Real estate on the run

After a prolonged downturn, the Asian property market is once again red-hot, with rents and valuations soaring in virtually all major cities around the region. This means there’s rarely been a better, or busier, time to be part of the real estate industry. But as buyers, sellers and investors flock to property companies in droves and the pace of deals moves into overdrive, many firms and agents struggle to keep up with the latest market developments. The ability to receive and transmit information quickly, and to do so just about anywhere, have become some of the industry’s most precious commodities.

This has translated into good business for SISV Services, a subsidiary of the Singapore Institute of Surveyors and Valuers that provides market data and technology to the city-state’s burgeoning network of realtors. SISV Services chief technical officer Henry Tan recognised the value of empowering employees to work on the move early and has been a staunch advocate of mobility ever since, a strategy that has proved a source of competitive advantage to the company but also introduced risks.

Early adopter
As the host of Singapore’s leading online property portal and a series of real estate transaction databases, SISV Services had to buy in to relatively high-end network infrastructure early, signing up for high-speed broadband and voice over internet protocol (VoIP) when these were relatively untested. This created a platform for the implementation of mobile broadband, outsourced network, and corporate messaging solutions that make sure clients and employees can stay in constant contact with the main office regardless of physical location. This means databases are constantly updated and the information that SISV feeds to clients is as current as possible. Up-to-date facts and figures on the property market are the company’s bread and butter, so Tan says SISV Services’ investments – around US$1.9 million (S$2.9 million) since 1999, most of it going to Singapore-based communications provider LGA – have proven more than worthwhile. Mobility infrastructure allows realtors and valuers to trade data with the firm instantaneously through a range of portable devices like smartphones and personal digital assistants (PDAs), while VoIP can substantially cut communications costs, especially as the industry grows more international and staff are required to file reports or stage presentations in overseas markets.

But for any firm considering similar deployments Tan has a few words of caution. The first is to choose your provider carefully – SISV Services, for instance, found Singapore incumbent SingTel too costly but wasn’t prepared to put up with the technical and support issues that frequently accompany implementations done on the cheap.

Tan says LGA hit the right price-service balance and, importantly, has proven ready to go the extra mile for its customer base by adjusting its prices for services like leased lines as market rates drop.

Stay safe
Security is also a major issue for the heavily connected enterprise, a fact that became only too apparent a few years ago when a rival firm attempted to hack into SISV Services’ databases. Tan says this was when a good relationship with its main vendor became crucial; LGA helped the firm pick out odd network traffic patterns and track down the suspect. SISV Services has since made defence one of its top priorities.

“We’ve carefully controlled the data sets we have, and instead of holding everything in one server we’ve split it across four – even if someone hacks into one, they can’t hack into all of them,” Tan explains.

“In 2004, when we began to implement a wireless LAN and remote dial-up solutions, due to the associated security issues we implemented a (virtual private network) and firewall right away, even for people using PDAs. It’s important to resolve (security) issues at the implementation stage.”

But Tan says the biggest mobility-related challenges facing the IT director have little to do with technology. “The problem is basically the end-users,” he says. He stresses the need for regular training to not only acquaint them with how to use tools like wireless broadband or smart phones, but to make sure these are used in a way that doesn’t jeopardise corporate information. This can be as simple as avoiding open-access wireless networks and setting up authentication mechanisms for PDAs or laptops.

Sharing the wealth
SISV Services’ experiences with mobility have proven so successful that the company now markets the solutions to real estate firms. “I’m no longer desk-bound, which has nearly doubled my business and productivity,” says Veron Real Estate agent Francis Chew, who uses mobile broadband to access SISV Services’ market database and VoIP to connect with customers and the office on road trips. “The ZIPdial (VoIP) service has also cut the cost of overseas calls to my customers – the only down side is that sometimes the sound quality isn’t as good as a standard IDD line, but given the price it’s still reasonable.”

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
Don’t forget the users


Rolling out a new BI tool involves a change in mindset, Hitachi Asia finds out.
Think you’ve done a good job putting in the latest tools that are able to generate the prettiest spreadsheets and multi-layered analysis? Even if you have all the infrastructure in place for the “perfect” business intelligence (BI) implementation, some things might still stand in your way—the user—as electronics manufacturer Hitachi Asia has learnt.

For years, managers at its Malaysian air-conditioning products plant were inputting business data by hand from hard copy to Excel spreadsheets. The process was slow and tedious, with sales and expenses needing to be summarised and consolidated into the spreadsheet, or printed for management reviewing and analysis.
Also, data was unstructured and lumped together in one category, due to the format in which they were saved, as cells in one spreadsheet. Not only was this difficult to classify, this made data analysis a muddy affair.

With final reports reaching Hitachi Asia’s headquarters in Singapore a week later, efficiency along the entire supply chain was also hampered.

Upper management then decided to introduce a BI system, targeted at middle managers, in the hope of easing data analysis by providing a dashboard from which to access and manage crucial business information. Management thought that since users were already familiar with Excel, it should also buy BI tools from Microsoft. Hitachi later paid for making the wrong assumption.

For one, ProClarity, a BI tool from Microsoft, wasn’t developed by the software giant. ProClarity was acquired to “boost sales”, Chris Caren, a Microsoft Office general manager, reportedly says.

Zainuddin Anang, Hitachi Asia’s business solutions manager, who oversaw the implementation, admits: “Using a new tool—ProClarity—created some difficulty and discontent to some users.”

According to him, most users at the plant were expecting a completely automated system where one push of a button would generate the required analysis. Instead, the tool presented them options, which with the appropriate training would have enabled them to manipulate data powerfully. But Hitachi over-estimated middle managers’ ability to master the tool, allocating only two days for training. Zainuddin says the learning curve was fairly steep for managers.

“If I’ve to do it all over again, I would definitely concentrate more on the user experience.”

Thankfully, he says with a laugh, the middle managers were given sufficient pressure from their bosses at the plant as well as regional headquarters to use the system. IT personnel from the headquarters were sent to the Malaysian plant to give users individual attention and additional training.

Through this experience, Zainuddin says he has learnt that “BI isn’t something you just roll out and wait for results from. The process to fruition is tedious, and mostly you have to combat mindsets, because this is relatively new to the mainstream.
“End-users need to see BI as a useful tool, not just another input process.”