Why you should fire your IT department

Most real estate brokerages didn't have IT departments before the '90s. Then the age of computers and Web sites came. Now every office in the country has a costly department that keeps Web sites running, listing feeds live and mail servers breathing.

The reality is the smartest business decision a broker can make today is to cut loose their IT department. In the age of outsourcing, this is perhaps the easiest thing for brokers to let go while enjoying a significant cut to operating costs.

Coming from a person with a heavy technology background, you're probably wondering why I would advise dumping your tech employees. It's simple: IT departments just aren't needed to the degree that many brokers now have them. Brokerages are sales businesses, and should be run as such. Brokers really have no business operating huge mail servers, tethering agents – who aren't even employees – to their in-house legacies. They certainly have no business building customized technology platforms.

From an agent's perspective, it doesn't make sense to get wound into a broker's system, only to have to deal with prying out your contacts and mail when it's time to move on. After all, agents are independent contractors. Why should they be tethered to a broker's mail server like this? It's a waste of money.

Many small businesses today are following the mobile computing trend, setting up company email using the Google Gmail platform, utilizing online document storage and other Web-based applications from Google Amazon and others. There's no reason brokerages can't do this too.

The most underutilized person in a real estate office is the office manager. Brokers looking for ways to streamline costs and processes should pay close attention to their managers and how they spend their time. A good office manager could easily oversee the processes currently owned by IT staff.

It's time for brokers to return focus to running their office as a business, not a technology center. Most of younger agents coming into the business these days will be quite comfortable with this arrangement and you’ll restore some sensibility to your P&L.

Let's get back to the business of real estate, not the business of technology.

Comments

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