Real Estate: Building Connections with an SD-WAN Tool
Real estate is a game of complexities, and the industry's built-in distribution has unquestionably complicated its relationship with technology. Keeping an array of connected but separate businesses technologically consistent is challenging, and that's the best-case scenario. If a company can't spend on IT resources and talent, molehills can become mountains faster than you can say "priced to sell." Real estate organizations have increasingly deployed cloud solutions and SD-WAN tools to manage this complexity.
This is where an SD-WAN tool comes in handy for real estate companies. The technology builds hybrid networks among multiple connectivity types, such as MPLS, wireless, and the commercial internet, then optimizes bandwidth usage. This makes it a great tool when distribution, complexity, and a need for scalability are all the norm. That's true whether the business in question has one location or multiple locations.
SD-WAN Tools and Real Estate
Geographic distribution is common in real estate, but keeping all those locations in lockstep isn't always easy or cheap. A combination of inconsistent broadband availability and growing technological needs often keep organizations on leased data lines — commonly referred to as "private circuit" — to ensure all locations have the same access and connectivity. On the other end, a company with fewer resources may connect its locations through a piecemeal collection of tools, such as cloud storage accounts, web-based collaboration software, and email.
SD-WAN technology allows real estate organizations greater networking flexibility. For example, a home office on leased T1 could network with a smattering of locations using commercial broadband and wireless connections as though they all rested on the same loop.
The ability to use multiple connectivity options comes with numerous benefits for real estate companies. The technology searches to find the best possible path for the data it carries, ensuring stellar quality of service for performance-sensitive cloud tools such as video conferencing, even if the data connection itself isn't optimal. Perhaps even better, the technology's ability to hop between networks means locations with failover options won't fall off when their primary networking choices go down.
Efficiency, Savings, and Consistency
SD-WAN is quite adept at bridging the real estate industry's technological gaps. Companies can use it to link individual fronts without overspending on premium network connections. Further, the efficiencies it introduces allow real estate companies to use a growing number of cloud tools without the need for more bandwidth. This could help organizations drop expensive private circuit services, saving them considerable monthly amounts at every location, or let them deploy cloud tools they couldn't previously use due to limited data options.
In an industry where deploying dedicated IT staff at every branch is financially unfeasible, these factors are huge. SD-WAN uses encryption to build links between locations, maintaining privacy for customer financial information and other sensitive data. The technology also gives companies enhanced insight into how data is being used on their networks, which lets them make better decisions regarding the solutions they employ.
Beyond Distribution
A location doesn't need to be connected to a larger organization to achieve SD-WAN benefits. The quality-of-service benefits apply in any office that uses cloud tools.
For example, consider an independent real estate office in a rural location. This company wants to use cloud solutions such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and video conferencing, but a lack of decent broadband connectivity is holding it back. When much of your job revolves around talking, you can't have connectivity problems hampering your phone chats and video conferences.
With its routing and optimization features, then, the right SD-WAN tool could allow this business to move into the future without sacrificing quality. Even if satellite internet is the best this company can get, the technology allows for great quality of service and high availability — benefits that only increase if the company has more than one connectivity option available.
More, that's just one example of the benefits an SD-WAN tool can bring to the individual location. Considering the industry's broad range of technological needs, it's fair to say the tool has something to offer most every organization, from the large, distributed enterprise to the single-location independent seller. If complexity and technical trade-offs are costing your organization money, keeping it from the solutions it desires, or precluding better performance, it's worth a glance on those grounds alone.
Visit Vonage Business to learn how SD-WAN can keep your locations networked — and your communications consistent.
