In the past, we often could see the change coming.
As employment numbers improved, housing sales slowly advanced as well. As a recession set in, the real estate market dialed back. As interest rates went up, less expensive houses sold more easily. As interest rates went down, refinances ballooned.
Today, change happens rapidly and often without warning, and sometimes with little rationality.
- Someone says “boo” and the stock market plummets.
- COVID strikes and everyone thinks home sales will crash – and then the exact opposite happens.
- A sudden conflagration between two countries sends the global economy in reverse.
- Technological innovation explodes leaving the unprepared and unwilling in the dust.
With information transmitted around the globe in a microsecond, constant volatility may well be the new normal. And the dramatic pace of technological innovation is here to stay, so let’s embrace it.
From a title agency point of view, adjusting to the uncertainty and rapid technological change requires two things:
- Creating a proactive strategy that ensures agility in the face of crises
- Devising a digital transformation approach that welcomes innovation
Let’s begin with developing a strategy to meet shifting realities head on.
Strategy for Change
Traditionally when we think of business planning, we focus primarily on how we are going to grow our business, capitalize on what is happening in the marketplace, and devise an allocation of resources to accomplish our goals.
Strategy for change focuses on something quite different. Rather than sending directives to the troops in the field to fulfill an abstract wish for a bigger share of the pie, you create an environment in which you – and your team – are accessing real time information and data that is being shared and acted upon within all departments.
Strategy for change must include a consistent effort to study what is happening in the world – the stock market, job creation, cost of homebuilding, interest rates, inflation and more. But it must also have an ear to the street, a clear understanding of what is happening in your specific market and a watchful eye on your own data and what it is telling you.
If you want to be strategic in the face of constantly shifting realities, you must walk the middle way, remaining pragmatically observant of the impact the current situation is having on your business, whether that is globally or locally, and having a plan to shift priorities and resources quickly to meet the new truth that your data is revealing.
All of this input will enable you to:
- Perceive the subtle signs more quickly
- Act with greater expediency to respond to a shift in the market
- Execute plans in alignment with your overall business plan
- Feed this information across all departments so all are quickly in sync
This last point needs particular emphasis. When the market shifts, we tend to run to the one department who can get us out of a jam. New services are going unnoticed, so we trot off to the marketing department. A neighborhood is undergoing gentrification, so we ask HR for a new salesperson. Homeworkers are racing back into the city, so we tell operations to open a new location.
Working in silos always slows things down. It is imperative that new initiatives are shared inclusively across all departments so that everyone can provide responsive and agile support.
Next up: Part 2: Devising a Digital Transformation of Your Agency That Intersects with the Changing Technology
At Premier Data Services (PDS) we offer packaged business capabilities as building blocks to compose differentiating initiatives to provide our title agents with agility, innovation and reduced time to market for all their initiatives. Contact us today to learn more!