Immonet GmbH Uses New Data Warehouse to Consolidate Real Estate Data, Enable Real-Time Information Access, and Improve Decision-Making
 
 

Immonet GmbH Uses New Data Warehouse to Consolidate Real Estate Data, Enable Real-Time Information Access, and Improve Decision-Making

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Immonet is one of Germany’s leading real estate Web sites. Each month, more than 2.6 million users visit its online portal, which includes 1.14 million real estate listings (source: comScore Media Metrix‘s ranking for “Total Unique Visitors,” July2011). The company’s growth initiative, which began at the end of 2010, resulted in an exponential increase in the data handled by its portal. As a result, Immonet needed the ability to be the first to react to market changes.

To meet this challenge, Immonet worked with Oracle Platinum Partner Information Systems Engineering GmbH (ISE) to implement, in less than six months, Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition Plus On Demand, running on Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2-2.

With the implementation, Immonet established a single repository for storing and processing real estate data, one capable of handling a 350% increase in data while maintaining optimal system performance. In addition, Immonet unified its key performance indicators (KPIs) to enhance financial reporting for more efficient and sound decision-making.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from Immonet GmbH

  • “Oracle Exadata Database Machine is the most highly performing solution on the market. Oracle is the only company that offers a one-stop shop-approach for data warehousing, as it can deliver everything, from hardware and databases, to business intelligence solutions and implementation. This is a clear advantage for Oracle, and we are elated with the results of our data warehouse project.” – Christian Maar, Chief Executive Officer, Immonet GmbH

  • Ensure that Immonet’s IT infrastructure is capable of supporting significant growth in business and real estate listing data while maintaining optimal performance requirements
  • Centralize and consolidate real estate and financial data for efficiency
  • Unify KPIs for business areas—such as the number of contracts, visits, page impressions,  unique users, churn rate, customer life cycle, sales staff efficiency, contract value, and conversion rates—to create real-time reports that assist executive decision-making
  • Replace ad hoc budget controls using Excel and SQL with data warehouse-based, centralized, automated, and accelerated budgetary control
  • Improve agility for capitalizing on real estate market changes and new trends, made difficult with heterogeneous systems and a lack of transparency
  • Create accurate forecasting scenarios that enable the company to prepare for further market reactions
  • Prepare Immonet for future growth, meeting a 100% growth target in 2011

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Established a single repository for Immonet’s real estate data, such as properties for sale or rent, using Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2-2
  • Used Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2-2 to connect with nine relevant source systems—including Oracle Database, customer relationship management systems, and Google Analytics—to effectively manage a data volume that had grown by 350%
  • Reduced IT energy costs by 90% and lowered total cost of ownership for the portal by 75%, due to the consolidated IT environment
  • Gained the ability to access real estate data as much as 100 times faster, enabling the organization to evaluate the data within minutes instead of weeks
  • Leveraged Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition Plus On Demand to acquire the reliable and consistent information that management needs to make more informed decisions, including data on customer lifecycle value, customer segmentation, sales resources, budgetary controls, and budget allocation for online and offline marketing
  • Standardized business information to acquire consistent KPIs for real estate operations, such as customer lifecycle value, churn rate, competition, real estate listings, and agent market shares
  • Improved ability to quickly respond to changes in a dynamic market environment by leveraging real-time financial data, real estate data that reflects current business performance, and expanded reporting capabilities
  • Enabled easily access Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition Plus On Demand through a Web interface to decrease time spent on data analysis and research and increase employee satisfaction
  • Improved generating online offerings, such as regional average market price per real estate object and regional customer demand analysis for real estate agents, by leveraging Oracle Exadata Database Machine’s optimized online transaction processing features
  • Expanded customer segmentation capabilities, which helped to increase sales efficiency
  • Improved analysis of search engine marketing to optimize investment in key words that deliver the best results
  • Worked with Oracle Partner ISE and Oracle Consulting to seamlessly implement the data warehouse environment

Partner

ISE delivered and implemented Immonet’s complete data warehouse solution, based on Exadata hardware. It established the data warehouse infrastructure, developed and implemented the backup recovery system, setup the database and business intelligence server, developed and fine-tuned the business intelligence application, and conducted workshops for end-users and administrators before final project handover to the client.