HMS Homes — SME Case Study (UAE)

HMS Homes is a Dubai based, well-known and award winning real estate organization that focuses on offering every customer with excellent service. The company believes that the market of real estate and services operating within the Emirates requires further improvements. Primarily, almost every developer, tenant, landlord, seller, and buyer within the Emirates has had a terrible experience when dealing with companies or agents in the real estate industry. Most customers often face similar issues in regards to lack of contact as well as customer service (Joghee, Alzoubi & Dubey, 2020).

In this regard, the company in question focuses on two factors, improving the care that the customer receives and offering high qualified agents. The company thus believes that excellent and transparent services for every customer are important and HMS Homes has focused on this since it was founded in 2014.

HMS Homes Mission and Vision Statement Almost every developer, tenant, landlord, seller, or buyer within the Emirate of Dubai has had a bad experience when communicating with real estate agents. Most customers tend to face similar issues such as a lack of customer service or insufficient contact. HMS Homes wishes to focus on these factors in order to offer their customers a unique focus on customer service as well as qualified agents. In certain situations, property selling is not an easy task and thus, HMS Homes attempts to make sure that every party is treated in a fair manner whilst making the process of selling or buying property as simple as possible. HMS Homes attempts to offer its customers with honest advice from qualified professionals combined with continued updates and communication regarding new properties. All in all, the company’s focus is that of offering exceptional services.

Organizational Structure

Managing Director Sales Manager Executive Consultant Executive Consultant Senior Property Consultant Administrator Graphic Designer & Videographer Company Driver Property Consultant Property Consultant Property Consultant Property Consultant Property Consultant Property Consultant Property Consultant Property Consultant Property Consultant Property Consultant Property Consultant Property Consultant Figure 21: HMS Homes Organization Structure Figure 21 shows that HMS Homes has two managing directors in charge of it, with Devin Hipkin and Tom Moon taking these positions. Below is the sales manager, who is in charge of managing the company’s sales including transactions, speaking with customers, procuring customers, and so on. Apart from the sales manager are the senior property consultant, administration, the company driver, and the company graphic designer & videographer. The company’s two executive consultants are each in charge of a number of individual property consultants, all of whom are sent out to conduct sales for the company and involve speaking with customers, informing them of the company, providing customers with guidance and consultations as need be, and so on.

Leadership The company’s main directors are Devin Hipkin and Tom Moon. Hipkin acts as the company’s downtown specialist managing director who, after years of experience, attempted to establish his company in Dubai to further the nation’s situation as well as offer his international expertise to a new market. By expanding to the Emirati market and providing his experience to this developing industry, Hipkin works hard to provide his UAE clients with the best possible services within the market itself and has been recognized, on several occasions, as being a property consulting leader. Conversely, Moon is the company’s Palm Jumeirah specialist managing director and also has a story similar to Hipkin. As one of the leading employees in the company behind Hipkin, Moon is a specialist with well over seven years of experience as a Dubai-based agent who is able to establish long-term relations with tenants, landlords, sellers, and buyers alike, thereby providing the company with returning customers and a continued inflow of referrals.

HMS Homes treats its employees as if they are family.

Essentially, the company maintains an open door policy and ensures that its directors sit without any closed doors, so as to allow for an atmosphere of honesty and openness. This helps the company reduce the gap between its employees and directors with ambience and lighting impacting this particularly well as the company has a director who is able to continually play harmonious tunes thereby positively inspiring and motivating its employees. The company’s office is situated in Barsha Heights’ iRise Tower. In spite of the pandemic taking place and its impact, the company has been able to maintain its operations without fail and the need to change its structure. Rather the company has adjusted to government enforced guidelines and has been successful in maintaining its business thus far.

¡ Procurement of Sale and Lease of Real Estate o Intended for clients who are interested in selling or renting their real estate o Increased possibility of selling or renting real estate results from the existence and wide database of client demand, widespread internet advertising of real estate and networks ¡ Procurement of Purchase and Lease of Real Estate o Intended for clients who are interested in purchasing or renting real estate, either by selecting from the company’s current offer or by including it in the database of inquiring clients in order to find real estate according to specific ideas and wishes of the client.

¡ Concluding Purchase and Lease Agreements o Intended for clients who sell, rent or buy real estate from the company’s offer and also for clients who are interested only in writing a purchase or lease agreement for their property.

o It is a complete service with a legal guarantee, including ensuring a deposit in the real estate market.

¡ Real Estate Appraisals o Intended for clients who are interested in preparing a real estate appraisal, as well as an estimate of the market price of buildings or the elaboration of an analysis of the sale of real estate, which involves the evaluation of the prices of recent sales of real estate comparable in nature, size and location.

¡ Consulting o Designed for clients who have any questions about the real estate market.

The strategy of the real estate agency is to build a good reputation in Dubai, as well as gain a 10% market share within five years. The company wants to achieve this with the help of a reference business. It approaches each client with the maximum individual approach focused on satisfying their needs. It tries to get a reference from each client, which makes it easier to get new orders at minimal cost. To expand its real estate database, it is necessary to establish long-term cooperation with development companies operating in the regional market. The company does not use the company’s marketing or the presentation of individual brokers due to high costs. The company does not directly buy real estate, it only mediates their sale. The company has not established any cooperation with a regional or national real estate network.

¡ Increase market share ¡ Improve reputation ¡ Focus on individual client needs ¡ Become a regional leader

The company is based primarily on communication via the Internet. For normal work, the company uses computers with MS Office 2003 with Windows XP Home Edition. This is a big drawback, considering that version 2019 is already on the market. Then unnecessary file compatibility issues arise when a customer or another person communicating with a company sends different files via email. The company also uses printers and scanners in order to transfer physical copies to digital ones. When it comes to communication within the company, the company has a simple system, mobile phones are used alongside online communication means a la email.

¡ Relies on Internet ¡ Has not updated software in a long time ¡ Continually transfers hard copies to soft copies ¡ Uses email and mobile phones for in-company communication

The company has limited resources for marketing the company. It is necessary to take advantage of all opportunities at minimal cost. Marketing is based on the presentation of the company and the services offered and individual brokers and their specialization. One of the main channels of the company’s presentation is the sales billboard.

In addition to the sales billboard, the company also uses social media marketing. However, the company does not make sufficient use of the potential of its database.

It is necessary for it to keep a detailed database of clients, take advantage of various occasions such as anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, the approaching end of the lease, the deadline for filing real estate tax to reiterate and establish a deeper relationship with the client. The company can also introduce a real estate magazine in electronic form, which contains current news from the real estate market to draw attention to legislative changes concerning the real estate market and interesting offers for sale or rent.

It is also necessary to take care of employee satisfaction in the company. Although it is a small business, there are currently a handful of employees who have been associated with the company for several years. It does show that the employees are satisfied, especially if we take into account the friendly relations between the owner and the employees. But that doesn’t mean more can’t be done. There is no evaluation system in terms of performance. It is true that both parties can communicate about the problems, but I would suggest the owner take his own initiative, in the sense that once a month, or once every six weeks, the owner would ask the employees what suits them and what does not.

Such feedback and suggestions would also be directly related to the evaluation of their work performance. I recommend evaluating this depending on the ability to operatively solve unexpected situations, take into account references from customers, and so on.

Depending on these factors, it should then adjust the financial bonuses at the end of the year and at the same time use this system of personal evaluation as an incentive element, because employees cannot be motivated to leave the planned route as quickly as possible (Muhamed & Moosafintavida, 2019).

Recommendation/Analysis The company was still in a profitable relationship and it is still so today. The business owner relies on non- credit financing. Therefore, the company is not a debtor and is sufficiently liquid. Payment morale is very good and liabilities are paid on time or at maturity. On the other hand, the owner is bothered by long maturities of receivables and very often receivables are paid only after the maturity period, thus creating a long list of debtors who have not paid the receivable (Al Hosani & Jabeen, 2019), even a year after maturity. This is associated with the problem of debt collection, which the company secures itself. It seems like the company will suffer from the fact that it does not have an optimally balanced ratio of equity and debt capital in its ownership structure so that it is spent as efficiently as possible. Thus, it is important for the company to move away from excessive debts and rely more so on revenue income. In order to send offers, it will be necessary to create a sample email, in which the company can communicate its existence as well as its offerings to potential customers. Currently, the company does not practice email marketing and instead focuses only on traditional marketing such as billboard marketing as well as social media marketing. Thus, the company should attempt to diversify its overall marketing efforts and continually improve according to current momentum (Zeineddine, 2017). On this basis, good customer- agent relationships can be built, based on trust and quality, which leads to a better price. Additionally, hiring employees is only solved by a personal interview, which is not very professional. However, it is a great responsibility to accept an agent who will push the company forward. Therefore, I recommend that the company focuses on testing its new hires, thereby being able to evaluate the type of individuals it is hiring.

These professional experience tests would show how the candidate is doing with the knowledge he or she should have and allow the company to evaluate their current position as a professional. Through its simple organizational structure, the company does not have a complex information system which suits the owner, but is hampered by outdated office equipment and obsolete versions of individual programs, which it uses for its business activities. This situation undoubtedly needs to be remedied, especially given that the main activity - procurement - is done through these technologies and the Internet. The it is recommended that the company

either update or buy the following

¡ Modern Work Computers: The current ones that the company uses are slow and although they have undergone repairs and cleaning, their performance is simply no longer enough to ensure the smooth operation of the Internet connection.

¡ Modern Work Laptops: As a business that needs to constantly communicate with customers, it should offer its employees the ability to contact customers at any point and reply at any point in time or space (Mohamed, Elkaftangui & Farouk, 2017).

¡ A Customer Database: As a company focused on customer relations, HMS Homes needs to save the information that its customers offer and establish a repository that can be used to continually contact customers and further its relations with them. By asking customers for this information, such as email addresses, phone numbers, names, and so on, the company can safely gather such information, maintain it in-house or through cloud services, and thus utilize it to continually contact customers and help them achieve their goals.

Through the current work, I learned

¡ How real estate businesses function ¡ The type of marketing most suitable for such businesses ¡ That real estate businesses have to communicate and offer continued feedback in order to further their relationship with customers ¡ That the customer company relationship is not only critical to the functioning of a real estate company, but that it is vital

In conclusion, HMS Homes is a highly successful SME within the Emirate of Dubai. It is one that is operated by foreign nationals and has continued to function in a successful customer-oriented manner, thereby furthering the market of real estate itself and pushing the boundaries for what is possible for a real estate company. However, through the years, the company has faced a number of issues and thus needs to improve on these and adjust to modern standards in order to remain successful in an ever-evolving market. The current case study was able to help me learn a tremendous amount about businesses such as HMS Homes, and the number of elements that they need to focus on through their operations as well as the things that such businesses need to utilize in order to perform their business successfully.

Additionally, as a successful business with less than 30 employees, HMS Homes should focus on expanding its overall range of experts, thereby employing individuals with more modern capabilities such as social media marketing, SEO marketing, and so on in order to reach a broader range of customers. Given that the company has not updated its in-house software in a long time, it should focus on improving its information technology infrastructure by employing technicians who are able to utilize and procure such software and hardware at affordable prices.