It’s time for commercial real estate brokers to invest in technology

You may think you don’t need a CRM solution for your brokerage. You may think that CRM isn’t necessary for the commercial real estate industry. But are you really an exception from the digital revolution?

It’s time to face the facts. It is 2016 and various technologies are necessary to run a business. However, it can’t be any technology. Your technology must be up-to-date. Commercial real estate brokers need to leave behind the days of using Excel spreadsheets to manage data (from contacts to properties), because if you are still using this age-old technique then you are falling behind.

Technology outgrows technology. It outgrows itself, it outgrows other technology; it’s an endless cycle. CRM solutions outgrew Excel sheets and other basic forms of tired data management a while back. CRM technology is on the rise—in fact, back in 2013 Gartner predicted that CRM solutions will increase to a “$36.5B worldwide market by 2017.” Gartner updated their predictions in May 2015 with data that still supports this growth, as the worldwide CRM software market grew 13.3% between 2013 and 2014.

What this means is that increasingly more businesses are investing in CRM technology, and that includes brokerages of all sizes. It’s a slow climb for commercial real estate, with Forbes even stating that “commercial real estate has lagged behind other industries in terms of innovation, particularly when it comes to adopting and advancing technology.” It’s a tad embarrassing, but it’s not impossible to catch up.

“In fact, it has been argued that the commercial real estate market is in the same place that the financial services industry was 20 years ago.” —William Robertson, CEO of Skyline Exchange

If you’re already using CRM, congratulations on being ahead of the curve. But if not, 2016 is the opportune time to begin. Don’t continue to fall behind in commercial real estate; be a part of the industry’s disruption and get ahead of the competition.

If you’d like to learn more, contact us and we will get back to you shortly.