by Ashvin Gami, Founder and Managing Director, Strategic ERP
The Covid-19 pandemic temporarily slowed the growth of India's growing real estate market. Despite the many disruptions, the challenge indeed brought forth a slew of opportunities to accelerate the transformation of the sector for greater operational efficiency. Technological advancements in real estate have turned out to be an integrated part of the global landscape. It is a positive sign that the Indian real estate sector is embracing technology and innovation to enhance business operations.
Unquestionably, the pandemic had a significant impact on business operations on multiple fronts. Changes that were formerly inconceivable have now become a reality. ERP, Artificial Intelligence, Chatbots, Augmented and Virtual reality (AR/VR), online bookings, and other cutting-edge technologies enabled sustained communication between customers and developers. Also, technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), Machine Learning (ML), and big data have played a crucial role in the digital transformation of the real estate industry.
Driving the digital transformation
Enterprises must adapt to a changing business environment, and real estate ERP software empowers the real estate business operations to adapt to change with agility. Integrating Enterprise Resource Planning can help eliminate human error and bolster production in the construction and real estate industries. An ERP platform improves efficiency of processes by automating repetitive and monotonous procedures, centralizing data, saving time, delivering actionable insights, enabling better decision making, and ultimately improving the bottom line.
A good real estate ERP can handle every aspect of your organization, from property sale or leasing to financing and general management, providing a competitive advantage. One of the most notable features of ERP is that it integrates and centralizes information from different departments, making it readily accessible.
Automation of tedious tasks
An ERP platform automates manual operations, minimising the risk of human error, improving efficiency and enabling personnel to focus on more productive and business-critical operations. For example, with an ERP system in place, the marketing department can easily garner client data from the necessary modules and apply new, personalized marketing tactics, resulting in enhanced productivity.
Improved sales and marketing strategies
Marketing efforts must be well-executed to boost sales for a real estate business to prosper. When you meet or exceed the expectations of your clients, you can create and grow a strong foundation of devoted customers. The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) feature in Real Estate ERP aids marketing and sales teams in storing and managing detailed data about potential and existing customers, enabling them to create compelling marketing strategies.
Significant Return on Investment (ROI)
While the upfront cost of implementing a state-of-the-art ERP solution may be significant, the strategic business benefits and cost reduction it delivers post-implementation justifies and offsets the cost of implementation, and provides substantial returns on that investment. The operating expenses are reduced, including the material costs, and inventory management becomes more efficient, enhancing the consolidated revenues.
Increased digitalization can mean multiple benefits for the industry. The customer experience becomes seamless and enhanced, with the highest level of transparency, ease of contact, and a better prospect for the real estate company to pitch to the customers. The visibility of cash flow and cost flow dramatically increases, allowing all losses and gains to be seen and analyzed using AI-powered software solutions. There are fewer to no lags since projects are checked at every step. As a result, consistency improves, and projects are completed on schedule. With the digitalization of real estate, marketing tactics have become more successful, since it is easier to adapt and manage an ongoing campaign. Hence, real estate enterprises in the post-Covid world could build more innovative and sustainable business processes.
The way forward
Real estate enterprises can enjoy endless benefits by adopting advanced technologies such as ERP, CRM tools, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented and Virtual reality (AR/VR), HCM, inventory management tools, etc. It leads to the transformation of business, significant annual savings which can be used in advancing machinery, new investments, higher wages and skills development.
