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What is the difference between PropTech and real estate?
PropTech refers to the application of technology and innovation in the real estate industry to improve efficiency, services, and customer experiences. It encompasses tools like AI, data analytics, virtual reality, and blockchain in real estate transactions. Real estate, on the other hand, is the traditional industry involving buying, selling, and managing properties. PropTech is essentially the modernization of real estate through technology in real estate, driving digital transformation and redefining business strategies within the industry.
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Indian PropTech Market: The $100 Billion Real Estate Tech Boom
Like a ship anchored to a familiar port, and hesitant to venture into new waters, India’s real estate sector too has remained fixated on traditional or legacy modes of operations for far too long. It now sits on the cusp of dramatic technological change, thanks to the debilitating impact of COVID-19, accelerated digital adoption and changing consumer behaviour. The global pandemic has cracked open the industry’s pain points, forcing market leaders to step up tech adoption to levels not witnessed before. The transformation in the country’s real estate landscape due to the application of new best practices has not only made businesses unrecognisable from their former avatar but also contributed to building up efficiencies and scale. The stage is therefore set for the overall Indian real estate market to grow to $1 trillion by 2030, from $200 billion in 2021. Amidst the ongoing upheaval, proptech or property technology, a subset of the industry, has emerged. Market reports show that Indian PropTech startup firms garnered more than $3.2 billion in funding across 255 deals between 2009 and 2021, underlining the huge success of the nationwide startup ecosystem initiated in 2015. Not only has there been a rise in the number of PropTech startups – from two in 2016 it has skyrocketed to an impressive 1,400 in 2022 – but substantial funding has been secured for such ventures pointing to growing investor confidence. Customer focus on increasing convenience, smart city initiatives, and the growth of the rental market is expected to further propel expansion of this sector. PropTech: The Savior! The growth of PropTech, which is essentially a marriage of property with technology, has led to critical real estate sector issues such as lack of transparency and trust. Adoption of PropTech is echoed across the entire real estate value chain including discovery, transaction, fulfilment, and utilisation. According to a report, more than 75% Buyers use digital channels to search homes, about 50% homebuyers use virtual tours before buying a property, 70% share of sales & marketing budget spent on digital strategies, 44% real estate agents use automated tools for lead generation and customer relationship management. In my view, the Midas Touch of digitisation and technology has significantly changed the face of the real estate industry, impacting the business operations of every stakeholder, including tenants, developers, brokers, and investors. Key categories of PropTech PropTech solutions are making an impact on rentals, distribution business and capital allocation. It impacts key stakeholders of developers, financers, channel partners, buyers, renters and property managers. PropTech 2030 will be a USD 100 billion opportunity emerging from solutioning of challenges and opportunities across these key stakeholders. It will encompass Construction Tech, Sales and marketing, Family rentals, Co-living, Co-working, Home services, Capital allocation and Land. The opportunity for PropTech in rental real estate stands at USD 14 billion which includes family rentals, co-living, co-working, home services and property management. The distribution of real estate will be a USD 23 billion and include sales and marketing, broker aggregation, CRM and lead generation businesses. The opportunity for capital stands at USD 4 billion including fractional ownership, neo reality investments, and loan recommendation services. Emerging Tech Continuing technological advancements have revolutionised and reshaped the nature of real estate operations and interaction with customers. This is reflected in improved transparency, efficiency, and empowerment of buyers and investors. It would be useful to look at the principal benefits of applying some of the solutions: Improved discovery: Digital transformation is facilitating the creation of online real estate marketplaces, connecting buyers, sellers, landlords, and tenants in real-time, making transactions faster, efficient, and location independent. Convenience of online tours: The use of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technology has ushered in the convenience of showcasing properties online for customers who cannot be physically present to view them. These apps not just help buyers take virtual tours of potential real estate from the comfort of homes but are embedded with features that allow for space visualisation and interior designing by overlaying digital information onto physical spaces. Personal real estate assistant at your service: Chatbots, which make use of AI-powered algorithms, further contribute to user convenience and experience by providing prompt responses and facilitating effective property searches. Personalised property recommendations based on customer preferences, budget, and location ensure customers can see properties that align with their specific needs. It is all about making informed decisions: The use of Big Data and predictive analysis offer insights into property values and investment opportunities, thus empowering buyers and investors to make informed decisions. Sustainability is the new black: There is growing public empathy about reducing carbon emissions for a green future, and PropTech fosters sustainability through various tools, which assess property health. Homes and offices are becoming smart with IoT-enabled devices enabling automation, energy efficiency, and security. Ease of managing transactions: Real estate transactions can be quite a tedious and overwhelming experience both for buyers and sellers leading some to become averse to going through the entire process. Blockchain technology streamlines property transactions by providing a secure and transparent platform for recording property ownership, managing contracts, and facilitating peer-to-peer transactions. Improved network: Digital transformation is facilitating the creation of online real estate marketplaces, connecting buyers, sellers, landlords, and tenants in real-time, making transactions faster, efficient, and location independent. Construction technology: These are exciting times for the real estate sector with constructors deploying various tools to raise the efficiency bar of projects. These include drones deployed to monitor construction, 3D Printing, aluminium formwork, and other technologies incorporated. Challenges and Opportunities for Businesses While PropTech holds immense prospects for India, the real estate industry has been found to move at a snail’s pace. If businesses are laggard at present, it largely owes to resistance from stakeholders hesitant to embrace digital innovations. Further, the sensitivity of customer data exposes market players to vulnerabilities, making the presence of robust data privacy and security measures crucial to establish customer trust. The other limitations include the high initial investments required for technology development. The collaboration gap between traditional real estate players and PropTech startups serves to stonewall the growth of PropTech businesses. Under the leadership of Hon' Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, India witnessed major policy push across four key areas, including the digitization of land records and real estate transactions under the Digital India Land Record Modernisation Programme (DILRMP), transparency in real estate transactions under demonetization and Goods and Services Tax implementation , regulation of real estate development and licensing of service providers under RERA (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016), and reforms of the rent control act under the Model Tenancy Act 2021. As a result of this and increased confidence on the Indian leadership, the sector has attracted USD 26.6 billion in foreign institutional inflows between 2017 and 2022. The good thing here is that a foundation has been laid to provide an environment conducive to growth. PropTech’s potential to further maximise its reach in the Indian real estate industry is immense. As technology continues to evolve, real estate technology firms will have greater opportunities to create transparency, efficiency, and customer-centricity in the market to drive the business forward. There is a greater need for industry players to realise that tech adoption is a necessity for growth and not just an option. Indeed, the winds of change are blowing. It’s about time India’s real estate ship, rigidly anchored in old legacies, sets sail towards a dynamic, more innovative, digital future. Embracing the PropTech revolution Considering the evolving real estate landscape, Aurum PropTech has developed an integrated ecosystem with a range of Technology, Services and Capital led solutions that address key industry challenges and opportunities. Through an integrated data strategy Aurum operates technology businesses rental real estate, buy and sell real estate sector and financing of real estate. With the right tools and systems in place, you can collect and track data about your properties and tenants, as well as gain valuable insights on market trends and other external factors that may impact your business. Aurum PropTech’s integrated ecosystem now collectively, boasts of 13+ products and services, 3,40,000 engaged customers, 2,000 crores plus GTV, 520 SaaS customers, 4,300 RaaS customers, 7,500+ channel partners, 600+ real estate developer relationships and a presence in 15 plus cities. The ecosystem is now structured under technology primarily encompassing enterprise tech, services – encompassing consumer tech and capital – focussing on fintech applications for real estate matrixed across the real estate value chain of development, monetization and consumption. For more information, visit www.aurumproptech.in
PropTech Pulse Editorial
15th February 2024
Technology and Innovation
Evolution of Customer Relationship Management tools
‘‘The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer’’, Peter Drucker, a famous writer, and management consultant said prolifically. The realm of CRM scope covers customer discovery, interactions, service, care, retention, and loyalty. The term Customer Relationship Management (CRM) was coined in the early 1970s when management at business units realized it would be better to be customer emphatic rather than product emphatic. Customer relationship management tools has evolved gradually from Rolodex’s of 1950s to Generative AI in 2020. What started as a record-keeping tool gradually evolved into digital documentation, sales automation, enterprise resource planning, social marketing, to the present age hyper personalised automated communication form. 1956 - First CRM Gadget - Rolodex In 1956s, Danish engineer Hildaur Neilsen, chief engineer of Zephyr American invented Rolodex, a card index system used to store customer contact information. It was a desk gadget that stacked and stored business cards and index cards that people could spin and flip through. Digital Rolodex, Tele sales and advent of computers The 1980s saw an evolution in sales, marketing and customer retention tactics with the advent of digitisation. Tools such as direct mail, brochures, and product catalogues being sent to a database of customers to get them to buy something were prevalently used in the 1980s. Database marketing and digital Rolodex came to the fore. The late 1980s saw the advent of telesales for customer communication. Computers were also accessible for enterprises and became a means of storing information about customers. In 1987, the software programme ACT (Activity Control Technology) was created by Mike Sullivan and Mitch Muhney, officially known as the first CRM software. This was essentially a digital Rolodex that allowed storage and management of the entire customer lifecycle information on the software. With its usage of Customer Relationship Management software, Act! demonstrated the advantages of scalable software that utilized consumer information to help a firm better manage its connections. 1990 - Sales Automation and progression into CRM systems By 1990s, one saw a progression of database management into customer lifecycle management and sales force workflow automation. Tools like enterprise resource planning, and marketing were added to the software’s contact management functions. This was the emergence first CRM systems. Tom Siebel, founder of Sieble Systems, coined the term CRM (Customer Relationship Software) for the first time. The post-introduction of the same CRM took off exponentially, with other companies also providing CRM solutions. Siebel Systems was later acquired by Oracle for over USD 5 billion in 2005. Late 1900s - First Mobile CRM, SaaS business model and Salesforce Inc. Post invention of PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) devices, tasks, emails, and calendar management became mobile. It allowed sales individuals to access customer data from central databases on the go, which proved to be a game changer as one didn’t have to be on the desk to work out these tasks. Salesforce.com was launched in 1999 and offered a new business model, offering software services as subscriptions (SaaS), wherein the upfront implementation cost, effort, and maintenance would be taken care of by Salesforce. 2000 - Cloud based CRM, Open-Source CRM and Social CRM In 2007, internet boom and cloud storage led to the advent and proliferation of Cloud-based CRM. With the increased internet adoption, Salesforce’s subscription model became popular as it could be scaled up very quickly. Open-source software also came to the fore, with the most prominent one being Sugar CRM, invented by computer scientists and ex-IBM and Hewlett-Packard employees Clint Oram, John Roberts, and Jacob Taylor. With the increased proliferation, and exponential growth of social media platforms, CRMs were combined with social media tools to offer SCRM. 2010 - Artificial Intelligence and CRM Artificial intelligence (AI) has changed the CRM space substantially with automation and intelligence. AI can be used for lead scoring, identifying customer needs, and providing recommendations. With enormous data being generated across every consumer by way of their digital footprint, CRM with AI and data analytics makes it simple to extrapolate consumer behaviour and requirements in real-time. 2020 and Now - Generative AI Generative AI is a subset of AI but unique in its ability to learn from underlying patterns to create new data that mirrors the training data set. The power of creation has a multifold impact across industries, and consumer communication is only to benefit from this capability. Managing customer interactions with Gen AI has the potential to enable a better connection between brands and customers. This however requires creative ability to engage customers and ability to execute to deliver better performance results and employee experiences. A combination of Gen AI and CRM can impact functional domains of marketing, sales, commerce, service and customer success. The true potential of Gen AI can be unlocked best when used in combination with predictive AI, voice to text, experience management and workflow optimisation. The CRM journey has reached an interesting point with AI, and the future looks promising for this space. The Total Addressable Market is set to grow to USD 290 billion by 2026. Salesforce Inc, an early mover, and a global market leader grew 10x in revenue in a decade. In 2013, its revenue stood at USD 3.1 billion which stands at USD 34 billion in FY 2022. CRM, which started as a simple Rolodex, has evolved into a complex system laced with artificial intelligence that helps organisations manage customer data and engage them with it in a self-assisted automated format, bringing huge implications for cost, efficiency, and the experience of consumer communication. As we advance further into the coming decades, CRM software systems will become more intelligent, integrated and intuitive with powerful AI capabilities, greater emphasis on self-service, enhanced experience for customers, hyper-personalisation, integrated API networks and ecosystems, and a single source of truth for businesses. Peter Drucker will be smiling in his grave looking at the advancement in this space.
PropTech Pulse Editorial
12th April 2024
Technology and Innovation
Gen AI and the Changing Landscape of CRM
‘‘The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer’’, Peter Drucker, a famous writer, and management consultant. Every business, lives, profits and grows with this mantra. Business that succeeded across all the previous industrial revolutions including mechanisation, electrification, automated production, and computation have one common trait. Each of this business not only changed consumer lives but also the experience of interaction with the business and utilisation of its product or service. So, what changes today, in the 4th industrial revolution that was set off by the advances in computing and information and communication technology and is built on 4IRs. Firstly, connectivity, data and computational power, second - analytics and intelligence, third human–machine interaction and fourth - advanced engineering. These form the 4 pillars of Industry 4.0. Technology, is only half of what businesses have to adopt and change. Two additional major factors that change the business environment are, customer demographics and behaviours and introduction of new business models. Marketing and sales strategies have fundamentally aligned on to the consumer behaviour of wanting goods and services on demand and scarcity of time and attention span. Information and content is delivered and consumed on mobile phones, with GenZ and Millennial tech savvy consumers attending only to content that they find targeted, relevant and authentic. Customers of today, in addition to goods and service also want convenience, self-service and personalisation. Some common traits of the contemporary customer are, that they are well informed and self-educated, self-directed, fast paced, picky, contradictory, always connected, volatile and tech innate. Beyond product and service innovation, new business models like freemium, pay-per-use, low monthly subscriptions are engaging consumers continuously to ensure sustainable revenue streams, reaching profitability and turning recent adopters into loyal customers. Thus, ensuring long lasting relationships with customers have become a key aspect for businesses. CRM has evolved gradually from Rolodexes of 1950s to Generative AI in 2020. What started as a record-keeping tool gradually evolved into digital documentation, sales automation, enterprise resource planning, and social marketing tools, to the present age hyper personalised automated communication form. The realm of CRM scope covers customer discovery, interactions, service, care, retention, and loyalty and is more often addressed as Digital CRM. In 2022, the worldwide size of CRM software stood at USD 96.3 billion. The Total Addressable Market is set to grow to USD 290 billion. Salesforce Inc, an early mover and a global market leader grew 10x in revenue in a decade. In 2013, its revenue stood at USD 3.1 billion which stands at USD 34 billion in FY 2022. CRM, which started as a simple Rolodex, has evolved into a complex system laced with artificial intelligence that helps organisations manage customer data and engage them with it in a self-assisted automated format, bringing huge implications for cost, efficiency, and the experience of consumer communication. Managing customer interactions with Gen AI and CRM Gen AI has the potential to enable a better connection between brands and customers. This however requires creative ability to engage customers and ability to execute to deliver better performance results and employee experiences. A combination of Gen AI and CRM can impact functional domains of marketing, sales, commerce, service, and customer success. Marketing Gen AI capabilities are ideally suited for the marketing function which requires content creation and creative generation. It will enable marketers increase their output, efficiency, and creativity. It provides a cost and time effective option for producing text, images, creative briefs, multiple versions of ad campaigns with variations. Most crucially, it will help marketers create personalised and engaging experience for customers at scale. Additionally, it will enhance idea creation, productivity and data driven planning and execution for marketing teams. Content development and personalisation of creatives will come at a reduced turn around time and cost. Conventional content creation methods which are time consuming, lack hyper personalisation at scale across multiple content formats with data driven insights on consumer behaviour. Brands are thus able to communicate through the most relevant content and most effective media at speed. Gen AI can create content across diverse platforms from blogs to social media posts to email campaigns, with a nuanced data backed understanding of the target audience and at the same time ensuring that the designed format, tone, and campaign outcomes are in sync. These elements are the most crucial for scale. Moreover, the ability to create versions of campaigns and content, marketers can execute A/B testing at speed and refine execution for optimal conversion. Ensuring standardisation of brand voice and tone with a synchronisation of specific target audience requirements with greater accuracy and speed, give Gen AI an edge over the conventional human creative teams. These are critical for brands with presence in multiple locations across different cultures and regional preferences. Real time sentiment analysis, that not only establishes positive , negative or neutral sentiment across key words and topics associated with the brand, but also analysis activation across broad competitive set to inform competitive benchmarking and rating. These insights make marketing teams better equipped to execute data insight driven campaigns. Tools for gen AI production are largely simplified and don’t require complex integrations into existing workflows. This, however, will require data management, tech stacks, governance, and operational capabilities for organisations to fully scale AI in marketing. Sales Product sales has evolved into providing tailored sales content across the customer’s early journey. Chatbots, real time Q&As, self-service portals, customised proposals and other features unlocked by Gen AI are not only reducing operational inefficiencies and administrative burdens but also enhancing the experience of purchasing products. Amongst key benefits of Gen -AI are : • Automation of administrative and lower value tasks like data entry, meeting notes, proposals, sales script etc. • Implementation and management of streamlined sales processes at scale across products and locations delivering features sales service value at a lower cost. • Training, onboarding and management of sales teams and resources can be done at speed and efficiency with increased standardisation in the sales pitches. • Channel partner and distribution networks managed across multiple territories and products. Channel networks can get personalised content, lead management support, incentive plans, and gamified leaderboards. Across the sale value chain Gen AI increases seller speed and productivity and also reduces the experience friction. Seller productivity gets efficiency by autoupdation of CRM using AI and machine leading to ensure that the sales pipeline data hygiene is maintained with a lesser administrative effort of data entries. It ensures, that there are smart prompts that aid pre-sales and sales team to enable them take brand specific , user insight driven and sales goal oriented actions. With Gen-Ais capabilities one case accurately gauge user interaction basis of past data and generate content tailored for the specific needs of the customers product or service requirements. Sales enablement Ensuring sales teams are equipped with the right set of product, service and consumer information with the right training content curated specifically to the sales member’s background. This is handy for large sales teams operating across multiple locations. With voice to text features, automated note taking, calendar and meeting management, sellers’ capacity is offloaded of administrative and low value work thus maximising capacity utilisation. Self-assisted customisation and configuration of products and services with real-time quotes and tailored pricing and offers ensure customer centricity in sales processes. The engagement becomes personalised, optimised and dynamic to the users requirements ensuring better experience of sale and probability of closure. Buyer profiling, with preferences and pattern analysis help sellers understand their needs and provide a tailored outreach. Bais of customers sentiment analysis from its communication forms of call transcripts and emails a probability of conversion and lead prioritisation helps sales teams prioritise their sales pipelines. Automated chatbots ensure human-like QnA experience with tailored yet standardised responses for customers ensuring they are kept engaged real-time and recommended products and services suited to their needs. Sales copilots also are an effective feature that help sales resources create specific communication to customer personas based on the stage of transaction. Commerce / transaction Every consumer engages digitally to consider or make a transaction. Gen AI features sets are reducing cart abandonment by delivering a hyper personalised buying experience with intuitive prompts by tailoring user journeys and promoting conversions. These tools ensure continuous engagement with the consumer for product information, comparison, pricing and delivery. Tools that help customers across intuitive search, personalised recommendations, enhanced feedback loop and streamlined shopping experience. Data driven personalises searches, recommendation and natural language bases search and recommendation options ensure quick transaction turnarounds. Product cataloguing and information listing becomes automated. Customers can also look at the products in 3 dimensions thus ensuring better visualisation and evaluation. With bespoke purchase plans, customer satisfaction and retention increase thus positively impacting sales numbers, experiences and band loyalty. Customer service and customer success Post transaction service experience becomes most critical for customers and brands alike considering the level of customised and tailored experiences that is brought on in the discovery and transaction phases of the user journeys. This is what leads to brand loyalty, repeatability of transactions and increased lifetime value of customers once onboarded on the brand or product portfolio. Prompt, real time and accurate self-service capabilities ensure faster customer grievance management and resolution. Virtual and human agents engaged in customer service are laced with fit-for purpose scripts, prompts, information, and training with automated tasks like follow up emails, and calls. This brings a multi fold increase to agent productivity. Gen AI and LLMs can analyse a customer’s profile and with automated workflows cater to their potential issues. With product catalogue assists there is an increase in cross sell and recommendations for customers increasing their wallet share efficiently. Agents are assisted with next best actions to ensure recommendations on additional products and features. The true potential of Gen AI can be unlocked best when used in combination with predictive AI, voice to text, experience management and workflow optimisation. In the customer success segment of the value chain, a faster time to value with efficient onboarding workflows ensure an improved customer experience and reduced customer churn. Training co-pilots, automated self assists bots and knowledge content driven prompts and actions ensure faster time to value realisation for customers. Given the depth and breadth of AI capabilities that can impact customers across the user journeys from marketing, sales, transactions, service and customer success, organisations and teams need to ensure that they are upskilled with tech , workflows and capabilities to deliver an enhanced customer experience. This can be ensured by doing 4 critical things. 1. What are the customer services opportunities one can identify, prioritise and phase for execution. 2. On identifying the use cases which are most critical for business objectives, the next important thing is to choose the platform or solution to deliver Gen-A features to for the specific use cases. Are these solutions meeting user needs? Does the organisation have the ability to deliver these? and do these solutions generate business goals an revenues. 3. On onboarding the solution or platform, one needs to ensure capability building to adopt, use and monitor the feature set. The resources, organisational structure and operating model required to deliver the solution. 4. Fourth, most crucial aspect is idenfitying risks of adoption and implementation and impact on customer from a compliance and governance stand point. Organisations that are constantly looking to improve customer interactions, create hyper personalised and differential experiences for their customers, and improve their operational efficiency will be the fastest to catch on to the Gen-AI driven revolution in customer relationship management space. Customers are ready , can organisations upskill, upgrade and uplift their game ?
PropTech Pulse Editorial
25th April 2024
Investment Opportunities
Indian PropTech Market: The $100 Billion Real Estate Tech Boom
Like a ship anchored to a familiar port, and hesitant to venture into new waters, India’s real estate sector too has remained fixated on traditional or legacy modes of operations for far too long. It now sits on the cusp of dramatic technological change, thanks to the debilitating impact of COVID-19, accelerated digital adoption and changing consumer behaviour. The global pandemic has cracked open the industry’s pain points, forcing market leaders to step up tech adoption to levels not witnessed before. The transformation in the country’s real estate landscape due to the application of new best practices has not only made businesses unrecognisable from their former avatar but also contributed to building up efficiencies and scale. The stage is therefore set for the overall Indian real estate market to grow to $1 trillion by 2030, from $200 billion in 2021. Amidst the ongoing upheaval, proptech or property technology, a subset of the industry, has emerged. Market reports show that Indian PropTech startup firms garnered more than $3.2 billion in funding across 255 deals between 2009 and 2021, underlining the huge success of the nationwide startup ecosystem initiated in 2015. Not only has there been a rise in the number of PropTech startups – from two in 2016 it has skyrocketed to an impressive 1,400 in 2022 – but substantial funding has been secured for such ventures pointing to growing investor confidence. Customer focus on increasing convenience, smart city initiatives, and the growth of the rental market is expected to further propel expansion of this sector. PropTech: The Savior! The growth of PropTech, which is essentially a marriage of property with technology, has led to critical real estate sector issues such as lack of transparency and trust. Adoption of PropTech is echoed across the entire real estate value chain including discovery, transaction, fulfilment, and utilisation. According to a report, more than 75% Buyers use digital channels to search homes, about 50% homebuyers use virtual tours before buying a property, 70% share of sales & marketing budget spent on digital strategies, 44% real estate agents use automated tools for lead generation and customer relationship management. In my view, the Midas Touch of digitisation and technology has significantly changed the face of the real estate industry, impacting the business operations of every stakeholder, including tenants, developers, brokers, and investors. Key categories of PropTech PropTech solutions are making an impact on rentals, distribution business and capital allocation. It impacts key stakeholders of developers, financers, channel partners, buyers, renters and property managers. PropTech 2030 will be a USD 100 billion opportunity emerging from solutioning of challenges and opportunities across these key stakeholders. It will encompass Construction Tech, Sales and marketing, Family rentals, Co-living, Co-working, Home services, Capital allocation and Land. The opportunity for PropTech in rental real estate stands at USD 14 billion which includes family rentals, co-living, co-working, home services and property management. The distribution of real estate will be a USD 23 billion and include sales and marketing, broker aggregation, CRM and lead generation businesses. The opportunity for capital stands at USD 4 billion including fractional ownership, neo reality investments, and loan recommendation services. Emerging Tech Continuing technological advancements have revolutionised and reshaped the nature of real estate operations and interaction with customers. This is reflected in improved transparency, efficiency, and empowerment of buyers and investors. It would be useful to look at the principal benefits of applying some of the solutions: Improved discovery: Digital transformation is facilitating the creation of online real estate marketplaces, connecting buyers, sellers, landlords, and tenants in real-time, making transactions faster, efficient, and location independent. Convenience of online tours: The use of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technology has ushered in the convenience of showcasing properties online for customers who cannot be physically present to view them. These apps not just help buyers take virtual tours of potential real estate from the comfort of homes but are embedded with features that allow for space visualisation and interior designing by overlaying digital information onto physical spaces. Personal real estate assistant at your service: Chatbots, which make use of AI-powered algorithms, further contribute to user convenience and experience by providing prompt responses and facilitating effective property searches. Personalised property recommendations based on customer preferences, budget, and location ensure customers can see properties that align with their specific needs. It is all about making informed decisions: The use of Big Data and predictive analysis offer insights into property values and investment opportunities, thus empowering buyers and investors to make informed decisions. Sustainability is the new black: There is growing public empathy about reducing carbon emissions for a green future, and PropTech fosters sustainability through various tools, which assess property health. Homes and offices are becoming smart with IoT-enabled devices enabling automation, energy efficiency, and security. Ease of managing transactions: Real estate transactions can be quite a tedious and overwhelming experience both for buyers and sellers leading some to become averse to going through the entire process. Blockchain technology streamlines property transactions by providing a secure and transparent platform for recording property ownership, managing contracts, and facilitating peer-to-peer transactions. Improved network: Digital transformation is facilitating the creation of online real estate marketplaces, connecting buyers, sellers, landlords, and tenants in real-time, making transactions faster, efficient, and location independent. Construction technology: These are exciting times for the real estate sector with constructors deploying various tools to raise the efficiency bar of projects. These include drones deployed to monitor construction, 3D Printing, aluminium formwork, and other technologies incorporated. Challenges and Opportunities for Businesses While PropTech holds immense prospects for India, the real estate industry has been found to move at a snail’s pace. If businesses are laggard at present, it largely owes to resistance from stakeholders hesitant to embrace digital innovations. Further, the sensitivity of customer data exposes market players to vulnerabilities, making the presence of robust data privacy and security measures crucial to establish customer trust. The other limitations include the high initial investments required for technology development. The collaboration gap between traditional real estate players and PropTech startups serves to stonewall the growth of PropTech businesses. Under the leadership of Hon' Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, India witnessed major policy push across four key areas, including the digitization of land records and real estate transactions under the Digital India Land Record Modernisation Programme (DILRMP), transparency in real estate transactions under demonetization and Goods and Services Tax implementation , regulation of real estate development and licensing of service providers under RERA (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016), and reforms of the rent control act under the Model Tenancy Act 2021. As a result of this and increased confidence on the Indian leadership, the sector has attracted USD 26.6 billion in foreign institutional inflows between 2017 and 2022. The good thing here is that a foundation has been laid to provide an environment conducive to growth. PropTech’s potential to further maximise its reach in the Indian real estate industry is immense. As technology continues to evolve, real estate technology firms will have greater opportunities to create transparency, efficiency, and customer-centricity in the market to drive the business forward. There is a greater need for industry players to realise that tech adoption is a necessity for growth and not just an option. Indeed, the winds of change are blowing. It’s about time India’s real estate ship, rigidly anchored in old legacies, sets sail towards a dynamic, more innovative, digital future. Embracing the PropTech revolution Considering the evolving real estate landscape, Aurum PropTech has developed an integrated ecosystem with a range of Technology, Services and Capital led solutions that address key industry challenges and opportunities. Through an integrated data strategy Aurum operates technology businesses rental real estate, buy and sell real estate sector and financing of real estate. With the right tools and systems in place, you can collect and track data about your properties and tenants, as well as gain valuable insights on market trends and other external factors that may impact your business. Aurum PropTech’s integrated ecosystem now collectively, boasts of 13+ products and services, 3,40,000 engaged customers, 2,000 crores plus GTV, 520 SaaS customers, 4,300 RaaS customers, 7,500+ channel partners, 600+ real estate developer relationships and a presence in 15 plus cities. The ecosystem is now structured under technology primarily encompassing enterprise tech, services – encompassing consumer tech and capital – focussing on fintech applications for real estate matrixed across the real estate value chain of development, monetization and consumption. For more information, visit www.aurumproptech.in
PropTech Pulse Editorial
15th February 2024
Technology and Innovation
Evolution of Customer Relationship Management tools
‘‘The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer’’, Peter Drucker, a famous writer, and management consultant said prolifically. The realm of CRM scope covers customer discovery, interactions, service, care, retention, and loyalty. The term Customer Relationship Management (CRM) was coined in the early 1970s when management at business units realized it would be better to be customer emphatic rather than product emphatic. Customer relationship management tools has evolved gradually from Rolodex’s of 1950s to Generative AI in 2020. What started as a record-keeping tool gradually evolved into digital documentation, sales automation, enterprise resource planning, social marketing, to the present age hyper personalised automated communication form. 1956 - First CRM Gadget - Rolodex In 1956s, Danish engineer Hildaur Neilsen, chief engineer of Zephyr American invented Rolodex, a card index system used to store customer contact information. It was a desk gadget that stacked and stored business cards and index cards that people could spin and flip through. Digital Rolodex, Tele sales and advent of computers The 1980s saw an evolution in sales, marketing and customer retention tactics with the advent of digitisation. Tools such as direct mail, brochures, and product catalogues being sent to a database of customers to get them to buy something were prevalently used in the 1980s. Database marketing and digital Rolodex came to the fore. The late 1980s saw the advent of telesales for customer communication. Computers were also accessible for enterprises and became a means of storing information about customers. In 1987, the software programme ACT (Activity Control Technology) was created by Mike Sullivan and Mitch Muhney, officially known as the first CRM software. This was essentially a digital Rolodex that allowed storage and management of the entire customer lifecycle information on the software. With its usage of Customer Relationship Management software, Act! demonstrated the advantages of scalable software that utilized consumer information to help a firm better manage its connections. 1990 - Sales Automation and progression into CRM systems By 1990s, one saw a progression of database management into customer lifecycle management and sales force workflow automation. Tools like enterprise resource planning, and marketing were added to the software’s contact management functions. This was the emergence first CRM systems. Tom Siebel, founder of Sieble Systems, coined the term CRM (Customer Relationship Software) for the first time. The post-introduction of the same CRM took off exponentially, with other companies also providing CRM solutions. Siebel Systems was later acquired by Oracle for over USD 5 billion in 2005. Late 1900s - First Mobile CRM, SaaS business model and Salesforce Inc. Post invention of PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) devices, tasks, emails, and calendar management became mobile. It allowed sales individuals to access customer data from central databases on the go, which proved to be a game changer as one didn’t have to be on the desk to work out these tasks. Salesforce.com was launched in 1999 and offered a new business model, offering software services as subscriptions (SaaS), wherein the upfront implementation cost, effort, and maintenance would be taken care of by Salesforce. 2000 - Cloud based CRM, Open-Source CRM and Social CRM In 2007, internet boom and cloud storage led to the advent and proliferation of Cloud-based CRM. With the increased internet adoption, Salesforce’s subscription model became popular as it could be scaled up very quickly. Open-source software also came to the fore, with the most prominent one being Sugar CRM, invented by computer scientists and ex-IBM and Hewlett-Packard employees Clint Oram, John Roberts, and Jacob Taylor. With the increased proliferation, and exponential growth of social media platforms, CRMs were combined with social media tools to offer SCRM. 2010 - Artificial Intelligence and CRM Artificial intelligence (AI) has changed the CRM space substantially with automation and intelligence. AI can be used for lead scoring, identifying customer needs, and providing recommendations. With enormous data being generated across every consumer by way of their digital footprint, CRM with AI and data analytics makes it simple to extrapolate consumer behaviour and requirements in real-time. 2020 and Now - Generative AI Generative AI is a subset of AI but unique in its ability to learn from underlying patterns to create new data that mirrors the training data set. The power of creation has a multifold impact across industries, and consumer communication is only to benefit from this capability. Managing customer interactions with Gen AI has the potential to enable a better connection between brands and customers. This however requires creative ability to engage customers and ability to execute to deliver better performance results and employee experiences. A combination of Gen AI and CRM can impact functional domains of marketing, sales, commerce, service and customer success. The true potential of Gen AI can be unlocked best when used in combination with predictive AI, voice to text, experience management and workflow optimisation. The CRM journey has reached an interesting point with AI, and the future looks promising for this space. The Total Addressable Market is set to grow to USD 290 billion by 2026. Salesforce Inc, an early mover, and a global market leader grew 10x in revenue in a decade. In 2013, its revenue stood at USD 3.1 billion which stands at USD 34 billion in FY 2022. CRM, which started as a simple Rolodex, has evolved into a complex system laced with artificial intelligence that helps organisations manage customer data and engage them with it in a self-assisted automated format, bringing huge implications for cost, efficiency, and the experience of consumer communication. As we advance further into the coming decades, CRM software systems will become more intelligent, integrated and intuitive with powerful AI capabilities, greater emphasis on self-service, enhanced experience for customers, hyper-personalisation, integrated API networks and ecosystems, and a single source of truth for businesses. Peter Drucker will be smiling in his grave looking at the advancement in this space.
PropTech Pulse Editorial
12th April 2024
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