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Sign into your accountTechnology Self Audit For Real Estate Companies
June 17 2014
If you are a mega broker with thousands of agents, you will have an IT department that watches over your software and technology infrastructure. If you are a small or medium size broker, that chore usually falls to you, much like it does for us, in our consulting company. We watch real estate technology on a daily basis and advise some of the best technology companies in the business on how to improve their product's user interface, how to put together marketing and communication plans and many other services--and even for us, this is a daunting task. Every time you turn around, there is another new vendor coming out of the woodwork with another new widget, approach or process.
I mentioned that large real estate companies usually have their own IT departments, but they are not immune to the complexity of our technology world either. The reason is simple, the solution not so simple. The reason we have such a mess in the broker technology world is the way our technology has evolved and the many layers of services and needs that have to be addressed.
Over time, many brilliant solutions have been offered for accounting, contact management, drip marketing, IDX, VOW, lead management, lead generation, showing systems, back office systems, forms products, transaction management, document management, custom CMAs, broker/agent websites, and on and on. These products may have been best of breed in a given moment, but the way most brokers have selected and implemented technology is like building a car out of unrelated parts from technologies and standards that have nothing to do with each other.
In the case of a car, imagine one with four different wheel sizes or an engine computer that can't talk to the electronics or seats that aren't made for a body style, etc. It would be a mess, and in the case of broker technology, it is also often is a mess even though our very talented broker professionals find ways to make it work with gum, paperclips and scotch tape pulling the whole mess together.