TOM June 2020

Page 11 T O M
INTERVIEW
June 2020
„Yardi‘s technology roadmap
has produced numerous innovations“
Interview with Neal Gemassmer, Vice President of the software company
The American software group
Yardi, which is also based
in Germany (Mainz), is primarily
engaged in the design,
development and support
of software solutions for investment
and property management
in the real estate
industry. The company offers
comprehensive business solutions
for every segment of the
industry. In an interview, Neal
Gemassmer, Vice President of
the company, talks about the
technological development in
Yardi‘s almost forty-year history,
provides exciting insights
into the latest innovations and
initiatives in the field of energy
efficiency and ventures a
look at the development of the
industry in the next two to five
years.
Yardi started as a small software
start-up and is now in its
fourth decade of company history.
How has the company‘s
technology evolved during
this time?
Neal Gemassmer: A lot has
changed since 1984. Yardi‘s
technology roadmap has produced
numerous innovations.
Our focus has not changed and
remains to meet the evolving
needs of the real estate industry
and to help our customers provide
the best possible service and
improve their business results.
Yardi was one of the first startups
to focus on property management
software. At that
time, the focus was on the core
areas of property management
and accounting. Since then, we
have greatly expanded our product
and service offerings.
We were one of the first real
estate technology companies to
move to the cloud and our SaaS
model has proven to be extremely
successful. With a focus
on mobility, connectivity and
efficiency for users, we now offer
a unique role-based ecosystem
of solutions and interfaces
for key positions in property
management. Whether you are
an asset manager, investment
manager, property manager, or
marketer, Yardi offers a variety
of solutions designed to connect
Neal Gemassmer, Vice President Yardi.
teams throughout the property
lifecycle using a single source
of data.
Today, Yardi employs over
7,000 people worldwide and is
active in more than 80 countries.
The company‘s customers
include investors and operators
of various classes of real estate,
from fund and property management
to commercial real estate
including offices, industrial and
retail properties, co-working
and flexible workplaces, residential
properties and student
housing.
Can you give us an insight into
the latest innovations at Yardi?
What do you think is the
most exciting product in the
pipeline?
Neal Gemassmer: We have
Photo: Yardi
creatively summarized Yardi‘s
technology solutions according
to four essential principles:
- Fully networked property management
and accounting: Core
solutions for property management
and accounting such as
Yardi Procure to Pay for paperless
billing,
- E-Commerce: Café products
that provide a great user experience
for external users such as
prospects or suppliers,
- Operational Performance:
Technologies that improve business
processes, such as actionable
data analysis and
- Building operation: Technologies
that can be connected to
IoT and building infrastructure.
With the optimal combination
of Yardi solutions, our customers
can create a technology
ecosystem that increases satisfaction,
revenue, and operational
and business efficiency.
It is imperative that we enable
our customers to work flexibly,
whether they work on-site or remotely.
We continue to invest in
our mobile apps so that users of
our technology can access their
data easily and role-based on
the go. We also offer apps and
portals targeted at real estate
companies‘ customers and are
constantly developing them further.
Our tenant app is now also
available as a white-label version,
making our app your app.
One of the main topics of recent
times was the introduction
of our new asset management
solution Yardi Elevate. Yardi
Elevate provides detailed operational
information and forward-looking
forecasts with
recommendations for action,
helping teams to improve asset
performance by reducing costs,
minimizing risk and increasing
revenue. Elevate uses portfolio
data and AI to improve operational
performance and is
designed to improve strategic
decision-making in asset management.
How does Yardi differ from
competitors?
Neal Gemassmer: What sets
us apart in the market is the
provision of truly networked
and integrated technologies, all
developed internally and accessible
in real time from a single
cloud-based platform.
It is important to us to bring the
benefits of a fully networked
system, exceptional data security
and low total cost of ownership
to our customers. Apart
from that, we also understand
that some customers want the
option of continuing to use other
technologies. Of course we
are happy to support them in
this.
With Yardi Aspire, formerly
Yardi eLearning, we also offer
our customers a comprehensive
training platform. The Aspire
platform allows for verifiable
knowledge sharing and training
and promotes the personal development
of the employees in
our customers‘ teams.