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IN THE TRENCHES

Enhanced Services Improve the Retail
Experience…and the Bottom Line

Chris Saah Scott Morey
President Executive Vice President
TecFac
FGeneral Growth Properties
Chris Saah and his eatured in this article is a candid inter-
TecFac team transform view by Chris Saah, President of TecFac,
organizations by how they with Scott Morey, EVP with General
deliver and use technology. Growth Properties, an S&P 500 company
Follow Chris at www. focused exclusively on owning, managing,
twitter.com/chrissaah leasing, and redeveloping high quality retail

properties throughout the United States.

With retail sales a closely watched indicator of consumer confi-

dence, the future of brick and mortar retail and the role of technology NATICK MALL, Natick, MA

in it continues to be a crucial and relevant topic for many. I caught JORDAN CREEK TOWN CENTER
West Des Moines, IA
up with Scott Morey, Executive Vice President at GGP, who shared his

valuable insight about the ways innovation can support and enhance

the retail customer experience. Scott’s professional journey also gives

us a glimpse into the evolving role of the 21st century technology

innovator and how, as technology becomes increasingly ubiquitous,

that role is becoming more embedded in the business.

Chris Saah: How has technology affected your role over time? How
has that changed the way you spend your time?

Scott Morey: My entire career has been focused on real estate
and at times how technology can create real value in real estate
companies. I’m currently responsible for customer experience,
marketing, and technical infrastructure, all functions that are critical
to GGP’s Mission of owning high quality retail properties that
provide an outstanding environment and experience.

I spend my time fairly evenly divided between customer
experience, marketing, and IT. Our CTO tends to focus more on
the infrastructure technology and I concentrate more on the
operational and technical standpoints. We’re focused on how
technology works in the consumer world and how we create a
human and digital platform that makes sense with what we are
doing at the malls. This includes infrastructure like digital screens,
mobile apps and a whole range of things.

Saah: We’ll talk more about that customer experience and the
technology to support it, but first, please start by sharing your
thinking on the state of brick and mortar retailers.

30 Realcomm