In CRE Tech, who will be the Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple???
Michael Beckerman
Years ago, Google was where you went to search. Facebook was where you went to check up on friends. Amazon was where you bought something. And Apple was a cool products company. Those lines of distinction were very clear back then.
Today, this no longer holds true. It is obvious there are five big tech companies and they all want to be EVERYTHING TO EVERYONE! Read this for reference: Tech’s ‘Frightful 5’ Will Dominate Digital Life for Foreseeable Future
And now Microsoft appears to be trying to join that club for business professionals.
There are many reasons why this seismic trend is happening, and I don’t claim to be enough of an expert to discern why. But this one thing I know for sure...apps no longer are the dominant application they once were.
In the CRE Tech space, I also believe this is where the sector is headed. It’s inevitable and easy to see why.
If you look at the nature of the beast, namely the commercial real estate professional, they are too busy trying to get something done…a lease signed, a building sold, a building designed, a property financed, etc. that they simply don’t have the time or inclination to use multiple tech products or APPs a day in order to facilitate their job more efficiently. It’s just too time consuming and actually inefficient for them. I have been hearing this real feedback from so many of my friends and colleagues in the CRE space. That it’s starting to just become noise…we are at the info and innovative overload point. Too many sites, too many products, just too much and professionals are starting to tune it all out as a result!
And that’s the reality of the CRE tech craze as I see it now. There are simply too many niche sites to all survive and really scale.
But, that also means there is a huge opportunity for several sites to aggregate multiple aspects of the CRE food chain and really stake claim to a dominant market position.
But who will it be? Which sites/companies will win?
I know several are thinking along these lines but I think the ones who execute the best, build out/acquire/merge the most successful solo sites into one uber platform and integrate seamlessly will ultimately be THE Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google, and now maybe even Microsoft of the CRE tech sector.
Curious to see who people think the winners will be but I would keep my eye on these ten...
I think we are about to enter a period of substantial consolidation in the CRE sector and it’s going to be really interesting to see who gets bigger and where the M&A/consolidation might be heading.
It’s inevitable actually.