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Written by: Sarah Megginson

Produced by: David Kulowitch

BIG DATA drives

BIG change

Written by: Sarah Megginson

Produced by: David Kulowitch

BIG DATA drives

BIG change

Opening up the world of big data within its property portfolio has been a game-changer for Charter Hall

T E C H N O L O G Y

A idan Coleman, a business technology executive with more than two decades of diverse international experience, joined Charter Hall in 2014 fresh from a three-year stint delivering technology transformation at Stockland.

Charter Hall came to a realisation around three years ago that it needed to take a more strategic view of technology, and how it could be better utilised to both grow the business and to scale the business, Coleman says.

Property is interesting because its one of those industries that is a bit of a laggard when it comes to technology. IT is certainly a huge

focus for property businesses now and at Charter Hall were in

a really good position. IT has now firmly got a seat at the executive table and weve started to deliver on the strong pipeline of solutions for improved services for our people and customers.

As a property investment and funds management business focused on office, retail, and industrial property sectors, Charter Hall has experienced rapid growth over the last decade, a factor that was contributing to their immature IT strategy of three years ago.

It was Colemans task, as the incoming Chief Technology Officer, to establish a clearer strategy and

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identify opportunities for improvement, putting in place the capabilities underneath to make it happen.

The immediate focus was really to establish the capability within the IT team, based on shifting from what was very much an operations focus. Charter Hall had grown its IT function organically to include a team of really dedicated, talented people who have primarily come out of the project infrastructure space, Coleman explains.

While the team was very proficient in this space, when it came to process improvement, project delivery and applications development we recognised that we needed to bring in new skills and capability to lead the business to achieves its strategic goals.

And while Coleman will admit that there is no end date to the continuous improvement

Key people

Aidan ColemanChief Technology Officer

Aidan is a key member of the executive team at Charter Hall, providing leadership and direction for all strategic & operational technology activities. Aidan is a technology thought leader and implementer who focuses on how process, information and technology-enabled change can contribute directly to sustainable business growth. With over 20 years in IT, the last 5 in Property and funds management, Aidan brings with him great experience in people leadership, strategic planning, program delivery, operations and innovation across a range of other industries including Commercial Software, Retail, Media, FMCG, Management Consulting, Insurance, Banking and Telco. Aidan is also an active participant in the Tech start-up scene in Sydney, Australia and currently Chairs the Advisory Board for a stage 2 start-up NuaMedia, who deliver innovative multi-channel Customer Experience Management solutions to enterprises.

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initiatives that the Group is planning, he is making significant progress. At this months RealComm conference in Silicon Valley, the Australian property funds management group was the only Australian nominee for a prestigious Digie Award.

This nomination reflects the success of our strategy and recognises the depth of the skills and talent of our team and our ability to create a culture of innovation in order to deliver greater efficiency into our business processes.

A three-stage process of change

With a wide range of objectives to tackle, the IT team at Charter Hall has been implementing a three-year transformation program aligned with the business objectives.

Its been a very interesting couple of years. Were about a year-and-a-half into the Enterprise journey and

weve completed our first launch of major projects, which have been quite varied, he says.

These include a range of initiatives to really simplify and streamline how we undertake our financial processes internally. For instance, weve just put in a new solution in terms of how we process tax, financial reconciliation and our transactional banking process.

Charter Hall has also been doing a lot of work in the customer space, developing a customer strategy that is focused on understanding what their customers needs are and turning those needs into great customer experiences.

This has been no small undertaking, with Coleman collaborating with leadership from the property sector and marketing teams internally to develop more user-friendly customer portals, and

T E C H N O L O G Y

www.char terha l l .com.au 7

Workday is a leading provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources. Founded in 2005, Workday delivers financial management and human capital management to more than 1,100 customers ranging from medium-sized businesses to Fortune 50 enterprises. In Australia and New Zealand, customers include Atlassian, CBA, Charter Hall, Diageo, Fletcher Building, HP, Salmat and Thomson Reuters.

Workday is supporting helping transform the roles finance and HR departments play in their organisations and also changing the way people experience their interactions with these business functions.

Workdays enterprise applications are intuitive and simple to use, and allow users to easily collect and use financial and people data so they can make decisions based on up-to-date data.

Workday Human Capital Management helps you organise staff and develop your workforce whether its local or

global. Workday gives you the insight and data to attract, engage and retain employees. Workday automates common HR functions, and helps you know who to hire, identifies where you have talent gaps, and gives insights on how to retain top performers. Workday Human Capital Management answers all your people-related questions.

Workday Financial Management goes beyond the basics of accounting and focuses on speed, agility, cost, and insights. This unified application includes a full range of finance and accounting capabilities, real-time business insights, and fully auditable process management. Workday Financial Management gives the tools and insights to make the decisions that drive your business forward.

Workday is focused on customer satisfaction and has a 98% customer satisfaction rating

Workdays unified finance and HR system will help you transform your business.

Management: Rob Wells, Managing Director, Australia and New Zealand

Website: www.workday.com

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T E C H N O L O G Y

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automate traditional B2B functions, like service request management.

Hes also worked closely with Charter Halls Head of People, Brand and Community, Natalie Devlin, to implement a new HR platform, Workday, which aims to support a broader talent strategy.

We launched Workday in April of this year; it was a big piece of work which focused on enabling a smarter employee experience so we

can better manage and enable talent mobility across the orgnisation. We realised that there was a great opportunity to connect our people and create better efficiency in our systems and processes in HR.

Harnessing Big Data for big results

Charter Hall is redefining its relationship with information technology both within the business

Charter Hall came to a realisation around three years ago that it needed to take a more strategic view of technology, and how it could be better utilised to both grow the business and to scale the business Aidan Coleman, Chief Technology Officer

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and externally. Opening up the world of big data within its property portfolio and at a retail level has been a game-changer, Coleman confirms, particularly in terms of gaining a competitive edge.

Weve been embracing new data-capture technologies across our retail platforms, where were rolling out WiFi, for instance, he explains.

Its great for our shoppers and retailers in the centres, but its also giving us a whole world of data around people: everything from how people enjoy our shopping centres, to how our marketing campaigns are impacting our foot traffic.

Charter Hall has been working with some third parties to integrate that data into areas like basket analysis, so it can gain a greater understanding around not just how people are using the retail centres, but also what they are buying, when, and why.

This is creating huge insights in terms of building strong customer profiles and also in terms of evaluating the competition, Coleman says.

From ad-hoc, manual processes to streamlined systems

Processing data to use in forecasting and predictive models has also been really important, and the company has a focus to drive that forward.

Its really about getting a focus on productivity and process improvement around our core focus, and trying to deliver to not only release our people internally so they can focus on adding value to drive the business forward but also to improve the quality of information that is flowing right through our business, he adds.

This is all in the pursuit of streamlining our operations so

INNOVATIVE, FLEXIBLE PROPERTY AND INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS THAT EMPOWER YOUR REAL ESTATE PORTFOLIO.

2016 MRI Software LLC. All rights reserved.

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INVESTMENT MANAGEMENTOptimise your investment portfolio with our powerful, end-to-end suite of products:

PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT (ASSET & FUND LEVEL)

POWERFUL BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

WHAT-IF SCENARIO MODELLING

ROBUST PERFORMANCE FORECASTING

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STREAMLINED RETAIL SALES ANALYSIS

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HIGHLY CONFIGURABLE REPORTING

CONTACT MRI TODAY

Australia +61 2 8915 5000Hong Kong +852 3928 5608Singapore +65 6622 5764APACSales@mrisoftware.com

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Social. Mobile. Smart.

T E C H N O L O G Y

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that as a funds manager, we can make the best decisions around doing what we do best, which is managing our investors money.

I think that as we succeed in this space and a number of initiates have already been implemented or are in the process of being implemented the focus is shifting towards the customer experience. Its a continuous program of working with the business more broadly on a range of initiatives, focused on both automating and streamlining our core processes and systems, and also delivering new capabilities, new functionality, new reporting systems, and a big focus on our customer strategy.

Social. Mobile. Smart.

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E: info@cavs.net.au

P: 02 9648 0583F: 02 9748 3485www.cavs.net.au

CAVS is a highly respected rm in the eld of audio visual system design and integration and indeed consultancy, providing state-of-the-art audio visual systems that meet the commercial, communications and educational requirements of your organisation.

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Another key focus and a key pillar that has been recently implemented is a philosophy to create a best in class workplace, Coleman adds.

Anyone who comes into our environment will tell you its quite energised and fully tech-enabled, he says.

We are fully embracing agile as a way of working, not just a project methodology. The conditions are ripe for change. Its a great workplace with low levels of bureaucracy and a huge opportunity to innovate. Im glad to say that the changes weve made to date are really working.

IT is certainly a huge focus for propertybusinesses now and at Charter Hall were in a really good position Aidan Coleman, Chief Technology Officer

Level 20, 1 Martin Place

Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2000

Tel. +61 2 8651 9000 www.charterhall.com.au