Businessmodel of RealPage

Customer Segments

RealPage has a niche market business model, with a specialized customer segment. The company targets its offerings at Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS), fee managers, property management companies, regionally-based owner operators, and service providers.

Value Proposition

RealPage offers three primary value propositions: accessibility, convenience, and brand/status.

The company creates accessibility by providing a wide variety of options. Its solutions serve managers and owners of a wide variety of rental property types, including student, military, senior, single-family, and vacation housing. It also offers mixed-use and commercial property management solutions. It is able to provide so many options in part because it has acquired numerous companies since it’s founding. These include AssetEye, NWP Services Corporation, Notivus Multi-Family, Propertyware, eREI, SeniorLiving.Net, MyNewPlace, RentMineOnline, RentSentinel, ActiveBuilding, Kigo, Indatus ICIM, OpsTechnology, and Compliance Depot.

The company offers convenience by making life simpler for customers. It provides an integrated software platform that acts as a single point of access for resident, prospect, and property data. The platform is also an end-to-end offering that enables users to manage almost every process, including pricing, marketing, leasing, screening, purchasing, and accounting.

The company has established a strong brand due to its success. It bills itself as the leading provider of on-demand software solutions for the rental housing industry, with 600 billion transactions conducted annually. It has over three million prospects and 8,000 vendors in its database. It serves more than 12,000 clients from offices in North America, Asia, and Europe. Its customers include nine of the ten largest multi-family property management companies in the U.S., based on number of units managed. Lastly, it has won a number of honors, including the Multi-Housing News Tech Choice Award (2014), the United Way Heroes of Hope Award (2013), and recognition as one of Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 Growing Companies in North America (2012).

Channels

RealPage’s main channel is its direct sales team. The company promotes its offerings through its website, social media pages, trade shows, roadshows, forums, summits, and conferences.

Customer Relationships

RealPage’s customer relationship is primarily of a personal assistance nature. The company assists customers in the following ways:

Support Services – The company provides phone customer service support Monday through Friday.

Training Services – The company offers the following options:

• Learning Management System – RealPage offers customers access to a learning management system called EasyLMS.
• Product Learning Portal – RealPage provides a portal that provides the company’s total catalog of on-demand courseware supporting its products.

• Workshops and Webinars – RealPage offers group training sessions in the form of in-person classes and free webinars. Professional Services – The company maintains the RealPage Professional Services Group (PSG), a team of certified application and industry experts that provides the following consulting services:

• Implementation Planning – Includes guidance on planning and managing the entire implementation process.
• Implementation Process – Includes services ranging from project planning and management to process improvement and system configuration.
• Post-Implementation – Includes services that fine-tune configuration and other business processes. Also provides workshops and custom consulting sessions. Despite this orientation, there is a self-service component. The company maintains a portal for clients through which they can access 3,000 articles, view technical documentation, review a “New User” checklist, receive product alerts, submit ideas for product enhancements, and submit support requests. Its website also provides eBooks, online demos, and informational webinars and webcasts.

Key Activities

RealPage’s business model entails designing and developing its products for customers and delivering related services.

Key Partners

RealPage maintains the RealPage AppPartner Seal program, through which it works with firms that develop solutions compatible with its products (certified for integration of data with them) and provide the offerings to its customers. Specific partners include Affiliated Creditors, BYL Collections, Ideal Collection Services, LeaseHawk, Modern Message, and Nationwide Energy Partners.

RealPage also operates the RealPage Vendor Network, which it describes as the multifamily industry’s largest online customer base, with over 12,000 apartment community listings. The website enables industry service providers to create profiles advertising their businesses. They also have access to Vendor Credentialing, through which it verifies that vendors’ professional licenses,  insurance documents, and business requirements are up-to-date.

Lastly, RealPage maintains the RealPage User Group, a network of customers who provide feedback to the company on desired product enhancements through its website and various events.

Key Resources

RealPage’s main resources are its human resources, who include the engineering employees that design and develop its software, sales employees that promote it, training staff members that provide instruction, consulting employees that offer advice, and customer service employees that provide support. Lastly, it has depended on funding, raising $86.4 million as of September 2011.

Cost Structure

RealPage has a value-driven structure, aiming to provide a premium proposition through significant personal service and frequent service enhancements. Its biggest cost driver is sales/marketing, a fixed cost. Other major drivers are cost of revenues, a variable expense, and product development and administration, both fixed costs.

Revenue Streams

RealPage has three revenue streams:

• On-demand product revenues
• On-premise product revenues
• Professional and other service revenues