Product details

Since 1995, Centaline''s business had evolved from being a pure provider of estate brokerage services, to a combined provider of both estate brokerage services and timely property information to prospective customers. Although the company had been successful in pioneering the concept of disseminating information to customers through the Internet free-of-charge since 1998, it was now facing fierce competition from other local real estate agencies. Centaline''s main market competitor Midland Realty Ltd, for example, started providing similar services to customers with the extensive use of IT, and vertical portal Propertystreet.net recently introduced a one-stop property shop incorporating information provided from various real estate agencies in Hong Kong. This case explores Web-based business strategies and issues. It allows for a discussion of how the WWW changes the nature of ''reach, richness and affiliation'' and how that affects the balance of power between industry players and buyers. This case demonstrates that while new concepts enrich our understanding of e-business, the same types of tools and analyses that work in traditional businesses are still applicable and effective.