CASE STUDY /
How Softtek brought hyper-automation to Related Companies
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About Our Client
Related Companies is the most prominent, privately-owned real estate firm in the United States. Founded nearly 50 years ago, Related is an industry leader with experience in virtually every aspect of real estate development, including acquisitions, management, finance, marketing, sustainability, and sales. Headquartered in New York City, Related has offices and major developments in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, South Florida, Washington, D.C., Abu Dhabi, and London — including the 28-acre Hudson Yards neighborhood development on Manhattan's West Side, The Grand and Related Santa Clara in California, and The 78 in Chicago.
Client Highlights
Currently operates over 350 properties around the globe with nearly 80,000 units under ownership
One of the largest developers, financiers, and preservationists of affordable and workforce housing in the U.S.
Over $60 billion in assets owned or under development
Business challenges
When Softtek first met Related in 2016, it was in the process of rethinking its IT approach and searching for new ways to generate more value and better time to market from its IT spend. While historically some of Related's IT had been outsourced in various forms to multiple providers, the benefits of working with and managing a single, full service, automation-first technology services provider, like Softtek, became obvious. With this approach, Related could save time, money, and boost its ability to innovate. After a visit to Softtek's Aguascalientes, Mexico, delivery center, to learn about its methodologies, engineers, platforms, and infrastructure, the choice was clear.
You can't just throw a problem over the wall. You have to own it and treat your partners as an extension of your company. So that's the approach that I take, which is why I traveled to the exact location where our team would be. I met the people, and I was very, very impressed. It made me much more comfortable that we were going to be successful."
Senior Vice President, CIO at Related Companies
Our Client's Goals
1
Transition Related's IT infrastructure support (including help desk services) to a third-party service provider to save time and money and increase coverage.
2
Automate manual and time-sensitive processes across Related's global operations to save time and money, increase security, and free up bandwidth for innovation investments.
3
Lay the groundwork for Related's corporate hyper-automation journey and building-related Smart Technology initiatives.
How Softtek comes into play
Softtek quickly assembled the teams for Related's infrastructure, networking, and help desk services. Once the teams were operational, Softtek started developing the blueprint for hyper-automation. At Related, the vision for hyper-automation included automating as many manual and IT processes as possible to create efficiency, transparency, and business agility across the whole organization.
Softtek's cognitive automation platform, FRIDA, was the perfect fit for Related's hyper-automation needs and allowed the enterprise to harness Softtek's various AI modules, pre-configured intelligent bots, and machine learning capabilities. After the success of initial projects, Related was able to build a business case for continued investment in its hyper-automation vision.
Quick Wins
Business impact
To date, FRIDA has automated 71% of Related's ITIL tasks, impacting hundreds of business processes within the enterprise, representing considerable savings in time and money. With the overall success of Softtek's FRIDA platform, Joseph Rich is now setting a new goal: to automate up to 98% of ITIL tasks in 2021. Joseph noted, "We want more helpdesk avoidance on existing systems, and we want the team to be working on new, high-value projects. There is such a demand within real estate to automate and connect different datasets."
In 2017, when we were talking about intelligent automation, it seemed like a
good idea, but to be honest, I didn't put a lot of faith in it. I could never have
predicted where we are today. I think that's a great accomplishment in and
of itself. And in terms of choosing Softtek, I have to go back to the people.
It's really about the people.
Senior Vice President, CIO at Related Companies
About FRIDA
FRIDA is Softtek's intelligent automation platform. FRIDA helps the enterprise streamline automation by combining RPA, AI, and human contribution to add continuous business value and efficiency to virtually any organization.
How does FRIDA stack up?
Click here and request a free copy of the 2021 Everest Group PEAK Matrix® for Intelligent Process Automation (IPA) solutions report.
Related's Focus on the Future
In addition to automating more of its core business processes, Related will also invest in automating its cybersecurity capabilities and adding new value through intelligent IoT devices.
The cyberattacks are relentless, and they are more and more sophisticated, so we know we need that. And I think the second area that's going to be important for our business is IoT. We're putting a lot more technology into our newer buildings; whether it's door locks that connect to our Related Connect app, controlling the temperature, your shades and lights, calling ahead to the garage to have your car ready, or paying rent, you can do it all through our app. All of that IoT is within our building, and all of that connects, so we'll need a lot of automation to manage this in the near future. Here at Hudson Yards, we have thousands of IP addresses just on this one property alone, and we expect that number to grow exponentially in the years to come.
Senior Vice President, CIO at Related Companies
For more information about The Related Companies, please visit www.related.com
