Real estate industry : How to gain competitive advantage with your enterprise mobile app strategy?

The immense growth in the use of mobile technology, specifically consumer-facing real estate technology, means change for Realtors when it comes to communication, research and reporting for mobile-first clients.Most Realtors use mobile technology to send new house alerts, neighborhood reports, and financial information to registered users.Realtors, buyers and sellers are all using mobile technology to navigate the real estate industry.

Mobiles Usage

Stastica.com link - Mobile Usage vs Mobile App Usage

So what is the next game changer for Real Estate?

Multiple 2018 report by analytics firm like Flurry & Nielsen revealed that the average Indian smartphone user spends 90 minutes per day on mobile application and the premium segment spends 130 minutes per day. An average U.S. smartphone user spends 5 hours per day on a mobile device, a 20 percent increase compared with 4Q 2015. An average Of that time, 92 percent (about 4.6 hours) is spent inside a mobile application. Real Estate industry has taken to the internet but they are yet to capitalize the power of Mobile Devices. When potential customer is 'Connected' over mobile device the service provider has to provide service using Mobile Applications to stay relevant and competitive. Period.

How apps have changed the game?

Apps enable realtors across to perform specific tasks on the go, such as viewing data, aggregating buyer queries, scheduling real estate visits and opening lock-boxes. Some mobile applications allows agents to send custom reports to clients via app-based messaging. Realtors can 'PUSH' information to buyers and sellers by customer's preferred electronic channel - email/SMS/Whatsapp/etc. This type of simple, customized communication can save Realtors valuable time. Search is the most used functionality in a mobile application because it allows user to utilize the time while he/she is traveling so well designed search that give accurate, meaningful results and is presented in a user friendly User Interface. Personally I feel there is also a need for behavioral change in Real Estate industry and adapt to the habit of mobile savvy Millennial Consumer and provide information in digital format which reduces frequent personal interaction. Millennial consumers wants the service provider to PUSH the most relevant information to them and they also want to be equipped to PULL information on demand. Internet is about 24/7 business and that means real estate can no longer be limited to their human team working 9 to 9. The industry needs to add a virtual team member in guise of a mobile application that caters to the consumer 24/7.

How real estate professionals can leverage mobile technology?

• For recording voice notes about potential property listings
• For recording video footage and photographs of property
• For sharing video and photograph of property
• For  monitoring appointments & time management
• Running mobile marketing programs
• Promoting company brand using mobile applications
• Secure messaging for image and text communications
• Electronically.signed real estate contracts & document management
• Customer Relationship Management
• To get latest industry news 

The real estate industry is very competitive, every customer can be connected via mobile device so it is important to use mobile to stay ahead of the game. Today’s mobile technologies provide a huge capacity for brand building & marketing services and products to a worldwide audience via email campaigns and online advertising. Traditionally real estate data has not been maintained in digital format. Now real estate agents can establish databases that allow them to target particular properties at specific groups of clients. These agents typically spend a considerable amount of time out in the field, either showing or viewing properties, and mobile devices allow them to stay connected.

Connected Customer, Lifestyle Changes &  Real Estate

• As many as 60 percent of homes in the U.S. and India are purchased by people who are between the ages of 28 and 45, which is the age group that is always connected via computers & mobiles.
• Mobile devices allow potential property buyers access to property images and details 24/7 without having to talk to a real estate agent.
• Websites & mobile applications enable uses to compare property features of shortlisted properties
• Software allows home buyers to store 'User Property Preference' in databases & relevant details of applicable listings can be 'PUSHED' to them as soon as they are available (Real Time).
• Potential buyer, the realtor and vendor are always connected over mobile devices.
• Buyers expect details such as home features, information on school districts and neighborhoods to be available over internet & mobile devices.
• Mobile technology is no longer an edge technology but an essential vehicle to stay connected with potential buyers & delivery of information.
• Mobile app is not just an extension of your website but a tool that help you streamline your business and stay connected with clients.

The advanced 'Mobile Applications' should leverage technologies like Real Time Service, Big Data, Dark Data, Social Analytics, Predictive Analytics, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning for better understanding of customer requirement, improve recommendations and reduce churn. But first things first, stay connected & keep listening to the customer!

Do you have a Cloud Computing Strategy for your organization yet?

While discussing Hybrid vs Public Cloud with a client I realized that they still did not have an strategy for using Cloud for the enterprise.Cloud Computing has been here for a decade and yet cloud computing issues are still perplexing many CIOs. Studies indicate that less than 10% of enterprises have a well defined Cloud Strategy. All the new applications development in the next few years would have to follow the enterprise Cloud Computing strategy. Having a well planned Cloud Strategy will enable business to apply its tenets quickly with fewer delays, thus speeding the arrival of the ultimate business outcomes. So if your CIO still does not have a Cloud Strategy for your enterprise it's time he should define one. The 1st step in the journey to the Cloud is to understand the multiple aspects & phases of Cloud Computing.

                                            Soon everything will be served on the Cloud !

Cloud computing : 

The average cloud spending across industries is anything between 5 to 10% and most organizations are migrating on premise data center to cloud. The spending is projected to grow every year as legacy applications are migrated and new applications are built. A key benefit of public cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) is to place applications closer to customers to enable a better user experience. Private cloud computing is also being exploited, especially where intellectual property, control, regulatory or compliance concerns, security, performance, and cost of service delivery are differentiated. In such cases, private clouds run on-premises, in co-location facilities or at provider facilities, and they can offer similar benefits to public cloud computing. Organizations are also exploiting Hybrid cloud computing with focus on  integration between the internal and external (or two or more external) environments at the data, process and/or security layers.

Defining a case for Cloud Computing : 

Next step is to define a Cloud Strategy based on the business vision and the digital strategy. Digital business requires speed and agility that cloud computing provides through the use of cloud services – which become available to a broader set of users through a dynamic self-service interface. Users “help themselves” to these cloud services, stimulating creativity and innovation.

CIOs need to educate their organization about the need to invest in cloud as a style of computing that drives greater speed, agility and innovation through this democratization of IT and the benefits they can derive from Cloud Computing. Organization's digital business strategy should justify the investments needed for cloud computing.

Design for Cloud  : 

Just using cloud services is not enough: you must optimize your application design for the cloud. Migrating applications to cloud requires change in application architecture and design. Unless we adapt the design to Cloud Computing we may land into badly designed application with poor scalability and performance with high maintenance overhead. We have to optimize our applications for cloud computing with the explicit purpose of getting the most value at the lowest effective cost. New applications essentially have to be designed for the Cloud and migration of legacy application should also be designed for the cloud.

Finally a picture of a sample Cloud Strategy Road-map for an enterprise.

Securing Mobile Applications

Mobile applications draw the attention of hackers more and more each day because they have something that the attackers want, user personal data. Hard-coded secret keys, personal information stored in plain text on SD cards, usernames and passwords found unencrypted in databases, analytics collected and sent in the clear to remote servers, are just a few cases that make the life of an attacker easier.

So how do we protect data on mobile phones? To protect sensitive data, and ensure confidentiality and/or integrity developers have to use Cryptography. There are many cryptographic libraries that can be integrated into Android applications. Cryptographic libraries can be seen as cryptographic tools that contain tools, such as encryption algorithms, padding schemes, and hash functions.

Few of the common basic cryptography libraries are as follows -
1) AeroGear (Crypto AeroGear) Apache 2.0 license
2) Conceal (Facebook) BSD license,
3) Keyczar (Google) Apache 2.0 license

Once you decide to encrypt appication data you have to decide how to implement it. What encryption algorithm should you use, AES or DES? How long should your key be, 128 or 256 bits? Which encryption mode should you use, ECB or CBC? If you do not have an answer to all these questions, along with a good reason for each answer, then it seems that you have found yourself in a position where, although you probably have all the tools you need, you are not absolutely sure which ones to use and how.

The cryptographic toolkits do not implement any exotic cryptographic functionalities, nor do they intend to replace the cryptographic libraries presented above; they rather built on some of them with the sole purpose of making cryptography easier and safer to use.

These toolkit may supports only a subset of the algorithms, modes, schemes, parameters, and other cryptographic tools that are out there. Instead it provides you with sensible defaults in case you (a) know what you want to do but don’t know how to do it, or (b) don’t really care as long as you end up with a safe solution. Let’s examine some of these toolkits to better understand their role.

There are many good sites to learn more about cryptography & one of the websites I can recommend  is  https://www.garykessler.net/library/crypto.html