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My main responsibility is to strategically
align every technology investment to
the business by improving processes,

heightening cybersecurity and/or
increasing NOI. This starts with what I
believe is one of the best technology
teams in real estate.

What technology, automation or innovation trends do
you see having the most impact on the industry over the
next three years and why?
The amount of money invested in technology applications
SmartPark Command Center for real estate is not sustainable and it seems like it’s get-
ting close to the tipping point of some consolidation and/
customer service, security, property management, or creative destruction. We predict this will happen over
and marketing, has clearly resulted in a win (cost), win the next three years. 2018 saw around $9 billion invested
(convenience), win (speed). in technologies related to real estate. There will be some
winners and losers related to this and the challenge
Also, in 2018, we continued to push for higher yield for any CIO is picking the right horse to win the race.
on technology initiatives rolled-out in prior years. Realcomm provides a great platform to figure this out.
We relentlessly sought ways to refine processes
to benefit Highwoods. We found opportunities
for meaningful enhancements in Nexus Payables,
Building Engines, SnapPay for online rent payments
and MRI for development feasibility. One specific
example is redesigning our stacking plans to offer
greater functionality and making more building-related
information accessible to coworkers via our intranet site.

What are your highest priority technology initiatives in
2019 and what are the drivers behind them?
We plan to convert five more urban garages to the
SmartPark platform in 2019. This will certainly continue
to enhance the customer experience and increase NOI.
Another plan is to leverage the Microsoft Power BI tools
started in 2018 for advanced analytics. Microsoft contin-
ues to invest heavily in the BI tools and the out-of-the-box Highwoods Technology Leadership Team
functionality is impressive. Another high priority project
is replacing the system currently used with Salesforce by Blockchain, AI, IoT, and other automations are innovative,
Ascendix for contact management and marketing auto- but have not seen large scale adoption yet; full functionality
mation. This has great promise to centralize all customer is seemingly just a few years off. The 2018 Gartner Hype
(aka tenant) contacts in one location. Cycle listed Smart Workplace as an emerging technology.
This is the first time we’ve seen anything real estate-related
For operations, we are outsourcing our data center to a on the Gartner radar! We do see the promise of the true
co-location facility and moving the Cisco phone system ‘intelligent’ or ‘smart’ building finally having something
to hosted voice to prepare for our office relocation in beyond version 1.0; particularly in our office build-to-suit
2020. We are planning to eliminate as many desk phones projects, which will only develop further over the next three
as possible in the new office by offering associates the years. Real estate is still ripe for automation. It lags behind
option to work via cell phone. other industries, but we are catching up.

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