>>from around the globe. It's the cue with digital coverage of out systems. Next step 2020 brought to you by Out systems. Welcome back. I'm stupid, man. In this, the cubes coverage of out systems next step always love when you get to come to the conference is to be able to talk to the practitioners, understand what they're doing. Give us some recommendations that they have for their peers. So happy to welcome to the program. First time guests make eye Spruce es, which is the global vice president of information technology at Colliers International coming to us from Vancouver because I thank you so much for joining us. >>Thank you for having me great to be here. >>All right, if you could just set up for us. First of all, uh, collars. If you know, how should people be thinking about all yours in 2020 and just a little bit briefly about you know, your role there. >>Okay. So, Colliers International, it's a leading commercial real estate for more in 69. 0, sorry. 68 countries. We have over 18,000 professionals around the globe. My role, it's who coordinated the information technology globally. We are very much distributor to decentralized organization. So we have technology groups all around the globe, and, ah, my role is pretty much toe set a direction. And to make sure that we were following on that direction appropriately, >>All right, so the theme we hear it the show, it's about building it. You hear from out system building fast, Build it right, build it for the future. Lots of discussion in the industry about how you need to modernize. And a lot of that is building new applications. So if you could, you know, how does that application portfolio modernization fit in your environment? What are some of the business things that are driving you to build new applications? >>Well, you know, thank you for asking me what of the things that are driving cause that that's one of the teams that I am. Keep bringing up that you have to start with. With that, you have to start with. Why? Why do you even build applications? So what's happening in my mind, or at least I can tell these days is that the environment of business environment, not necessarily the technology environment, but the business environment is changing and it's changing very fast, and we need to adapt to that. We need to adopt a new ways off, engaging with the clients, for example, or providing a service or who you know. Sometimes we just call it and say we digitize and and that's the whole, you know, digital transformation story that. But that's the reason why you need applications because applications are end of the day. What makes us more efficient in What are we doing? That's where the machine interacts with with humans right behind that you have the infrastructure and all that stuff that nobody sees. But what you see it is that application in your phone. It's application that makes you better make you more efficient on the time. That's why it's very important to be able to do it. And if you're just gonna buy everything, you're not gonna derive any competitive advantage out of it. You just gonna, you know, use what's available so more and more these days, we recognize that ability create something specific for the industry or for the organization is extremely important. So I think that's where the ability toe build this application fits for us as well >>All right. Well, you know, we've seen in general that that digitization is something that happened for a lot of years. I have to imagine 2020 has had some specific impacts. Ah, on the marketplace. You know, everybody that interested in real estate, there was probably a brief pause. But now things need to be more online. You mentioned mobile. Um, you know, I would think that being able to react fast is something that it has been driving your activity. Take us inside that. And, you know, how is 2020 impacted your activity specific? >>Well, uh, 2020 has really put Ah, you know, something which is always in my mind to the test and watch in my mind is, well, you know, the business agility that I'm talking about many times. And it's not necessarily that 2020 has forced tested. But in the first half of 2020 I don't think that the ability to create application was tested immediately. First off, all, it was tested. The ability to work in a different environment, work from home or work from somewhere else where you are not, you know, in ah exposed the Corbett 19. Um pandemic eso So that was the first part that was was tested. And, you know, I'm I'm extremely proud of our organization that for us, that was not too much off initial. I mean, our our system has has, uh, um, you know, help us do that. Transmission Very quick and very smooth as we are moving through 2020. Now it's not toe get ah, get our footing again. And you know, people are referring to this as but he would I want the new normal ease. And as we figured out what the new normally is, we start shifting again back to the application. So how are we going to do things in the new normal? What is becoming more important now that it was before, right? It's all of the sudden my ability toe capture, infrared term, our cameras has become a priority. And I'm not saying that the necessary has by just as an example thing that I haven't thought about necessarily before. Now I need to switch very fast in tow that my ability to track my ability toe, you know, Ah, let people in the office, you know, in a certain way, toe to figure out how many people are in the office. Was the density those things before Cove in There were kind of Well, that's very interesting. Yeah, we kind of have a lot off office. We can cram lots of people in their noticeable Ah, well, that's gone. So all of the sudden, those technologies that were called, you know, emerging are becoming very fast mainstream. So our ability to incorporate them it's critical. >>Wonderful, not another. We've laid out some of, ah, you know, the business drivers and some of the urgent needs. They have helped us connect the dots, your usage of out systems. Maybe if you could take us back how long you've been using it on and what that's enabled for your business, >>right? Ah, we They were doctored out systems about three years ago. And wait didn't necessarily take the the most successful pattern did the most successful Parton seems to be or taking a low code platform. All systems on this case and you start with something small and you grow from there. We actually had a mission critical system in our hands, which waas obsolete was the legacy was was a time bomb off technical debt, and we knew that we need to change this, but we didn't want to do it in a traditional way. We didn't want to create another monolithically application. Another stovepipe, um, so So? So that's when we look for something that we call the digital platform. Andi. That's how we got toe out systems. And we adopted it for that particular systems. Now the byproduct, of course we delivered on that, and it's fantastic and it's great, and we had lots of experience, and I can tell you what to do and what not to do under our duty parent, but, um, the by product off that is, that created what we were really after strategically created that capability to do things very fast, right? And it's not only your doing it fast, but your chances to do it passed and well has increased dramatically. You know, from the perspective that chances are that you're gonna be on brand, which it's a struggle, let me tell you that with the developers don't really care about the colors, Ana, and that it's you know it's following your security patterns and whatever it is in there. All this have have increased dramatically by putting, uh, putting it in this platform. >>So when you say, do it fast and do it well, did you have metrics internally as how you measure that? Is it you know, cycle time, time to market, you know, some, you know, percentage of quality of code. How do you kind of measure that it is demonstrably better today faster today? More agile today. Then what you were doing? Four. >>So, first off, all of those are KP eyes that a non technical organization probably has not have in the past. Okay, so that s so this is something that Microsoft will measure or Intuit will measure and stuff like that, which is just a background, because it's interesting. Now we start measuring, but for us, it's very simple. So how many new applications did we develop in the last? I don't know. 10 years. Um, zero way. We had a moment 10 years ago. We developed a lot of things and and and then we were kept going and going. And that's how they get legacy. How many did we developed in the last 18 months? Well, about 19 I think, keep growing, so I think we just start to learn what the KP I should be. I really I don't know any is 19. Good is it is too much. Maybe you should be. Should be only eight eso we learn on the escapee eyes one one KP Eido or one measurement is not the KP I cause I didn't really make it okay. Yeah, yeah, but it's a measurement. In the past, an application was build and then, you know, sporadically. There were efforts to bring it up to date and the business behavior Aziz relates toe that was very specific. They tried to cram everything during the project time because the chances that nothing will ever be reviewed in the next couple of years were close to zero. Well, let me tell you how the new application that we created the core one that mission critical. It's on a release cycle, a weekly release cycle. This is unheard for our organization. And I were gonna I gonna tell you that in my 25 years off managing applications and I d in various industries, non technical industry, that that that's that's critical. I will never achieved with anything that kind off pace. So do I have clear Kate guys to tell you this is way better? No, but I can tell you that there are a whole bunch of things that are emerging, and we will start measuring in in the future that are clear indication that we're in a better sport than we used to be. >>Well, well, well, right it is. It's the measurements that are important to your business That matters. Obviously clear. You've unlocked new capabilities that you didn't have before. It was zero applications on. Now, as you said, you know that why you're delivering value to the business. You understand what it takes to do that. And you know that that general discussion of like, well, everybody is becoming a software business? I think you've laid out some of that, at least in where you are. Right out. You know why that's important for your business. So you mentioned Ah, some things you've learned along the way. I'd love to hear you know, your journey of three years Looking back, certain best practices you've seen out there share a little bit of that wisdom that you've gained, You know? What would you recommend? Piers that are starting down this journey or maybe need to take a new look at how they look at their software development. What would you share with them? >>Yes. Ah, we learned quite a bit. Um, the fact that to get the tool in place, it's ah, it's it's it's really really not. Not enoughto see the benefit way grossly underestimated the resistance to change inside off. I t um so you know, if I would give somebody advice, I would say, Well, if you are, you know, in a typical North American organization where you know, people matters and what they think and what they do matters and you can't just be a, you know, some kind off. Ah, dictatorial. Ah, leader. Then then then you have to give yourself time because people need toe, understand the benefits or off the platform, the local It is not something that is necessarily yeah, immediately embraced by even the brightest devil locals. And unfortunately, we we've seen great people. Um, you know, leaving us eventually because they simply didn't give them by in the concept. So you know anybody who starts this journey, I would say, Do not underestimate the psychological change that needs to happen in order to become efficient at at this. Then it's another the interesting one. There are many, but, you know, the dough. So I think are interesting. You gonna be for the first time, probably way faster than the business respond. And this is something that again I haven't seen in the past in my career where you know you're developing things and you have a question. You come something and you ask the business. So how should this be? It's, you know, it's left or its right and the question is straightforward and the businesses scratching their head is like, Well, like, this is not a simple answer. I really I don't know. I need to think about it. And the business may think a couple of days, and in that time you are You're not putting if you don't plan properly. So So you are so fast that if you're not managing your pipeline and you are not accounting for the fact that the business won't be able to keep up with you and will need to have time to think about certain things, you're gonna have a whole bunch off, uh, off death times now you can fill them with all kinds of things. You can pay technical debt that you build in your previous are jive cycles. It's a whole bunch of things to do, but you need to account for that. And I said, I never seen it before and I always I was trying to catch up to the business. It was for the first time now they actually see this thing reversed and it's uncomfortable. It's It's I saw this becoming uncomfortable actually, for the business. It was perceived that only you are putting a lot of pressure on me right now. Well, yeah, but you know what? If you want me to be fast, we need to respond fast. It's kind of dynamic that is changing in a very interesting way. Eventually, I would say, and it doesn't take a long time, but eventually everybody is generally happier. I was just talking that of day with, uh, you know, our V p off, not American account. It was one of the stakeholders on this product and she said, Well, yeah, this is This is so much. Ah, better than anything we waded before from from an experience perspective, not necessarily from a you know, feature by feature, which is also extremely before rental, and much better, but yes, two things. Psychology off the developer and the velocity that the business can provide. When you're developing on this higher productivity platform, it's something you keep in mind. >>Well, maybe high it makes me It makes me laugh a little bit. I think back to in the early days of cloud computing rolling out there was that discussion that, you know, maybe I t won't matter anymore. It will just become a utility. And the discussion mostly iose that I talk to people in i t is that I t needs to be responsive to the business and actually can reach a point where it is a major driver for that. And so that agility, that speed that you talk about is helping Teoh, you know, really bring things together. Ah, and help. Have you know you need to have that common vision. Um great. What? Want to give you final word? You've worked without systems number year. We're watching them as they you know, Anting, their products Seymour machine learning and ai baked into it for those coming, you know, watching the next step show. You know what final words would you give them from from this event? >>Oh, I wasn't prepared for that. And I guess keep up, the good work would be done. The thing we we made a big bet on ah, on out systems. We want to see them growing. Want to see the community off, local developers growing. I want toe. And I don't know if I want to tell out system, but I want to tell the development community you still need to be a great developer to be able to deliver great applications in low court. It doesn't diminish anybody's value in the in the market is just a different way was gonna make the developer community more productive. We're automating our own tools. That's a normal way to go. And I think out system is doing a fantastic job. Ah, ah dot And I'm looking forward, though, to see growing. I think the next iteration I'm off this thing. I want to see a little bit more off the You know, in our case, I hope to see a little bit more off the citizen developer, uh, coming, coming out and and continue to enhance this. This Ah, Julia tedious. This flexibility, the ability to create and off the day. You know, it's all about competitive advantage for the organization we're in. It's you can part a phrase you and say I t really doesn't matter but creating value out of the technology. It's it's really what matters, and and that's everybody should get the ice on that. >>May I really appreciate you sharing your perspective? Thanks so much >>for joining us. Well, thank you for having me >>stay tuned for more coverage from out systems. Next, step on spew minimum and thank you for watching the Cube.