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Put Technology to Work in Your Business, Perot Tells Builders

“Look at the challenges home builders have,” Perot said. “This industry is consolidating. The challenge will be what do you do next? As you continue to grow, how will you take advantage of technology?”

Perot’s solution — integrate, integrate, integrate.

Perot Systems provides technology-based business solutions to the government, the healthcare industry and commercial firms including the construction industry. Clients include KB Homes, Centex, Ryland Homes, Pulte and other builders and developers.

Perot told builders, particularly high production builders, to integrate their back office with all their business processes to make sure every part of the business — from sales and marketing to billing, supplies and payroll ― are all part of the same system. Doing so will provide better insight into their business operations, enable building industry owners to make better-informed decisions and increase efficiency. “There’s lots of money to be made by integrating your back office.”

Perot then told attendees to integrate their companies “with the rest of the world.” Use technology and the Internet to speed up information sharing with the vendors, cities, towns and county governments and other organizations — “all the different partners you work with,” Perot emphasized.

The other area ripe for applying technology is customer service. Use technology to “get to know your clients better” and to keep in touch with them, Perot said. “Use the Internet for customers. Put systems in place that allow the feel and touch that customers want.”

For example, Perot is wiring all the homes in the Heritage residential community he is developing with a fiber optic network. Heritage is part of AllianceTexas, a 15,000 acre mixed-use development near Dallas. A state-of-the-art intranet will connect homes, schools, local businesses and community facilities to the rest of AllianceTexas and each home will be wired for high-speed Internet access.

In addition to Perot Systems, Perot is also the chairman of the Hillwood Development Corporation, a real estate and investment firm that is developing mixed-use, residential and commercial properties in Texas and California, including AllianceTexas; Victory, a 70-acre development in downtown Dallas; and AllianceCalifornia in San Bernardino.

Perot also told the builders to use e-mail to keep communications open with their customers. “Everybody has e-mail,” Perot said, adding that his employees and clients all have his e-mail address and can contact him about anything.

“How many home owners can reach the president of the company?” he admonished, adding that department, division and corporate heads should use e-mail and Internet-based surveys to contact home owners “to find out exactly what they like about your houses.”

The first question he would ask, he said, was, “Why did they pick you.”

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