Shopping for title technology is a double edged sword. There are many enticing innovations available for title insurance agencies and you may feel like a kid in a candy store when you attend industry events that feature the newest advancements. And yet, invest in a solution – such as a title production system (TPS) – that doesn’t fit your needs or live up to advertising, and you’ve just created a sunk cost for yourself.
As you make plans for purchasing new technology, dedicate some time to doing your due diligence on the efficacy of the planned investment including identifying your tech needs, evaluating the proposed solution and taking a deep dive on potential risks.
In this article, we are going to examine the steps to evaluating your own internal needs in relation to the new technology.
Identify gaps
Attentive agency owners make it a point to know what is in their tech stack and conduct an inventory with the IT department each year to understand the inner workings and costs.
This is a great place to begin as you evaluate adding a new solution into the mix. An annual evaluation conducted in conjunction with your business plans can help you identify gaps in your technology that – if addressed – could help you more effectively reach your goals for the coming year.
As you are contemplating a new investment, review the following: what problem will it solve; how do potential users of the solution envision it improving their ability to achieve their individual or department objectives; and how will you know if the investment will help meet identified business goals.
Once those fundamental questions are answered satisfactorily, it’s time to consider the cost.
Assess budget constraints
Cost always has to be considered when purchasing new technology, but at the pace technology is changing there is always the possibility that adopting a more sophisticated solution allows you to replace duplicative legacy systems that deliver fewer benefits, thus optimizing your tech stack while eliminating current maintenance costs for existing technology.
If the new solution is an add-on, then you have to take into consideration the return on investment (ROI) when evaluating the cost. A cost-benefit analysis must include initial investment, ongoing maintenance, cost of upgrades and the expense of potential downtime or training as the system gets integrated into the current tech stack as well as into your current workflow.
Determine interoperability
With the growing use of artificial intelligence, it is imperative that any new solution added to your stack includes a capacity for integration that will allow systems to share data and information. Simple plug and play solutions are no longer sufficient.
To compete effectively, title agencies must move into a more seamless tech environment that allows for efficient compilation of the complex information needed to evaluate files for title underwriting as well as construction of the closing package.
This is why it is extremely important to understand exactly how the new solution is going to integrate into your existing system, especially looking at how it will feed information to core technologies across the full range of your departments, from title and escrow to sales and marketing to human resources and accounting.
Up next: What’s behind the curtain? How to take a deep dive into a technology solution to understand the full range of its capabilities, as well as ferreting out what the tech developer may not be telling you.
At VizionX, we understand the pace of technological change in the real estate, lending and title insurance triad, and we are dedicated to developing technology that will help title agents future proof their companies. Our soon-to-be-released TPS , VizionX TitleOS! VizionX will shortly be rolling out what we believe will become the gold standard for title production technology. Contact us for more information!
