Recently, we had a great conversation with a long-term, industry player. She shared how she’s behind – digitally. She was worried that this has impacted her business, or lack thereof. She was very transparent, sharing how tech was outside her wheelhouse but knew that she needed to make a change.
In so many words, she said her business mix shifted because of this. The more lucrative searches were replaced with searches that were more difficult and problematic, or even the opposite, super simple with tiny margins. The bread-and-butter business, in the middle, had dried up. It sounded like she was getting cherry picked.
But why?
There are dynamics to consider…
Title Plants – TPs continue to increase as digitization of records continue to reduce reliance on field work
BPO – business process offshoring is not uncommon and leans into lower labor costs with an offshore workforce. It’s a growing business model with new entrants all the time.
Integrations – If you haven’t you priced these out recently, dev costs start at $30K and upwards to $120K for an API with one of the largest Title Production Software (TPS) Platforms. At NS3, those were real cost$ quoted (ask me about this!). Realistically, who can afford this?
TPS Subscriptions + TPS Marketplaces - In essence, you pay to play, but watch your bottom line. License fees, User fees, Maintenance Fees, Onboarding Fees, Reporting Access Fees, Monthly minimums = It all adds up. Is this practical, economical? Usually there is rekeying and increased manual steps, and it’s back to tiny margins. Maybe a loss when you add it all up.
Companies, even the smallest, can keep from being cherry-picked, but it will take time to ensure strategy clarity. My last blog post, about the 3 Hard Conversations … was designed to help you start with that gut-checking, baseline: Data; AI / Automations; Integrations.
Following the 3 Hard Conversations, I have another suggested exercise. Map out your workflows, define your labor spend along the workflows, and then identify where your greatest error risks exist. Remember, that the more steps in the process, typically equates to more labor, expense, and risk.
Look for platforms that HOLISTICALLY improve that. SILO’d systems won’t help you. Also by signing up for each TPS, that’s a cost structure that will exponentially grow as you grow – this is not sustainable.
My recommendation is to evaluate deeply, who can elevate your business! Find partners that position your business to best use /reuse your data, implement deep automations, and offer an integration-ready platform. Avoid being cherry-picked; rather, rank at the top as preferred vendor. You can only go as fast, efficient, and accurately as your platform allows … invest wisely.
Denise Williams
Real Document Solutions – your trusted technology partner for the title abstract, document retrieval and title industries.
Follow me on LinkedIn. If you have a TechTalk topic you’d like to suggest, please email me at Denise@RDSteam.us Thank you.
Copywrite – Denise Williams – All Rights Reserved.