New software leaves nowhere for weak brokers to hide

Microsoft-Aussie portal can track individual loan writers down to the number of appointments they’re making

New software leaves nowhere for weak brokers to hide
Microsoft-Aussie portal can track individual loan writers down to the number of appointments they’re making 

Brokers will be looking over their shoulders, as a new IT system launched by Aussie allows tracking and unprecedented insights into how they run their business.

The new broker portal, based on Microsoft’s Power BI software, can track the metrics of entire businesses down to individual loan writers, recording not only their settlement totals but also conversion rates and even the number of appointments they make.  

Presently 160 brokers are on the portal, including mobile brokers; the number will increase to 400 in December.

Aussie believes that these statistics will help uncover and share best practice amongst its brokers. General manager of customer Richard Burns told MPA “we’re using the data already to improve quality”, explaining that Aussie support team can give customised advice, for example when a brokerage has a particularly low conversion rate.  

The portal also allows comparison between broker businesses: in one screenshot MPA saw, a number of brokerages in Victoria were compared on a simple bar graph. Burns said that the technology can help brokers compare between more relevant peer groups, such as brokers with similar experience levels. 

No more servers 

Whilst Aussie’s work with Microsoft allows unprecedented control for Aussie’s head office, it also offers benefits to brokers. 

Aussie is now storing company and, increasingly, customer data on Microsoft’s cloud-based OneDrive. This means brokers can upload documents on the go and these can instantly be accessed by support staff in the office. 

Burns estimates training takes half a day to a day: “we don’t want big training courses; we haven’t done any workshops with them.”  

Furthermore, as head of technology David Pritchard notes, “costs go down because they don’t need servers, they just need a good computer. It’s commodity equipment really. The barriers to entry for a potential franchisee have really gone down.”

Aussie will allow brokers to use their own computers and mobile phones, albeit with certain standards and limits in place. 

Security concerns

Storing confidential broker and client details on a cloud-based system carries potential security concerns, but Aussie says these are being managed.

“We’re the custodians of making sure data is secured but it’s the users do what they need to do,” explained Burns, who said that training is provided to brokers on how to safely use and share documents. 

Being able to upload customer documents means that brokers will no longer need to email documents back to the office, a practice which carries its own security concerns.