business strategy

So you’re thinking about starting a Letting Agency?

Back again with another business blog, and today I am going to recall some of my global strategic management knowledge to help break down the different letting agent strategies. Starting a Letting Agency involves a good bit planning and strategy. If you know anything of business strategies, you will have heard of Michael Porter, a leading opinion leader on business strategy and lecturer at the professor at Harvard Business school.

Image: Michel Porter’s Generic Strategies for Letting Agents

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A popular approach that he believes for any company to take is the generic focus strategy. And what this means is you are either going to try and be the best on the market or you are going to try to be the cheapest (See Image above). On both occasions you are looking to work towards one thing, a competitive advantage in the industry, for the purpose of this blog we are going to discuss the lettings and management industry.

So what I decided to do to show you a quick example of two different letting agents with two opposite strategies is jump on Google and see whats on offer with agents in Ireland. Within a few minutes, I stumbled upon two agents advertising with VERY different approaches, one taking the low-cost strategy and one offering a premium and differentiated service to landlords for lettings.

Agency 1 – Mannix Ryan Estate Agents

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Letting agency Strategy Case Study 1

This agency stuck out to me in particular because of their claim to be the only agency doing what they do. This is a clear attempt at gaining a competitive advantage due to their superiority and different offering, compared to every other agent in Ireland. Even comparing their website and the social media tags below the text to others, I have seen that it is clear that this service is based around quality and not price, in fact there is no mention of how much it costs. So the value proposition to the landlord is on innovation through the use of video. Now we look at another agent offering the same service but differently.

Letting agency strategy Case Study 2

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Now we look at the low-cost letting agent. As you can see from this advertisement, that I came across on Daft.ie , everything about the company and the brand screams low-cost. This is in stark contrast to above where the product offering was describing in detail the excellent service and differentiated marketing ability they offer. A great example of one the biggest companies in the world who has gained and sustained a competitive advantage in their market, based around choosing a focus strategy on costs is Ryanair. On the flip side, a company who has developed a sustainable competitive advantage based on differentiation and innovation/quality is Apple, who charge big bucks for their products.

So there you have some basic business strategy examples for starting a letting agency. I guess I wanted to find out what agents are doing at the moment and how effective are they finding their business strategy in terms of increasing their landlords, tenants, properties and revenues. Is one strategy better in the other, can we find a balance between the two?

I’d love to hear your thoughts, or if you have any questions, do get in touch!

by Rentview

The following may be of interest:

Letting agent marketing strategy

Why use Youtube for marketing

Rent management software

Back again to discuss the process of software adaption for Letting agents and planning its incorporation into the organisation. Some clients I have dealt with over the previous months have found it difficult in getting up and running with the use of Rentview property management software and this series of blogs will look to guide agencies on there planning and integration of software solutions such as the cloud based property management system we offer. Firstly i want to point out the illustration below which shows different levels of IT focus and planning in organisations, these survey results are taken from Gabriele Piccoli.

What this illustration shows is that a strong focus on the use of IT and software programs and long term planning is essential to achieving a competitive differentiation in your market, whether you are a Letting Agent or a large Multi national company, the opportunity is there. They have classified IT into three stages supplier, aligned with business and competitive differentiation. If you think about some of the most successful companies in Ireland such as Tesco or closer to the property industry Daft.ie we can see how their use of IT and software has allowed them to differentiate themselves. Who is to say that you cant allow software to take a pivotal role in your agencies strategy and long term goals.

Before I get into the planning process (the next blog) which will help you understand and establish the role you want IT or software to play in your organisation its important to note some of the main reasons or benefits of creating the plan.

#1- Unity of Purpose, businesses achieve their best results through planning with a clear strategy/goals in place. The deployment of software can allow people to take responsibility with different roles specified to staff members. Using Rentview as the example you may request different property managers to partake in different tasks, one may be responsible for managing the schedule and statements to mark money coming in and out while someone else may be responsible for uploading all let only clients onto the software to market your management package etc

#2 Simplifying decision over time, without a plan in place on the use of software in the company there is no context then for future decision making. Any potential project selections being made as part of a yearly budget process will then have little sense of overall direction or meaning.

Information systems planning for letting agents part two

by Rentview

Tag: business strategy

Starting a Letting Agency – Letting agency business strategy

So you’re thinking about starting a Letting Agency?

Letting agency Strategy Case Study 1

Letting agency strategy Case Study 2

Information Systems Planning for Letting Agents Part One