Take technology seriously. Move quickly. Make investments for the future of your business.
Our lessons learned for how to make PropTech work for you. We’ve learned four practical lessons that we believe every developer and home builder should keep in mind as you try to transform your business:
Lessons learned on how to make PropTech work for you.
1. Investment
Too many companies take a shotgun approach to technology. “Innovate” and hope something sticks and maybe even provides some business value. The most effective companies focus on business problems first, and then make investments in technology focused on solving those problems. Bake this into your process, and ensure that technology investments are in service of the broader business strategy.
2. Metrics
Knowing where you are, where you want to go, and what has to change is how you make progress. Technology is no different. It doesn’t have to (and in fact shouldn’t) be driven purely by the bottom line, but you need to clearly define what impacts you are expecting and how you’re going to measure them. This is how you “fail fast” – understand what is working, what’s not, and pivot as early as possible.
3. Data
The mortal sin of most tech initiatives is forgetting about the fuel. If you don’t have a clear data strategy backed up by an understanding of what you have today and what you will need tomorrow, your tech is going to be wasted. The best analytics, automation, and productivity features are only as good as the data they run on.
4. People
Technology is used by people. Your people are still your most valuable resource, and ultimately technology is about unlocking creativity, reducing stress, and giving your talent the best possible chance to succeed and drive value. Train them and bring them along for the ride, and you’re going to see an explosion in the value you get out of technology investments.
Following these guidelines is the foundation necessary to give you a real chance to transform your business THROUGH technology and making PropTech work for you.
