R.E.M.S. Inc.

I interviewed Miguel Romero; he is the Director of Marketing & Finance at R.E.M.S. Inc. He has been with the company for about 10 years. R.E.M.S. Inc is a property management company that has been a third-generation family owned business for over 50 years and it's located in Lawndale, CA. The clients that they provide service to are single-family, multi-family property owners to collect rents, handle maintenance, and pay bills so that their clients can be worry-free from tenant/vendor problems. They also provide their clients a financial statement that summarizes all the activity done to their property.

R.E.M.S. Inc. has organized their business by their 2 major departments, Maintenance and Accounting Department. The Maintenance department is made up of two people and when a maintenance requests comes in from the tenants via email, after the email is sent to the business owner so she is aware of what is going on and also for the paperwork cannot be lost. The Accounting department is made up of two people also and they give their tenants the option of to pay their rent electronically which avoids rents getting lost in the mail, late rents, avoid 3-day notices to be delivered, and faster collection of funds. Also, the accounting department avoids writing out deposit slips and making trips to the bank. They also sent their clients their financial statements via email to avoid postage charges and paper bulk. R.E.M.S. Inc. has also organized its business be conducting e-business. They began doing e-business about two years ago. Before they began to e-business, their business was somewhat organize it was difficult to keep track of the paperwork that would come in to the office.

At R.E.M.S. Inc, marketing is not a priority at the moment because they don't have the personnel or the resources and/or information to make it their priority. The way that they market their company is by word of mouth and referral from their current clients. The previous marketing strategy that used was mass mailing and cold calls. I think that they use Product Orientation and the reason being is because they provide a service that they think that is best for their company and from their knowledge. By using this orientation their business goes up when the economy and market is up because people bought more and they were able to get a management company. When the economy and market goes down their business does too. They are currently marketing to get 10 units per month. The economy has taken its toll to their business because in three years they were managing 800 units and they went to manage 600 units in 2011. The business that they lost was 5-10% and they also got rid of clients that were a problem which was another 5-10%.

R.E.M.S. Inc. does not have a code of ethics what they provide to their new employees is a handbook of rules and regulations. When I questioned Miguel he wasn't aware as to what a code of ethics