. Even now, the process of adopting and adapting the wheel continues as new uses are modified, improved, and applied in ingenious ways. The observation is certainly true: “Without the wheel, today’s civilization would be impossible.” [1]

No wheel, little progress

Meanwhile for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years, in islands of the South Pacific, the Americas, and other isolated places, cultures existed without any knowledge of the wheel. Their technology lagged behind because they still faced that first, high hurdle. Human beings have always been better modifiers than inventors. Why reinvent the wheel when someone has already done the hard work?

Best practices needed

Like civilization, your company is on a journey; yours is one of continuous quality improvement. It is “a journey with a definite a beginning but no end, and every one of your employees is a co-traveler. The extent of your progress depends on how well you live your core values values: like company family, commitment to quality, customer focus, embracing technology, integrity and respect, and teamwork. These values overlap, merge, and blend into one another when it comes to the sharing, evaluating, and implementing of best practices.