Harcourts reveals plans to jump rivals in size, growth

The chief executive of Harcourts Australia, Marcus Williams, told REB that Harcourts “has a vision” for what is in store for the franchise over the next 12 months and beyond, notably one of growth.

“The vision that we have for Harcourts Group Australia is that we want to be the leading group, and we want our Harcourts experience to be recognised as the finest to our people, to our business partners, and to our clients,” he said.

Mr Williams said he believes it is “purely a matter of time” before Harcourts becomes the second largest group in Australia, after expanding into the Australian market 22 years ago.

“In 22 years, we’ve grown to be Australia’s third largest real estate group for the number of sales and value of sales, and we trail two large brands who’ve been trading for 130 and 90 years, respectively,” he said.

“We’re catching them up and we’re soon to be the second largest group.”

Aside from expanding market share in Australia, the Harcourts CEO has split the group’s focus for the upcoming year into three key categories: the client experience, the franchise experience and the technology space.

The client experience

Alongside market share growth, Mr Williams intends to focus on refining the customer experience for his clients.

“Our clients [are] at the heart of everything that we do,” he said.

“They become our greatest advocates, and we need to ensure that every single touchpoint we have with a client is a touch they enjoy and they value.”

Currently, the franchise group records information on client relationships “at sales consultant level, office level and corporate level”, according to Mr Williams.

“And those learnings go right through everything that we do, from our training to our development coaching and mentoring, to ensure that we are a group that is offering an outstanding customer experience,” he said.

The franchise experience

Harcourts has “invested millions of dollars” in research into “what our business owners and their sales consultants and teams value most”, Mr Williams said, and it intends to do the same over the next 12 months.

Mr Williams is proud of the group’s “tailor-made” business approach that shows “we, as a group, are working very closely with our teams to ensure that they ultimately achieve their personal business goals”.

Technology play 

The Harcourts Australia CEO said that technology has long been a high priority for Harcourts, and will continue to be over the next financial year.

He highlighted the investment in a platform unique to Harcourts, named Harcourts One (H1).

“We’re currently working on a number of quite significant upgrades in H1 to ensure that it is a tool that is highly valued by business owners and sales consultants and helps them become more efficient in the way that they deal with our clients and are more efficient from a business perspective,” he said.

Mr Williams also stated that he hopes to be at the forefront of technological changes in the industry, through the expansion of a dedicated technology department.

“We’re going to see a lot of new technology [in the industry]. And we embrace all that, and hopefully we’re going to spearhead a lot of that because we have our own internal tech department [of] over 30 people now,” he said.

Giving back

Mr Williams emphasised the community initiatives that form a strong part of Harcourts’ “vision” and will continue to be a priority throughout the next 12 months.

“The vision is to show that we, as a group, help as many people in our local communities as we possibly can,” Mr Williams said.

“We’re privileged to have our own foundation where 100 per cent of the monies that we collect goes straight to local causes. We’ve raised in excess of $5 million, $5.8 million. So, we’re very proud of that.”

Some local causes that Harcourts donates to include the Orange Sky Laundry, which provides laundry washing services for the homeless, as well as the White Ribbon Foundation, which supports the prevention and awareness of violence against women.

The CEO believes that real estate and community are inextricably linked, and that it is important to support local causes.

“It’s just something that we want to do that gives back to our communities. I mean, real estate is a local community industry, and it’s important that we give back.”

Exciting times for the industry

In an era of market disruption, and where customer satisfaction is paramount, Mr Williams is more excited than ever to be a part of the industry.

“I’ve been in the real estate and finance industry for 30 years and I can’t think of a more exciting time to be a part of the real estate industry,” Mr Williams said.

He continued: “It’s an industry where, I think, the standards are improving all the time, and I think it provides an outstanding career path for people who are customer-focused and it’s a career path where people can earn quite an extraordinary amount of money by caring about their clients.

“I can’t think of many industries more exciting than us at this point in time. It’s a brilliant time to be part of our industry.”

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