inhouse #1 Dec-Feb 2017

TRUE
LEADERS
2017
Nigel Dalton
CIO of REA Group
N
igel Dalton, CIO of REA and all-round tech wizard
has been at the forefront of technical innovation
for over 25 years. With a professional background
in social science, Nigel has incorporated his adoration for
machines into his unrivalled enthusiasm as a people person.
This marriage between technology and people and in
particular, customer experience, is a skill that lends itself to
enormous opportunity in the global market. With emerging
technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, there
is a rapidly closing window to avoid digital disruption in
the real estate industry and ride the wave of changing
technology into revolution.
In order to weather this change, Nigel has incorporated his
own holistic working philosophy consisting of what he calls:
These are all underlying drivers causing new technology
to take root beyond simple engineering trends. Nigel
considers them to be the three human truths in terms of
impact in the real estate industry.
Time has a number of dimensions in an agent’s life. “We
are constantly running out of time to service an increasingly
demanding consumer”, he says. The rise of social media
and instant messaging creates an environment whereupon
the consumer expects an immediate response. In practical
terms, this puts pressure on us to be constantly available at
all times of the day which, in reality, is not always possible.
“Time is the one commodity that cannot be manufactured,”
he says. “Much of the innovation we have been working
on in the industry is focused simply on that: giving people
more time”.
“the three T’s: Time, trust and transparency,”
“Time is the most precious commodity
in the digital world today.”
The consumers have their own time constraints, whether
that be buying, selling or renting. Renters, for example,
must navigate the pressures of property inspections on a
Wednesday afternoon coupled perhaps with taking time
out of work, in addition to juggling a handful of children.
Even after they somehow perform a miracle and bring
everything into alignment and make the viewing, they may
yet fi nd the home entirely unsuitable. This is where trust
and transparency become important.
We live in an age where consumers are data-hungry, where
colossal volumes of information are at our disposal in just
one click. We can research information about properties
and neighbourhoods instantaneously. This puts an
enormous amount of pressure on agents. They cannot be
expected to compete with this level of data accessibility on
a physical level.
Notably, the emergence of social media has given rise
to a renaissance where word of mouth has scale. People
are starting to trust other people, friends and their
networks more than known brands. They are looking for
recommendations, they are not believing everything that
they see and read.
We have been gifted technology that can enhance
our productivity, ability and relationships with our
consumers astronomically, but this double edged sword
is unforgiving, and unless we seek ways to evolve we
will simply be left behind.
Make Dreams Happen 11