Top Down Vision at United Properties

Building Online Momentum...  A few weeks ago I had the distinct pleasure of spending the morning at United Properties, a regional full service real estate company based in Minneapolis, MN. United Properties, an ONCOR International member, has about 400 employees.  At the quarterly company update meeting I gave a speech on the convergence of the Internet and commercial real estate.  Later, I spent a few more in-depth hours with their management team.  What impressed me most was the vision disseminated by the CEO, Boyd Stofer.  He is not only implementing more than half a dozen Internet initiatives but is making a big point of celebrating early technology success stories within the company.  For a real estate firm of its size, United Properties is making plenty of the right moves in thinking through how the web can deliver a higher level of client service.

United Properties is piloting projects in its construction, brokerage, research and corporate services divisions.   At their meeting, representative employees gave testimonials on how web-based efforts were making a noticeable difference in the management of their accounts.  For example, space and property availability packages are sent electronically by the broker versus printing paper brochures.  Construction project managers are distributing plans and specifications online to speed the bidding process and save on blueprint and delivery fees.  The corporate services group is utilizing a project management and lease administration system on United Properties' extranet, built by REApplications, to closely orchestrate portfolio activity for clients such as Marquette.

The research department also went the extra mile to post United Properties' market forecast report, "Outlook," as an active web document versus a static PDF file.  Clients can therefore immediately click-through to specific market sections -- Industrial, Office, or Retail for example, without having to scroll down yards of pages to access statistics of interest.  While this is a simple low cost gesture, it makes their Outlook Report substantially more user-friendly.   Another small but notable detail is the way United Properties features employment opportunities on their web site.  Full-page position descriptions and requirements are posted, as well as an online application, instead of a single-line job listing.  Success on the Internet is not necessarily dependent upon a million dollar IT investment.  Sometimes it’s the impact of a multitude of smaller endeavors that can make the competitive difference.

-- Eileen Circo