In March 2009 Microsoft had a 96% market share of personal computing device sales. By March 2014 that had dropped to 23% – a 73 percentage point drop in market share in just five years.
In an industry so focused on Microsoft it is probable that most property people have not seen the bigger picture here.
A company widely considered to be the head honcho has, despite still making a ton of money, largely become a bit player in the new tech world.
And that matters. Why? Because many of the standard business processes of the property industry are stuck in a mindset that is no longer making the most of what is possible.
owhere is this more apparent than in the mountains of reports that the industry churns out, for internal and external consumption.
Much of the criticism one hears relating to iPads and tablets in general is that “I need a proper computer for that”, but the that normally refers to a spreadsheet or a lengthy, convoluted Word document or presentation. This, though, is to mistake the way we work now for the way we can and will work.
Take that spreadsheet, carefully crafted using a data set captured at a fixed point in time and fed back to the creator by another part of the business. The output is then, most likely, inserted as a series of tables in that monthly report. All of which is outdated.
First, the data should be available in real time to whomever needs it; secondly, the Excel spreadsheet should be replaced by a cloud-based SaaS (software as a service)application; and thirdly, the report should be online and constantly updated as this real-time data changes. The result of all this would be better reports produced in a fraction of the time. And often created just the once. Thereafter, they update themselves.
This sort of process has the potential to create the 10x improvement in productivity we discussed last month.
It also explains why Microsoft (though forever king of the desktop) is moving, with vigour, into cloud-based services available on any device. Office for iOS would not have happened in 2009; now it is an imperative.
These new business processes just reinforce the way mobile is eating the world.
Mobile devices also contain sensors, and these let you understand the world around us (the core of the property industry) and every new sensor represents a new business opportunity.
This is the year of sensors and connected devices, and the physical world has top billing in this environment. We just need to reappraise how we work, where real value can be created and how our toolkit needs to change to make the most of the stunning opportunities out there.
If we do not, it might be one of us that loses 73 percentage points from our market share in five years.
Essential tech for property people: brain food
I am firmly in the camp that agrees with the Oxford Martin study How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?, that 47% of jobs are at risk.
Given the clear pattern in technological development, this seems inevitable. As discussed opposite, the world is changing fast and with consequences. What we do and how we do it will naturally morph as we allow computers to do what they are good at, and focus on how us humans can flourish in partnership with the machines. And flourish we will, with two conditions: first, we must be cognisant of technological developments, and secondly, we must be permanently learning. Well-fed brains are needed to create the jobs that will be destroyed.
And it is technology that can facilitate this feeding. Concurrent with the rise of smartphones and broadband has been the uptake of podcasts and MOOCs (massive open online courses). You can study at many of the world’s greatest universities at no cost. Google “Coursera” or “Udacity” to be amazed at what is available – free. Similarly, podcasts are brilliant for learning. I am an addict of EconTalk by Russ Roberts of Stanford and Exponent with Ben Thompson and James Allworth. One provides in-depth conversations with brilliant economic and business minds and the other gives exceptional insights into the role of technology in society.
The negative attitude towards these types of tools is that they are no substitute for face-to-face learning. But the reality, and the positive appreciation, is that they enable many more people to be much better educated than ever before. And that will be our saviour.
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