For years, it’s felt like the title industry has resisted new technology. Given the thin margins and production-dependent nature of the business, it’s understandable. Most of the technology available to help agents with manual or simple processes has come as part of off-the-shelf packages reserved for global production systems. Attacking some of the simple but time-consuming and cost inefficient processes with a simple, limited-function app or technology was rarely an option (unless the agency had found a hack or workaround). So the option was, in essence, kill a fly with a sledgehammer by purchasing a major technology (with the cost and operational interruption of a lengthy implementation and training period), or keep having a staffer manually drag and drop (if you’re lucky) or keystroke any number of functions.
Our own Jimmy Lewis and Sridhar Loganathan weighed in on this dilemma in ALTA’s TitleNews Online recently. (Membership Required) If you have access, have a look! As we’ve said before and will continue to say, RPA technology (bots) could easily provide a cost-effective, easily implemented solution for any number of tasks. For an industry that prefers an a la carte approach to outsourcing services or tech investments, it makes a lot of sense. The fact that the market is changing, labor is getting harder to come by and service expectations are only rising certainly makes it worth investigating.
We welcome your feedback. Drop us a line at jimmy@truefocusnow.com or sridhar@truefocusnow.com.