By Scott Barrows, CEO, Symbioticks
The secondary ticket market has entered its most competitive
period in history. An increased number of brokers are listing more inventory
than ever on the ticketing networks and primary sellers are aiming to capture
secondary market profits via variable pricing.
It is clearly essential for brokers to embrace the tools that are
available in order to maximize efficiency, reduce overhead, and increase their
chances of success.
Automation is the key component to increasing the efficiency
and cost effectiveness of a broker’s operation and thankfully third party
vendors have brought automation tools to the secondary market. These
tools were previously enjoyed by large brokerages that invested large sums into
in-house development teams and enjoyed a competitive advantage over “the little
guys”. Auto holds, auto processing,
auto ticket download, auto pricing, and auto PO creation have arrived and new iterations and
improvements are being released to the broker public on a constant basis by a
growing number of independent development companies.
When deciding which technologies are worth investing in, it
is important for a broker to have a firm grasp on their current operating
expenses. Questions worth knowing the answers to include “How much of your
monthly overhead costs go to processing orders?”, “How much would additional
profit would you gain if your net returns went up 1%?”, “How many man hours are
consumed by pricing? PO entering?”, and
“What is preventing our company from growing?
Or being more efficient?” Knowing
your operations from both a human and analytical basis is crucial when
considering investments in an automation tool.
$10,000 might seem too costly, until you frame it in the context of your
current cost structure, it may very well be that a $10,000 investment creates $30,000
per year in overhead cost savings.
Three individuals that are at the forefront of this
revolution are Sam Sherman of Broker Genius, Billy Becher of 24/7 Broker, and Dominic
Laico of Autoprocessor.com. All three
are continuously developing new automated software solutions for the broker
community. When asked, all three
expressed similar views regarding the present and future of automation in our
industry.
Sam Sherman of Broker Genius believes one key to the
continued success of automation development are competitors working together to
create more efficiency and to ultimately build better products for sellers. Dominic Laico of Autoprocessor.com believes
that adoptions of formal APIs by the POS providers and exchanges will help
create more stable products for everyone. Billy Becher of 24/7 Broker also feels that
opening up APIs will be critical for the industry to evolve. He also feels strongly that the exchanges need
to continue to work together with developers to achieve true real-time systems.
When asked about their vision of what is to come, both Laico
and Becher stated end-to-end automated solutions that encompass all aspects of
an order's life cycle are what they see next. Whatever the future does end up
providing, there is no question that there is an abundance of valuable tools
available today for brokers to utilize and maximize their efficiency.
To learn more and stay up to date on all available
technologies and tools in the secondary market, you can go to http://www.symbioticks.com for a free
membership. There are currently 50 industry specific tools ranging from
automation, marketing, exchanges, POS, credit card fraud protection, and more
to learn about. In addition with your free Symbioticks membership you will also
be notified of any new technology release, along with exclusive free trials and
pricing.
