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What are your highest priority technology initiatives?
As technology matures, there is a lot we can do to improve
the quality of our services. Over the next two years, we’re
developing a corporate-wide facility management system.
This involves all teams, from property management to
project and development. The main driver for us is IoT and Stanley Plaza, Stanley, Hong Kong
mobile technologies, which have made it more feasible
to track an asset’s life cycle, to record maintenance work particularly in Hong Kong, as homes are small and people
details and other intelligence involving the assets. This not prefer to go out and meet friends. We have been doing
only allows for better preventive maintenance, but also pilots involving these new technologies to enhance the
better quality of the overall facilities and planning. shopping experience in our properties.

Another priority relates to data analytics. Different depart- Another trend is how technology creates a seamless
ments have accumulated considerable data over the experience for customers. We are facilitating how people
years, residing in different systems. We have now devel- pay for merchandise and parking. For example, in Asia
oped a comprehensive analytics platform to consolidate you often need to pay for parking after visiting a shopping
data, which we make available to our research team as center, and you need to redeem your shopping receipt for
well as analysts in different departments. We have also free parking. But with an app, you can be recognized as a
had some early success with artificial intelligence (AI) and member at the gate and skip those extra steps. The app
big data analytics that we applied to our car park data to aligns the process with transactions so you are automati-
optimize the utilization of parking spaces and increase cally charged or offered free parking. To the customer, the
revenue. We will continue to focus on analytics to better convenience is an important value proposition. As a shop-
understand our customers and optimize our operations. ping mall owner, we have to understand customer behav-
ior, which will enable us to improve our service offerings
We’ve also put much effort into cyber and data security. over time.
Our management team is focused on this topic because
the number of devices that we are responsible for has Do you have any advice to share with other CIOs who
increased in magnitude. Link is a member of the Smart are trying to include better and more valuable technol-
City Consortium in Hong Kong; and I’m the chairman of the ogy for their companies?
Consortium committee. We are putting together best prac- One experience to share would be the value of working with
tice guidelines as well as technical guidelines that should startups. The business culture in Hong Kong is different
improve industry performance, and perhaps influence our than in the U.S. Here, big corporates such as Link can have
vendors to strengthen security protection for these devices. stringent procurement requirements and rules that discour-
age us from working with small vendors. Two years ago,
What are some of the major trends affecting your indus- we started an initiative to work with startups as part of our
try over the next three years? sustainability program. By giving opportunities to startups,
The major industry trends in the near term are virtual we can help them and the community grow. However, as
reality, augmented reality and AI. These technologies we engaged with these companies, we realized that Link
really excite us. The way people use shopping centers also benefited a lot: by inspiring our team, encouraging us
is changing, which is good for us and our business. In to think out of the box and helping us see what is achiev-
Mainland China we call it the “new retail phenomenon.” able with technology. We even organized our own PropTech
In Hong Kong we call it “experiential shopping.” With the accelerator program last year with Hong Kong Science and
rise of e-commerce, people can shop without going to a Technology Parks Corporation and received very good feed-
shopping center. Thus, visiting a shopping center is more back. It is indeed a win-win situation for large enterprises to
about enjoying the time spent in a social gathering place, work with innovative entrepreneurs.

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