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Tech Perspective @ The EDGE

AARON PAIS, CIO, MORGUARD parties; (d) a Control structure with rigorous change con-
trol and approval gates that kept scope changes in check;
Aaron Pais is CIO at Morguard, a fully inte- (e) a Robust Change Management and Communications
grated real estate company with an owned plan, which got everyone onboard right from the start and
and managed portfolio of total assets val- included a training program to ensure that employees could
ued at $21.7 billion. His diverse leadership get the best out of the new system; (f) a Comprehensive
experience includes leveraging technology readiness plan that ensured that the business was ready to
to drive organizational growth, performance and profit- adopt the new system prior to go-live; and (g) a post go-live
ability at some of North America’s largest fully integrated Hypercare period where ‘super users’ were integrated into
residential and commercial real estate investment, devel- the support structure to ensure that the changes were thor-
opment, construction and asset/portfolio management oughly adopted by our staff.
companies.
I was subsequently asked to take on the CIO role at
Tell us about your technology journey at Morguard. Morguard and I am currently more than halfway through
I was brought in at the start of 2017 to manage the a complete Service Delivery Transformation of the
execution of an ERP implementation program; it was groups under my umbrella. This exercise began with the
a strategically critical, highly visible initiative and the development of a Target Operating model and aligned
largest transformation ever undertaken at the com- organizational structure to ensure that we could deliver
pany. It was successful and we were recognized by our services both efficiently and effectively. With the Roles &
industry at Realcomm with a Digie Award for Best Use Responsibilities defined, a transformation roadmap was
of Automation, as one of the largest companies to ever then crafted to transition our employees into the new tar-
get structure. As part of this transformation, Operational
Technology (OT) systems was also added to my port-
folio. This includes property level technologies such as
Base Building Networks, Building Automation Systems,
Cameras, Access Control, Traffic Counters, Digital Meters,
and more.

Tell us a bit more about this process
and your priorities for 2018.
Following the ERP implementation and the Service
Delivery Transformation, our objective is to continue
standardizing on platforms that optimize operations and
customer experience. The drivers are to maximize cost
effectiveness, enable quicker decision making, enhance
our organizational agility and improve business out-
comes.

We have initiated an Asset Inventory and categorization
achieve a cross-border, full suite Yardi implementation exercise. This exercise will be completed by our con-
of commercial and multi-suite residential modules in the verged IT-OT team in psartnership with volunteers from
same environment. our Operations groups. The goals of this exercise are to
identify opportunities to reduce operating costs and bud-
The success of the program can be tied to (a) a Strong geted capital expenditures through vendor and solution
Executive Sponsor that actively worked to remove road- consolidation, and the development of “fit for purpose”
blocks; (b) the Agile Program Office that kept multiple work- product mixes across our asset classes. The savings
stream teams and vendors focused on our goal via weekly generated from this exercise will subsequently be re-in-
dashboards and risk review meetings; (c) Effective gover- vested to drive innovative solutions for the business and
nance, with clearly identified roles and responsibilities for all enhance customer experience.

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