Keller Williams harnesses Oracle Cloud ERP to help franchise owners thrive

Amid a rollercoaster ride of regulatory and market changes over the last two decades, Keller Williams, the world’s largest real estate franchise, was “so focused on growth and serving our franchisees that we weren’t taking care of ourselves,” says Tamara Hurwitz, KW’s vice president of tech ops and innovation.

KW’s finance team was working with a highly customized on-premises financial management system while also relying on spreadsheets and email approvals for activities such as budgeting and reporting. Those mostly manual processes and the data silos they created made timely, informed financial decision-making almost impossible. Something as simple as running an up-to-the-minute financial report for an executive could take team members hours.

“They’d drop what they were doing and nothing else would get done until the report was generated,” Hurwitz says.

After evaluating a number of alternative systems, with the help of partner Accelalpha, KW consolidated its core financial management processes onto Oracle Cloud Financials, part of the Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) suite of applications, on January 1, 2024. Finance staff quickly experienced increased efficiencies by automating manual processes, such as invoice approvals and expense management.

“We can do everything faster and easier”

In June 2024, KW implemented Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence, along with Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management (EPM).

After running its legacy spreadsheet-based monthly planning in parallel with Oracle Cloud EPM Planning for the first few months, KW used the new application exclusively for the first time in September without disruption. It will also be used for the next cycle of annual planning, eliminating the months-long process for reconciling and consolidating budgets using spreadsheets and email approvals. With each monthly iteration, finance staff are shaving time off the account reconciliation and close processes using Oracle Cloud EPM Financial Consolidation and Close and Account Reconciliation.

With data silos eliminated, it’s easier for finance staff to access financial data across all Oracle Cloud ERP and EPM sources to create ad hoc reports. Overall, KW’s automation of reporting, integration of data sources, and use of Oracle Smart View for Office has reduced the company’s financial reporting time by 90%, Hurwitz estimates. “Now with Oracle, we can do everything faster and easier,” she says.

Boosting success for franchise owners and affiliated agents

KW has also launched a self-service portal, connected to Oracle Cloud ERP using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure integration services, that helps franchisees and affiliated agents update information such as bank accounts online, eliminating the need to call into support and have a services coordinator make the changes. The portal has reduced data entry errors, saved considerable time for support staff, and provided an audit trail of what changes were made, when, and by whom, Hurwitz says.

KW has just begun to explore how to take advantage of the AI and machine learning capabilities within the Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence platform. Hurwitz foresees a day when the firm’s external-facing ecommerce platform will be integrated with its new finance applications.

“Before, we would use outside sources for information relating to the industry and the economy to make decisions based on what we thought was going to happen,” she says. “Now, we can combine that external information with a lot more internal information to gain actionable intelligence that will help us make data-driven decisions for guiding the business.”

For example, when KW’s KSCORE initiative, a program through which individuals can obtain their real estate license at no cost to them, is integrated with Oracle Cloud ERP, the firm will be able to determine whether an individual taking a specific class or curriculum directly translates to increased sales for their franchisees. Consequently, KW could recommend those classes. “It’s not only going to make us smarter,” Hurwitz says, “but it’s also going to make our franchisees and affiliated agents more successful.”

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