Global real estate software provider MRI Software has acquired customer relationship management platform Box+Dice, in a move that will enable agencies to look after clients throughout their entire property journey.
It’s MRI Software’s fourth acquisition in the Asia Pacific region in the past two years, after gaining Australia’s Rockend in August 2019 and New Zealand’s Palace and WhosOnLocation earlier this year.
MRI Software Managing Director and Senior Vice President (Asia Pacific) David Bowie said the acquisition was “very exciting” and enabled the software provider to offer clients a holistic suite of platforms and solutions across sales and property management.
“We’ve obviously been very strong in the property management space for some time, but when you combine that with a best of breed CRM solution, it really does start to be quite a unique offering for agencies in the region,” he said.
“It really starts to bring up a single customer view to how an agency can look at a customer across their lifecycle, through their property journeys.”
Box+Dice won the Established Supplier PropTech of the Year award at the PropTech Awards earlier this year, and Mr Bowie said the platform not only enabled agents to list properties and manage buyer relationships, but provided a centralised view where agency owners could measure performance and KPIs.
“When you start to combine that with property management, I think that the future is the ability to manage a person through their property journey where they go from being a tenant to hopefully an owner, a seller or a landlord,” he said.
“You can spend dozens and dozens of years in the property lifecycle, so the insights you start to get around the habits people have and the decisions they’re making allow a more valuable conversation.
“Real estate agents today already do a great job of managing relationships, but having a more holistic view of the individual opens up new opportunities for insights and actions.”
Mr Bowie said agencies could use such insights to plan for the future.
“It means agency leaders are now empowered to make decisions that drive profitability and revenue for their entire business, while agents can know, anticipate and better serve the needs of a person throughout their property lifetime in one unified solution,” he said.
Box+Dice Founder and Chief Executive Officer Travis Williams said he was proud of what the platform had achieved over the past 15 years and pleased the innovative CRM would now be more accessible worldwide.
“Our customers and team will benefit from MRI’s national and global resources and open and connected platform approach to PropTech,” he said.
Mr Bowie said MRI Software prioritised not just meeting their clients’ needs, but their clients’ clients’ needs in the PropTech space.
He said they did that in three different ways; they build it themselves, they acquire companies that meet that need, or they partner with organisations to bring that innovation to the market.
In June, MRI Software announced a partnership with Propic to bring conversational artificial intelligence (AI) to their clients.
“We have an open and connected philosophy,” Mr Bowie said.
“Propic is a great example of why we don’t need to build it or buy it to bring it to market.
“Propic is an awesome example of bringing analysis, insights and artificial intelligence into data and decision-making.”
To help keep their finger on the pulse of what clients’ needs are, Mr Bowie said MRI Software had established a client advisory board.
He said it to create valuable tech solutions, you first had to understand the problem from the clients’ perspective.
“Technology is ultimately an enabler of a business outcome,” he said.
“Cool tech means nothing if it doesn’t bring increased revenue, more efficiency and better productivity.
“It’s really important to understand what that endgame is and to bring innovation to bear to solve it.”
