Business Focus is a weekly column providing at-a-glance
statistics and commentary on spending priorities and trends in
particular sectors. This week we look at the real estate
industry.
Estate agents and commercial property developers are showing an
appetite for IT spending slightly above the average for all UK
industries.
While the industry has its roots in small, local agencies, the
trend over the past 10 years for consolidated national chains,
together with mortgage and financial services companies entering
the market, has seen an increased sophistication in the use of
IT.
This trend has combined with improved availability and usability
of customer relationship management systems. CRM applications can
be connected with online gazetteer services offered by the Land
Registry and other mapping services.
Smaller real estate firms spend about a third of the amount that
larger organisations invest in IT.
SMEs’ spend was, on average, £3,616 per seat compared to £8,695
per seat in larger organisations.
The analysis is based on Computer Weekly's badabase of more
than 60,000 IT budget holders, twice yearly user IT expenditure
surveys, CBI/Kew senior executive surveys, government surveys,
government demographic data, HM Treasury economic forecasts and
Cambridge Econometrics industry sector forecasts.
Further details:
www.kewassociates.co.uk