Google Cloud Platform Case Studies 99.co: Enhancing Property Search Experience and Scaling Regionally with Google Cloud

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	99.co: Enhancing Property Search Experience and Scaling Regionally with Google Cloud Google Cloud Platform

99.co: Enhancing Property Search Experience and Scaling Regionally with Google Cloud

Google Cloud Platform

Technology Category	Analytics & Modeling - Computer Vision Software Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries	Buildings Cement
Applicable Functions	Maintenance Procurement
Use Cases	Construction Management Time Sensitive Networking
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services System Integration
Challenge	99.co Group, a property technology business operating in Singapore and Indonesia, was faced with the challenge of improving the property search experience for its 20 million monthly active users. The company wanted to redesign the user experience in the renting and buying journey through powerful search, layered with non-transactional data dimensions such as travel time, point of interest, and other attributes. The company also wanted to differentiate itself by classifying listings based on their quality rather than the conventional 'pay-to-list' model. Another challenge was the need to revamp the infrastructure when the group acquired Rumah123 in Indonesia. The original technology stack was hosted from servers in Australia, which affected the platform's performance. The company also aimed to attract a strong talent pool of engineers and scale up its operations to keep up with the fast-growing number of daily users. Read More
About Customer	99.co Group is a property technology business founded in 2014, operating in Singapore and Indonesia. The company aims to help people discover homes that suit their lifestyle needs and aspirations by improving the property search experience using technology. It strives to make the process more reliable, easy, and trustworthy for its customers. The company differentiates itself by staying away from the conventional 'pay-to-list' model, whereby brokers can pay to get more visibility for their properties. Instead, listings on 99.co are classified based on their quality. The company has 20 million monthly active users and is focused on growing its talent pool of skilled engineers, specifically DevOps and infrastructure engineers. Read More
Solution	99.co turned to Google Cloud to enhance its user experience and expand into new markets. The company moved the consumer-facing side of the workload to Google Cloud, to be hosted locally in Indonesia, reducing latency in load time by 50%. The company also used managed databases to attract engineers, as it takes away the need for maintenance, allowing them more time to experiment and innovate new features. To scale up its operations, 99.co moved to BigQuery, which democratized the way employees access data, allowing different engineers to run the data they need in parallel. BigQuery also acted as the organization’s go-to managed database service, with the load managed by Cloud SQL. The company also used Vision AI to automatically categorize the photos taken by agents directly on its platform, saving time for agents. Lastly, the 99.co team started experimenting with Cloud Build to speed up its internal processes to accommodate the fast-growing business. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Computer Vision Software

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms

Applicable Industries

Buildings

Cement

Applicable Functions

Maintenance

Procurement

Use Cases

Construction Management

Time Sensitive Networking

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

System Integration

Challenge

99.co Group, a property technology business operating in Singapore and Indonesia, was faced with the challenge of improving the property search experience for its 20 million monthly active users. The company wanted to redesign the user experience in the renting and buying journey through powerful search, layered with non-transactional data dimensions such as travel time, point of interest, and other attributes. The company also wanted to differentiate itself by classifying listings based on their quality rather than the conventional 'pay-to-list' model. Another challenge was the need to revamp the infrastructure when the group acquired Rumah123 in Indonesia. The original technology stack was hosted from servers in Australia, which affected the platform's performance. The company also aimed to attract a strong talent pool of engineers and scale up its operations to keep up with the fast-growing number of daily users.

About Customer

99.co Group is a property technology business founded in 2014, operating in Singapore and Indonesia. The company aims to help people discover homes that suit their lifestyle needs and aspirations by improving the property search experience using technology. It strives to make the process more reliable, easy, and trustworthy for its customers. The company differentiates itself by staying away from the conventional 'pay-to-list' model, whereby brokers can pay to get more visibility for their properties. Instead, listings on 99.co are classified based on their quality. The company has 20 million monthly active users and is focused on growing its talent pool of skilled engineers, specifically DevOps and infrastructure engineers.

Solution

99.co turned to Google Cloud to enhance its user experience and expand into new markets. The company moved the consumer-facing side of the workload to Google Cloud, to be hosted locally in Indonesia, reducing latency in load time by 50%. The company also used managed databases to attract engineers, as it takes away the need for maintenance, allowing them more time to experiment and innovate new features. To scale up its operations, 99.co moved to BigQuery, which democratized the way employees access data, allowing different engineers to run the data they need in parallel. BigQuery also acted as the organization’s go-to managed database service, with the load managed by Cloud SQL. The company also used Vision AI to automatically categorize the photos taken by agents directly on its platform, saving time for agents. Lastly, the 99.co team started experimenting with Cloud Build to speed up its internal processes to accommodate the fast-growing business.

Impact #1	The use of Google Cloud has significantly improved the user experience on 99.co's platform. The company has been able to redesign the user experience in the renting and buying journey, making the process smoother, faster, and more pleasant. The move to local hosting in Indonesia has improved the performance of the platform, making it more reliable for its users. The use of managed databases has made the jobs of engineers more exciting, allowing them more time to experiment and innovate new features. The move to BigQuery has democratized data access within the company, resulting in faster business decisions. The use of Vision AI has automated the process of categorizing photos, saving time for agents. Lastly, the use of Cloud Build has sped up internal processes, allowing the company to accommodate its fast-growing business.

Impact #1

The use of Google Cloud has significantly improved the user experience on 99.co's platform. The company has been able to redesign the user experience in the renting and buying journey, making the process smoother, faster, and more pleasant. The move to local hosting in Indonesia has improved the performance of the platform, making it more reliable for its users. The use of managed databases has made the jobs of engineers more exciting, allowing them more time to experiment and innovate new features. The move to BigQuery has democratized data access within the company, resulting in faster business decisions. The use of Vision AI has automated the process of categorizing photos, saving time for agents. Lastly, the use of Cloud Build has sped up internal processes, allowing the company to accommodate its fast-growing business.

Benefit #1	Reduced image categorization time from five minutes to 30 seconds with Vision AI
Benefit #2	Reduced latency in load time by 50% by moving to local hosting in Indonesia
Benefit #3	Reduced gateway report by 50% with Cloud Build

Benefit #1

Reduced image categorization time from five minutes to 30 seconds with Vision AI

Benefit #2

Reduced latency in load time by 50% by moving to local hosting in Indonesia

Benefit #3

Reduced gateway report by 50% with Cloud Build

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Overview

99.co: Enhancing Property Search Experience and Scaling Regionally with Google Cloud

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit