Cloud computing and SAAS in Real Estate Construction Industry
SAAS companies are increasingly providing tailored software solutions for different verticals, i.e. the industry cloud. Real estate and construction, for example, is one of the industries that have seen the most number of SaaS solutions addressing industry-specific needs in this business. Here, I will introduce a few key trends in real estate software that have driven a wider adoption of SaaS solutions.
SaaS allows real estate agencies to bypass large expenditures involved in infrastructure accommodations and avoid complicated IT management2. Since everything is hosted on a remote server and agencies get charged on a subscription basis, SaaS allows agencies of all sizes and budge to be able to utilize the cloud software and be more flexible to change.
Real Estate CRM
CRM in real estate serves the purpose of relationship management, with buyers, sellers, financial institutions, and also developers. It streamlines contract management process and workflow, especially for real estate industry-specific CRMs. It often includes features such as document storage, reporting and analytics, and also sales pipeline management and forecasting.
Research has shown that utilization of CRM makes real estate agents who make more than $100,000 are 87%2 more likely to use real estate CRM software than those that make less than $35,000 a year.
Case Study 1 Fusion Live
Fusion Live is a cloud solution for engineers and builders. It can help store data in Europe, Middle East, and also the U.S. It permits for full collaboration from all the stakeholders involved in program and project management, and keeps a complete trail of business and audit records3.
Case Study 2 Pivotal CRM
Pivotal CRM is a very popular tool that helps with expense management reports, quote, and proposal forms. Besides these tools aiming to expedite and streamline workflow, it also has social media add-ons and is compatible with Microsoft systems.
While products and services offered by Fusion Live and Pivotal CRM have proven demand among real estate professionals, it would be interesting to see how multi-purpose software solution providers such as Salesforce and HubSpot are compared to these industry-specific software solutions as they provide similar benefits and solutions in streamlining processes and managing and tracking relationships. These vertical SaaS solutions have gained traction partly because they are much less cost prohibitive to small businesses than incumbent horizontal providers such as Salesforce and that the real estate agencies need help with industry-specific tasks such as construction management and quotes. With the current trend, it seems that vertical SaaS in real estate construction will continue to grow in adoption and scale. Future differentiation and competition will depend a lot on how horizontal incumbents react and tailor its services to different industries, allow for more features, and better their customer service.
