Developers Turn to Industry-Specific Software to Run Complex Projects [ By Ron Derven ] Developers, owners and investors are turning to industry-specific software to get the right answers fast and to improve productivity throughout their organizations. Nick Tienkhamsaly, sales director, BudgeTrac Systems, Bellevue, Washington sees a renewed interest in software and technology as real estate deals become more complex. BudgeTrac offers integrated construction accounting systems with job costing, contract management, loan draw, lien tracking and more. "One of our main competitors in the market today is Microsoft Excel," he said. "A lot of major companies-huge companies" are still using QuickBooks for accounting and Excel for spreadsheet work. As they get busier and the projects they are working on get larger and more complex, they are discovering that their old ways of doing business are not the most cost-effective. That's why there is renewed interest in the market for such applications as BudgeTrac." Keith Rieders, real estate software industry sales manager, Timberline Software, a Best Software Company, Beaverton, Oregon, said that real estate companies' biggest obstacles are the "silos of information" that they hold. He explained: "We speak with all of the departments at a company, including the estimator, the project manager, the accounting people and the CFO. They each have their own way of doing things - their own silos of information. Our challenge is to show them how our software will handle their function as well or better than before, but at the same time integrating every function in the company." Rieders concurred with others in the software business that there is always resistance to change. "The economy has seen an odd couple of years," he said. "Interest rates are good, which spurs a lot of activity; but there is a fence - it is not pessimism or optimism - just a fence. People are just waiting to see what happens." Frank Gallinelli is founder and president of RealData software, Southport, Connecticut, and author of a new book on real estate investment, titled What Every Real Estate Investor Needs To Know About Cash Flow - and 36 Other Key Financial Measures (McGraw-Hill). He observed that "In general, the real estate industry has been slow to adopt new technology, but the commercial real estate business is the exception to the slow-adopter rule. "Commercial real estate developers and investors live and die by the numbers - the bottom line is the bottom line to them," he went on. "Even when they say it is not about the numbers, it is all about the numbers." For more information RealData: www.realdata.com BudgeTrac: www.budgetrac.com Timberline: www.timberline.com Need to Attend a Meeting? Let Your Keyboard Do the Walking In a business where traveling is part of the job, staying in touch is an absolute necessity. Receiving real-time information changes, company updates and collaboration tools and training have been keystones of success. Today's latest web-based conferencing can help facilitate this communications and information management. CB Richard Ellis (CBRE), for example, has been turning to live, web-based conferencing to dramatically cut the cost of marketing, reduce long-distance business travel and related expenses, build customer communities online, manage internal and external meetings and develop training resources. Not surprisingly, Microsoft offers a solution in this area, called Microsoft Office Live Meeting. It provides businesses like CBRE with communications tools that have demonstrably boosted sales and marketing results. CB Richard Ellis faced the challenge of adding new functionality to more than 139 offices across the country. It also needed to conduct national company meetings, connect different staff groups and coordinate basic local, regional, and aggregate metrics on a monthly basis. The company decided to use Microsoft Office Live Meeting services to deploy Peoplesoft management systems, train staff, share presentations and conference together hundreds of employees with more than 20 or 30 meetings per day. The company has also been able to permanently archive training sessions and group information for future use and reference. After using Microsoft Office Live Meeting, CB Richard Ellis increased operational efficiency, reduced overhead costs, reduced some travel expenses and facilitated transactional activity. Nextel's Wireless Solution for Real Estate Professionals You can improve portfolio management with one phone by using Direct Connect coast-to-coast digital walkie-talkie service from Nextel. According to Nextel, this means that facilities departments can provide instant voice communication across their portfolios from a centralized location. Other benefits include: In an emergency. If something happens to telephone lines during an emergency/disaster, personnel are still able to communicate using the Direct Connect system. GPS-enabled handsets. These handsets save time and money when dispatchers are easily able to locate - and then communicate via voice or data capabilities - the technician closest to a facilities-related problem or emergency. This eliminates guesswork and time in the dispatch process. Barcode and other scanning capabilities. This reduces time and errors in paperwork; now, tenants can easily be charged back for work that is completed over and above their contract. Barcode scanning can authorize access to certain facilities or areas in a facility. Another example: Property managers who must ensure that their security guards are walking a specific route can incorporate a barcode marking and scanning capability along that route. Text messaging and other data capabilities. Preventive maintenance schedules/delivery and materials/parts ordering can be accomplished on-site by technicians, preventing many of the delays and/or errors that can occur in a paper-based system.