Google Apps and Smartsheet support an evolution in real estate

Editor’s Note: Guest blogger, Brent Frei, is the founder of Smartsheet.com, an online project management from the Google Apps Marketplace. His post explores the technology trends in the real estate industry, highlighting several firms who have moved their businesses to Google Apps and deployed Smartsheet.

Google Apps and the Real Estate Industry

A growing number of real estate firms manage their businesses with Smartsheet - for project management, buy & sell coordination, deal management and so on. We spent some time talking with our real estate customers to better understand how and why they use Smartsheet. Several themes emerged consistently, regardless of whether the customers were individual users or international enterprise teams. Most notably, the majority are Google Apps users, and Smartsheet's integration with Apps is key to their overall success.

Here are several of the companies we surveyed across a range of real estate services.

• NetGeneration is a combination real estate brokerage and financial planning service company.
• Agent Evolution is a web design and social media agency helping agents to engage via digital media.
• Encore Development Properties and Encore Realty are firms that buy, develop, and sell properties.

These firms have several things in common:

1. They deal with a wide range of stakeholders: Real estate companies are diverse collaborations between sellers, buyers, agents, title, insurance, mortgage, brokers, contractors, inspectors, escrow agents, and many others. Finding tools that work well for the company and will be readily adopted by external collaborators is often nearly impossible.
2. They use spreadsheets and email as their primary tools - Email and spreadsheets are the only commonly adopted tools amongst all the stakeholders. Emails get reliable responses, and spreadsheets are familiar and effective - both are available from anywhere in Google Apps.
3. They want more specialized tools to be pre-integrated with Google Apps - The specialty tools that work best alongside Gmail have had the highest adoption rates. Project management is one of the highest priority specialty applications.

Google Apps and Smartsheet are a perfect combination
Smartsheet’s spreadsheet-like layout and tight integration with Gmail and Google Docs have made it a successful project management tool where other tools have failed in the real estate vertical. Users who are logged into Gmail are automatically logged into Smartsheet, and existing spreadsheets can be imported “as is” into Smartsheet where those sheets gain the ability to attach files and Google Docs as well as threaded discussions to any row. Updates to discrete parts of a sheet can be managed through email by stakeholders who have not had the entire sheet shared with them.

All the project management automation is embedded in the tools that the stakeholders will use - without training. You can read the full case studies on Smartsheet’s blog, but here are a few choice excerpts:

“We have 10 full time employees, each collaborating with dozens of stakeholders,” reported NetGeneration co-founder Brian Davis. He found himself with an unmanageable portfolio of specialty solutions, few of which were integrated. “We tried multiple project and task management solutions but none were adopted as part of the daily work flow. Emails and traditional spreadsheets became the default....”

“Moving over to Google Apps was pivotal moment for us,” says Chad Johnson, president and COO of Agent Evolution. “We wanted to do everything under one umbrella. With Google Apps we had our business suite set and Google Apps Marketplace gave us partner solutions that were already integrated, like Smartsheet for online project management.”

“Google Apps and Smartsheet are easy to use right out of the gate,” says John Stilwell, President and Founder of Encore Development Properties and Realty. “Our members can jump in and use the tools right away. By using Google Apps and Gmail it enables us to have everything in one place. It makes a complex and sophisticated process streamlined and efficient and gives us a great selling tool for prospective investors and clients. It shows them that we are professional and have the capabilities to track our business.”

Conclusion
The real estate business has a plethora of stakeholders and moving parts. That doesn’t mean the software tools need to be equally complex. Google Apps and Smartsheet are a combination that works simply and effectively the way people do for a wide range of operational needs in real estate.

To learn more about how customers use Smartsheet with Google Apps and other Marketplace apps, come to a live Google webinar featuring Dlink CIO, Michael Walsh.
 
Optimizing Business Processes with the Google Apps Marketplace
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT
Register here

Posted by Harrison Shih, Google Apps Marketplace Team