Rapid growth in business opportunities, inflow of foreign investment into the sector, and the entry of second-generation owners or managers into companies are largely the reasons behind the real-estate industry adopting IT solutions, say industry watchers.

Using IT is linked to the opening up of foreign direct investment in the real-estate market, says Rahul Chawla, Chief Executive, In4velocity Systems, a provider of IT solutions to the real-estate sector. Most of the new developers funded by private equity or real-estate funds use IT, he adds.

The spread of IT could be attributed to the second-generation owners or managers in a company, says Rajesh Ponnan, SBU Head, Construction Solutions, Sobha Renaissance Information Technology Private Ltd. They have more exposure, are aware of technology and rely on technology to a great extent, he points out.

However, the use of complete end-to-end solutions is still fairly recent. Chawla says it is a three-four-year-old phenomenon. In4velocity introduced its product in 2005. Initially the response was slow, but in the last two years, things have begun to change. At present the company gets about seven to ten enquiries a week, he says.

Earlier, different departments in a company would independently decide on the software they would use, but now enterprise resource planning (ERP) has become popular, says Ponnan. He says the industry has moved from fragmented software to consolidated ERP solutions, though it involves a substantial cost escalation.