Managing Disruption

Insights from Yardi Canada

By Joel Nelson on Dec 28, 2017 in News

The spotlight shone on Yardi Canada for much of late November and early December at major industry events in Toronto. The company was the closing roundtable sponsor at the Global Property Market Real Estate Forum and sponsored the Toronto Real Estate Forum’s keynote session.

Yardi Canada was also the top-level Title Sponsor and staffed a booth at PM Expo, the property managers’ exposition portion of The Buildings Show, Canada’s largest event for the design, architecture, construction and real estate communities. Yardi was also the Platinum Sponsor for the Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario (FRPO) 2017 MAC Awards gala, a dinner and awards show that recognized excellence in rental housing advertising, construction and renovations, environmental excellence, customer service and other categories.

Peter Altobelli, vice president of sales and general manager for Yardi Canada, presented at PM Expo’s “Disruptive or Transformational Technology: Understanding the Impacts for Property Managers and Owners” session. Peter began the session by clarifying that disruption may be defined as an outside force that mobilizes technology transformation within an organization. We have seen these types of disruption in the way we access and use data analytics to inform business decisions and the way in which we store information in the cloud. An organization’s ability to transform through technology is the key force in maintaining their competitive stance in the market. “It’s all about changing a mindset and using advanced technology that can perform various business operations in new ways,” he said.  “Disruptive automation technologies can give property managers new insight into leasing, energy management and other operations that improves decision-making.”

Yardi Canada was active in another session at PM Expo as Martin Levkus, regional director for Yardi Energy, Sales, moderated a discussion among three building energy management experts in the “Energy Data Update: Fixing Your Processes to Achieve Better Results” session. The session explored the importance of capturing and using data to better assess and manage energy consumption.

In addition to sharing programs that each panelist has implemented in their respective organizations, they also shared a few success stories of the use of energy management technology. Kit Miles of Triovest Realty Advisors reported on a 35-year-old building in Calgary, Canada, that achieved perfect energy management scores after adopting an automated energy management system.  “Seeing an asset that old score so high goes to show that good data directs you to what to improve. You can address that low-hanging fruit to increase your score,” Miles said.

The session also explored Ontario’s ENERGY STAR® reporting mandate with the feedback that we will see this seep into other provinces in due course and that the inevitability of benchmarking will only result in increased efficiency in the industry’s sustainability efforts.

As with property management innovations, employee engagement and education are the key to success for disruptive energy management systems. Phillip Raffi of Colliers International said, “Our buildings are getting smarter and smarter and you should make sure our operation team is as well. Aside from regular meetings training, there’s no magic sauce. Just create management processes and roll them out to the team.”  Smart building technology that automates reports and other operations have proven to be a huge benefit to Colliers, he added.

Neil Pegram of Morguard continued the theme of using training and education to ease the impact of disruption. “Remember that your staff has managed the building for years. They don’t have to know all the technology, which would be a huge learning curve. All they need is the training to manage the systems you have set in place,” he said.

“Yardi is pleased to continue our legacy as an annual participant and join more than 30,000 attendees.  Martin and I enjoyed sharing our vision of technology’s role in improving how property managers and owners manage their buildings, engage with tenants, and capture and use energy data,” Altobelli said. “We’re also glad to be a part of FRPO’s recognition of individuals and organizations that advance the industry’s high standards for the residential rental housing industry.”