Building value
Roxy Reynolds, MD at Oval speaks about the right way to use cost consultancy and how she has been busy refurbishing establishments
Oval is a modern consultancy firm, specialising in cost consultancy, residential wealth advisory, property acquisition, and property management. It aims to deliver end-to-end solutions tailored to meet the needs of its varied clientelle.
Roxy Reynolds, MD at Oval, says she always knew she wanted to do her own thing, and it’s fortunate that she had a good client base from her experience working with other companies before.
“I specialise in hospitality, and the idea was to do something that’s focused on the hospitality industry. It’s what I love. I love working in hotels and fast paced projects. As soon as I started, I had a few jobs already with our key client Jumeirah,” says Reynolds.
“They gave us a few projects, and once that started, it just sort of snowballed, and we had a lot of clients approaching us. I think it was very much focused on what we want to do that’s different to everybody else. Bringing in key people that are going to help grow the business was important, to take us to where we need to be, and we’re very specific about who we hire. That was the focus for 2025. We also had our key achievements, where we delivered a lot of projects,” explains Reynolds.
Another important achievement for Oval was sponsoring a professional women’s football team who made it to the semifinals in the UAE women’s League.
Speaking about plans for this year Reynolds says, “Obviously, we specialise in cost consultancy, hospitality, and high-end residential. However we’ve seen a gap in the market for a really good PM company, especially on the hospitality side. We’ve picked up a few jobs on the project management side, so that’s definitely a sort of new opportunity that we’re looking at. Moreover we’re looking at how we can provide clients a turnkey solution, where we can do cost management and project management together and manage the whole process. We are actually exploring a project now with a hotel operator where we will bring the designer underneath our umbrella as well. So they just have one point of contact.”
Furthermore, Reynolds says the main objective is zoning into what the consultancy wants to achieve. She mentions many consultancies fall into the trap of chasing fees. She says others in the market will chase any project because of the fees that come with it. Oval, on the other hand, wants to specialise in hospitality and high end residential.
“I think the challenge would be to pick the right project with the right clients, and to align with the goals of the clients. You want to partner with the client and deliver something special,” she says.
“You want to really decide on who you want to partner with and see if they share the same values and do they have the same mentality on how they’re gonna deliver the job?” adds Reynolds.
Reynolds says she sees the most opportunity for business growth in project management and offering turnkey solutions. She says previously people wanted different consultants for different jobs, but now she sees clients realising they want one point of contact, that can deliver the project for them.
She also says that many consultancies are chasing bigger fees. “I think actually UAE is suffering because the bigger firms are chasing the good fees in Saudi. We call ourselves boutique, but we want to stay small to a certain extent, but it means that if a client approaches us, we care about your job as much as you care about your job, no matter what size the job is. I think that’s what we want to really focus on.”
“We’ve just done a project at the Louvre in Abu Dhabi. I suppose it could be any budget, but something that we want to get involved in. If you get me something that I didn’t want to get involved in, it just means I’m not going to have the same passion as if I worked for something I’m interested in,” she adds.
Reynolds also says there are high networth individuals that need services, they need project managers, they need cost consultants, and obviously the larger firms don’t focus on that. That is also an opportunity that Oval is looking at.
She also reaffirms if you can focus on one industry, such as hospitality, and you become good at that, then that is hard to find.
“I don’t know any consultants that can really say they are hospitality experts. People that can understand what it takes to deliver a hospitality project, Knowing what the clients recommend, the return on investments, other comments that come in while you’re busy constructing the job.”
“The impact it has when they’re selecting one thing or another, the operational function of a restaurant refurbishments and the inputs that we have is more than just a number. It is a cost plan. We really look at things and ask is that going to bring a return on investments? Is that the best place to spend money? It comes down to more than just cost,” comments Reynolds.
Speaking about projects that Oval is involved in, Reynolds says the consultancy now gets involved in the early stage of setting the budget with the clients. From there on, it gets consultants and contractors appointed and it manages the full process.
“We get the contractor on board, and after that, we manage the post-contract and final account stage. We’ve worked on some key projects at the Louvre already, and we have various projects in Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Jumeirah Al Qasr, Mina Al Salam, Saadiyat Island and Marsa Al Arab. We’re also doing a project in Doubletree Hilton,” explains Reynolds.
Keeping in mind the current geopolitical situation, Reynolds says work is going on faster than ever, and Oval has an office in South Africa, that handles all of the company’s admin, their studio, accounts and marketing.
“We’re lucky in the sense that they are over there and they can keep going as normal. For staff in country, we’ve allowed people to work from home and only come to the office when they feel comfortable. I think one thing is you can’t judge how everybody’s going to feel. Some people are scared, some people feel safe, and they should only come to the office if they’re feeling safe,” Reynolds states.
Reynolds says clients still expect them to be on site, and as most of the projects are in hotel environments, there aren’t any site offices.
“We work out of our office and then we go for some work and meetings. So we’ve still been attending sites and meetings. It helps because it makes you feel that things are gonna be okay. I don’t think there would be many challenges that would come from it. If anything, it’s a positive and people learn how to adapt and how to deal with crisis.”
“The projects are going ahead. I think everybody’s keen to carry on and to win projects. Obviously, they’ve raised some concerns over force majeure, but other than that, they have a positive outlook and it’s really nice to see,” continues Reynolds.
Reynolds also mentions that Oval has partnered with a company called Flow, where each staff member can have various sessions with the wellnes coach. This has had a positive impact on the wellbeing of the staff, as the coach checks for parameters like stress, sleep and nutrition.
“When you go to a meeting, and you’re stressed, and you haven’t had enough sleep, and your nutrition is not good and you haven’t gone into the gym. Are you going to be able to sit there and give the client the best advice? Are you going to be the best version of yourself in that meeting? This is very important,” explains Reynolds.
Challenges in the Industry
Speaking about challenges in the industry, Reynolds thinks there’s still a major problem with fees being pushed down, and clients putting consultants up against each other.
“When the fees are pushed down it puts pressure on employees because now they’re having to take on too many projects. That’s something I personally experienced in the past. You get overloaded and then you can’t give the level of service that you want to give, and that’s one of the key reasons of starting Oval. So that we never want to be in a situation where we’re spread too thin, where we can’t give the level of service we want to deliver to clients,” says Reynolds.
Another challenge she sees is retaining good staff, and contractors being overloaded with projects.
“Contractors are overloaded with tenders and not even able to pass tenders. That’s how many tenders are coming through. So there’s a combination of working closely with contractors, we have hence gotten to a point now where we have a good contractor list that can deliver the projects we do, and we make sure not to overload them because that can also cause an issue. The problem is giving one contractor too many projects, and then he can’t sustain it knowing that he’s already struggling to find good staff, and to retain those staff,” says Reynolds.
Reynolds says she is looking at how to overcome challenges and staff retention and so has come up with a novel approach of unlimited leave.
“Staff will get unlimited leave and it’s actually proven that they would probably take the same or less leave, but it’s just knowing that they have that freedom that they’re not locked down to a certain number of days. I think, staff are probably more productive in the time that they’re at work and they don’t feel like they can’t take leave or they can’t have a day off,” explains Reynolds.
She thinks consultants now have to focus where they can optimise and maximise fees.
“I think if you want to have sort of a stable industry, that’s something that needs to get sorted out so you’re not having a lot of contractors just enter and exit the market. Clients need to look at the way that they’re dealing with all parties. They have to look after them so that you aren’t having this constant entry and exiting the markets from various contractors,” explains Reynolds.
Another thing Reynolds is very enthusiastic about is giving back. Oval has opened an office in South Africa which she says is very cost effective and has very good measurement studios.
“The whole purpose of that was also to be able to give back to where I’m from and to encourage younger people in the industry that are maybe entering and they don’t necessarily want to come to the UAE straight away. They can be based in a South African office to do 1 or 2 years there and then get exposure to UAE and projects in the Middle East,” she says.
“We don’t want to be traditional. We need to think what we can do for the industry. I think there are so many consultants that see each other as competitors, and we don’t see anybody as a competitor. We know what we want to focus on,” concludes Reynolds.
