Some of today's best advocacy for data standards comes from the real estate sector. This is a great headline from The Real Daily: “Brokers and agents are losing time, money by sitting back and waiting on data standards to change”. Elsewhere in the article Matt Cohen says: “Data is a valuable asset, and one that brokers and agents are letting fall to the ground to spoil... [B]rokers and agents aren’t getting the value out of their data because that data sits in individual product silos when available at all, inaccessible as data to others. Why? Because brokers and agents haven’t done the work – or applied the pressure on software vendors to do the work – to create and adopt data standards.”
Cohen goes on to cite specific examples where the absence of standards is failing the industry. The new RESO standards need more support from agents and brokers. I know real estate is a different business than insurance, but at a high level there are similarities. Both industries have brokers and agents. In both sectors, you find a highly dispersed community of smaller businesses interacting with large companies. Cost containment and efficiency are absolute must-haves. And the internet has disrupted both industries in complex ways that are both positive and negative.
Getting standards implemented takes work. The ACORD community has invested many, many person-years in achieving the high rates of adoption we see today. Players in the real estate world can take inspiration from ACORD's success. In insurance, brokers, agents, carriers, and vendors have learned to collaborate on standards – so they can collaborate in growing the business for everyone.
Comments