We were very interested to hear of a new and potentially disruptive social buying and selling platform this week in Brazil, called ProprietárioDireto.
Property sales have been rising steadily in the emerging economy, and ProprietarioDireto is now connecting buyers and sellers of real estate in a peer-to-peer network that will have a few estate agents concerned. It allows for parties to negotiate directly with one-another, considerably speeding up and potentially simplifying the processes of property purchase. But the platform is ultimately looking to perform more than this. By stressing its social networking aspects, it is further looking to push the potential for business connections among those in the propertied class, for those keen to better exploit their assets.
In various industries we are seeing landscape-changing innovations born far away from more developed markets. Emerging economies are often well-placed to ruthlessly circumvent any legacy structures and processes which can often stifle any progressive business creativity. Analysts at Forrester powerfully stress that no single industry can avoid the continuing and sweeping changes that technology is bringing. That serves as an opportunity, as much as a warning…
