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How has technology affected how you spend
your time and focus?
It’s the best time in history to be a CIO.

With digitalization affecting every industry, the role of the
CIO is changing from a delivery executive to a business
executive–from controlling costs and improving pro-
cesses, to exploiting data and driving revenue.

An increasing amount of my time and focus is spent on
identifying how Morguard can best achieve our desired
outcomes. So now we are asking, what are the business
capabilities, talent, technology platforms and ecosys-
tems that will be required to get us there? These discus-
sions culminate in a strategic roadmap that has buy-in
from the executive team and is aligned to our business
goals.

What are the technology trends you see
affecting your business the most?
This is a unique time historically, because a number of
disruptive technologies will have a significant impact on
where and how we live, work, and play. 2) Retail - We’re in the middle of a major evolution in
retail. As a result of consumers’ changing needs and
The key trend that I see is Real Estate companies are expectations, traditional retail centers must be trans-
going to make better and faster (including real-time) deci- formed into destinations that provide more experiential
sions. This is only feasible through investments in tech- offerings; so combine shopping with restaurants, enter-
nology platforms, analytics and the right talent. These tainment and a wider range of services in new ways.
key pieces would dovetail with technologies such as Again, this is where you can leverage the technology plat-
in-memory computing (IMC), RPA, machine learning (ML) form, analytics and talent to understand these customer
and artificial intelligence (AI), to help companies use data expectations and rapidly respond to them.
to improve deals and investments, mitigate risk, better
understand customers and their needs, and open up new And this extends to the other asset types–Multi-Suite
profitable possibilities. Residential, Hotels, Industrial and so on.

Since we own or manage a number of the major asset What advice would you offer other CIOs?
classes, I can provide some examples of where this I believe that we are starting to reach a tipping point
exploitation of data to drive revenue would be applicable: where you can stitch several disruptive technologies
together and the usefulness of this integrated solution
1) Office - A few years ago, a ‘smart’ connected building is starting to exceed the friction of using the individual
that was energy efficient and constructed using sustain- components.
able materials was seen as a unique project. Today, that
same building is a necessity because tenants and their The advice that I would have is to become the leader to
employees will settle for nothing less. Therefore to stay increase digital literacy for the business; be the influencer
competitive, you now need to have a building that is flex- on how to leverage these technologies and marry this with
ible enough to accommodate what’s next—and your data the cultural change that the organization is trying to drive;
will help you understand the changing expectations of your to co-lead transformation to differentiate your business
customers so you can anticipate and meet their needs. and help the business win.

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