Staying competitive in any business has always taken skill, dedication and ingenuity. Today, educated consumers have an abundance of choice, making competition higher than ever. Those coming out on top are the strategic businesses turning to data to boost their competitive advantage in the marketplace. There are thousands of Estate Agents chasing a limited pool of opportunities, but we are seeing that the branches backed by robust tech supporting client insights, are the ones succeeding. To help support agents across the UK that are lacking tech driven insights, we turned to the ultra-competitive world of Formula 1 (F1), to explore how tech, data and automation can accelerate business success and industry transformation.
For decades, F1 teams relied entirely on the high skill of their drivers, engineers and mechanics to get ahead of the competition. In recent years however, the racetrack has been revolutionised by tech, as data rich insights work alongside the drivers and engineers putting cars on the track. To find out how this digital transformation brought F1 into a new era of competitiveness, we spoke to Neil Martin, former Head of Strategy for Ferrari F1, Head of Strategic Operations for Red Bull, and Team Leader for McLaren.
Here, we explore some of the insights shared by Neil about the importance of getting accurate information fast, the benefits and speed that come with efficiency and the advantage of a single view to help make the complex simple and ensure informed decision making.
The data journey of Formula 1
F1 has seen a boom in popularity and is now a major sporting and marketing juggernaut. Historically, the team with the highest budget had an edge over the rest of the grid, but since budget caps of $140 million a year came into force, teams have had to find new ways to get ahead of the competition. Now, data is every team’s greatest weapon.
F1 started using data to improve performance in the late 80s, by attaching a black box data logger on cars to record basic data such as speed, gear and force. These black boxes only held around 10mb of data but signified F1’s first steps towards digital transformation. The reliance on data grew, as it was also used to improve and measure safety, as well as performance.
Data and insights collected by F1 were also extended to everyday road cars, and in the first 20 years of applying new safety guidelines, approximately 80,000 lives were saved. This success proved that data-driven decision making was the way forward, and the reliance on data continues to increase.
Data-powered team performance
While data becomes increasingly invaluable at powering performance, people remain at the heart of business success, and this is as true to the property industry as it is to F1. One of the greatest spectacles in F1 is the pit stop. The pit stop is a clear example of how to optimise team performance and it is only thanks to data that a team of 23 mechanics can undertake 36 processes in under two seconds. Stabilisation teams stop cars wobbling during tyre switchovers, and all team members are assessed to ensure they are operating in the most appropriate position for their physical attributes. Furthermore the process ensures if equipment failures happen the right replacements are on standby to help, without disrupting workflows. The most data-focused teams perform the fastest pit stops, and when milliseconds can be the difference between winning or losing championships, seamless processes have a huge impact on success.
In busy Estate Agency branches, having a well-oiled team and efficient processes is key to success. Instructions cannot be won without the skill and performance of agents, but agents cannot be expected to stay ahead of the competition without the support of robust processes and tech systems. Branches that are using tech to alleviate the pressure on teams by automating time-sucking tasks, can free up their agents to deliver in their roles, and give them the time and space to succeed.
Digital twins to accelerate success
A digital twin is a virtual model of a physical object or system that accurately replicates its performance.
Businesses can create efficiencies by introducing digital twins into daily operations. In the property industry, CRM systems are helping branches to run operations including sending out updates to clients, automating reminders, and cataloguing data. These time-consuming tasks take away from agents’ working weeks – time that could be spent speaking to clients and securing new listings.
In F1, the driver simulator is a digital twin of the racing car. In the past, F1 teams would spend vast resources designing and making car components, before taking them out on track to test over the course of several days with 100+ support crew. Now, thanks to simulators, teams can make ‘virtual’ components and have drivers come into the factory to ‘drive’ the simulator and check the new component works, before testing in a real car – a process that is safer, better for the environment and more cost efficient.
Businesses can trust digital twins to perform at the same level as their teams when it comes to tasks that don’t require people at the heart, but at a faster pace than would ever be possible by people. Any Estate Agency with a time poor team can benefit from the support of a digital twin system such as a CRM.
Gaining competitive advantage
Businesses today are in an analytics race, and those who embrace it now will put themselves on a winning trajectory. The world of F1 demonstrates how digital transformation can take industries into a whole new level of performance. For years the property sector has been calling out for reform, and now technology is catching up with our goals as an industry to help us transform the transaction experience for everyone.
To learn how to take your agencies sales and lettings to the next level, join our iamproperty CRM Reveal on the 3rd of July: https://iamproperty.webinargeek.com/iamproperty-crm-reveal?cst=estasnewsletter
