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Staff Reporter
Greater integration between the real estate industry’s top technology providers could deliver significant benefits to principals, according to leading IT providers.
Closer communication between technology providers was one of the key conclusions drawn for The Real Estate Business Technology Roundtable, hosted last week by Sterling Publishing. Representatives from eight technology companies gathered to discuss the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for agents, and how technology can be a driver of greater efficiency.
“If one thing comes out of today I am hoping it will be to foster the concept of integration because, the one thing I think we are all, hand on heart, looking to do for our clients, is to minimise the amount of data entry that they require,” said Scott Wulff, CEO at CRM-provider MyDeskTop.
“There is no benefit to any of our clients to input data onto Price Finder, then throw [data separately] onto Domain or REA [realestate.com.au].
“As a collective, we [must] set up an industry standard or a Code of Conduct that requires us to do the right thing by our clients.”
Petra Sprekos, general manager at realestateVIEW, added that one area that could be improved is standardising the format of XML feeds into property listing websites.
“Clients’ expectations have changed, they want to be [on every listing website]. One of the blaringly obvious that we could do as a collective, is around the XML feeds. There are all different types of feeds. And I can see the CRM boys nodding their heads, because we at realestateVIEW.com also multi load and feed out to a number of providers and it does provide headaches.
“As a collective, there would be an expectation that agents want to be on websites quickly. If we can get together as a group and come up with something that is standard, it would benefit the real estate industry.”
Mr Wulff and Ms Sprekos were two of eight attendees at the industry-first event, which also featured Tony Blamey, general manager – real estate at Fairfax Marketplaces; Henry Ruiz, chief product officer at REA Group; Barbara Meister, CEO at Whitesky Labs; Scott Shepherd, head of product at Rockend; Tom White, CEO at Pricefinder and Eddie Cetin, managing director at Agent Box.
Real Estate Business editor Simon Parker, who co-chaired the event with Stacey Moseley, said the roundtable offered a platform for debate which would benefit the industry as a whole.
"By bringing together some of Australia’s premier technology thought leaders principals can tap into the collective knowledge and opinion on key issues impacting the growth of an agency’s business, this year and beyond," he said.
The panelists discussed a range of topics, including:
• How consumers are influencing technology
• How top performing industry professionals are using technology to their advantage
• How technology can deliver real productivity gains to principals
• Ways in which principals can adapt to technology
• Where technology is headed in the future for the real estate industry
Don’t miss the full report from the Technology Roundtable, published in the upcoming Real Estate Business October issue – on desks next month. Video excerpts from the event will also be available at www.rebonline.com.au from this week onwards.
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