Why Competition Matters: Kent Waltman on Innovation, Choice & Rockport’s Role in CRE Tech
About this video
In this video, Kent Waltman, Chief Administrative Officer, discusses why innovation in CRE technology depends on competition and what happens when one provider dominates the market.
Kent shares how Rockport VAL entered a space traditionally led by a single player, not to disrupt for the sake of it, but because the industry needed another option. He speaks to the risk of stagnation in a market with limited choice and how Rockport’s presence pushes all providers, Rockport included, to stay relevant, evolve, and better serve their clients.
Learn why Rockport believes innovation isn’t optional, it’s essential, and how that belief shapes the way we build, deliver, and grow our platform.
Video transcript
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If you want to remain relevant in our market, you must continue to innovate. Your product must remain relevant. It remains relevant through innovation. And so, competition benefits our customers because it does drive that innovation. You're getting into the software business when you choose to own a piece of enterprise mission critical software. If you don't continue to keep that fresh, you are going to impact your core business. I don't believe it's healthy for any market to be dominated by one single player.
It inhibits innovation. It inhibits optionality and the market itself can become captive to a given provider. Whereas competition, you've got multiple options. Everybody involved must put their best foot forward and innovate and remain relevant for their client base. As I watched VAL emerge initially, I was impressed by number one the courage of the company to get into this particular space, the DCF space because you do have a dominant market player. And so, the fact that Rick Trepp, who's a known quantity in the industry, elected to get in that space, it's an attention getter, right?
You take notice of it. And I began to watch the marketing and how the company was approaching the market in that regard. And I was impressed with the fact that they understood intuitively that competition was good for this marketplace. They didn't shy away from acknowledging the dominance of one player and the nature of the task that they were taking on in the marketplace. They understood it full well, but they forged ahead anyway because they also understood that it was needed in our marketplace, the competition yields innovation and that that competition was welcomed here.
We're a true SaaS platform that due to competitive forces must continue to evolve and innovate. And I think at its core, that will benefit the marketplace in terms of having an option that is relevant, fresh, continues to evolve the feature set that is critical to our customers. And that's how competition forces innovation in the marketplace from our perspective in technology especially.
Posted by Rockport Editorial Team
