By Melissa Kress

The following is excerpted from the September 2001 issue of Multi-Housing News. For a complete text of the article, visit www.multi-housingnews.com.

Cleveland—Arranging meetings, coordinating schedules and reaching an available expert in your firm’s systems department are hard to do when all the employees are in the same building. The tasks are compounded when those employees are spread out in offices across the country; but what happens when those offices not only span U.S. time zones but international time zones?

Management Reports International (MRI) is one firm dealing with bringing its e-business global.

MRI, a Cleveland- based property management solution provider, originally offered those solutions through use of a mainframe computer in 1971. When PCs came on the scene, MRI bought a company with property management software and enhanced it. The pattern followed with the emergence of Windows and it countered by developing Windows software. Now, clients can use the Internet to dial in and run an application through MRI’s main server in Cleveland – regardless of location, according to Mark Royle, vice president of international operations.

“We’ve got all four lines of business running (Mainframe, DOS, Windows, and ASP), with the majority of our clients using the stand- alone Windows product, “ he adds.

Although it originally did business with clients only in the United States, in the later 1990s MRI officials realized the software functionality developed for the U.S. market could be brought to the international scene, according to Royle. As a result, the firm entered the market in London, Singapore, Johannesburg, South Africa and Sydney, Australia.

“We picked those markets because they are all English- speaking and our software is in English,” Royle explains. “It made sense to bring (the software) to English- speaking markets.”

Since MRI began making inroads in the international market, it has received requests for its software in other languages, including French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. It is currently adapting the product for Japanese- speaking markets. According to Royle, this process has required MRI to double- byte its product, for example, enable the software to recognize characters used in Asian languages, he adds.

This effort is under way and expected to be completed this month.

So far, the expansion overseas seems to be working. Growth varies in each overseas market; for example, Royle observes, while Europe is MRI’s largest foreign operation the company is seeing the highest growth in this year in Asia. “Singapore took a little time to ramp up because in the Asian community nobody wants to be first,” he explains. “But once we had the first client then more followed. Asia is having a bang- up year.”

Royle also points out that MRI is pleased with all of its offices and that performance is meeting- or exceeding- expectations in all markets.

“Europe is our bread and butter. It has the most clients and the biggest staff but this year Asia is experiencing the highest growth,” he adds.

But MRI is not stopping here. It is looking to expand into other geographic areas and recently opened an office in Hong Kong and can now move into other Japanese- speaking markets because of double- byte technology. Across the globe in Europe, due to the close proximity of other countries, expansion is expected into Belgium, France, Luxembourg, and Spain.

Royle does concede, however, that e- businesses face challenges entering the international market.

First firms need to manage clients’ expectations of the product, it’s features and functionality. “There are nuances to each market so there is a need to adapt the product for those nuances,” he contends. “From a clients perspective it seems like a simple change, but actually a lot of work is involved.”

Also, e-business officials need to understand the specifics of each market, which requires communication and coordination and getting the right people in the offices that understand real estate and the product, Royle explains. “Try to hire local people,” he advises. “They work well with the clients because they are the same nationality as the clients; they speak the language, and understand the local customs and business practices.”

Another challenge MRI faced was bringing those employees in overseas markets up to speed on the product. The company has training programs in place; however, since MRI is based in Cleveland an employee in a remote office cannot “just walk down the hall” to find a solution to a problem- which sometimes results in 2 a.m. phone calls, Royle says.

As for finding clients overseas, Royle reports that MRI’s first goal is to work with existing clients who are multinational. As they expand their operations overseas, they ask MRI to adapt its software to accommodate their global portfolio, he explains. Using their existing clients as a base, the company then looks to secure locally- based clients in each new area. “They help us to understand the issues (abroad),” Royle says.

However, even with the challenges e-businesses encounter, the basics are all similar. “Although the markets are different internationally than domestically, the business approach is the same,” Royle explains. “For example, some markets may be more advanced and some may still be working with Excel spreadsheets but we see this beginning to change with the infusion of money from outside owners and investors.”