We continued driving the digitalisation of the property industry last year, adding new solutions to the Aareon Smart World digital ecosystem, including the CRM app launched in Germany. All told, some 200 customers in Germany have already opted for mobile solutions from Aareon. Another point of focus last year was on harnessing the potential to move into related industries. That includes the new Aareon change management solution, which links up housing companies, energy suppliers and heat metering services. Aareon Smart World allows our customers and partners to benefit from an integrated portfolio of solutions, in which new digital solutions – including those of our prop-tech partners – have been seamlessly integrated alongside our ERP systems. In this way, we have created a network via which property companies can connect not only with their employees, customers and business partners, but also with the technical devices and appliances in their buildings.

When developing our solutions, we take a customer-centric approach. In this context, we conducted an international tenants survey in 2017 in order to gain an even better understanding of the wishes and requirements of the people in our various national markets. The design thinking approach we introduced in 2016 for the development of new solutions continues to meet with positive feedback from our customers, and our design thinking experts organised numerous customer workshops in the year under review.

In order to add even more value for our customers, we have forged new partnerships with prop-tech companies. These include the partnership with Immomio – which offers a web-based tenant acquisition management solution and in which we have also acquired a 12.94 % stake – and the Group-wide alliance with Intent Technologies, a French company. The ability to integrate the Intent platform will support further networking of Aareon Smart World solutions with software from service providers of Aareon customers. In January 2018, Aareon France launched a partnership with YesPark, a prop-tech company that offers a national network of underground car parks owned by housing companies. Aareon France is integrating its customers’ ERP solution in the YesPark platform. As part of our partnership with KIWI.KI that started in 2016, we realised the technical integration of its solution in the Mareon service portal. As a strategic partner of blackprint PropTech Booster, we are in a constant dialogue with the prop-tech scene, an ideal environment in which both start-ups and established enterprises can profit from one another.

We take a holistic approach to the digital transformation. Many years ago, we began gearing our working environment and corporate culture to the transformation, building on our life-phase-oriented personnel policy. Although digitalisation is to a large degree technology-driven, ultimately it will only be a success if people participate in it. This was the premise on which we launched our work4future project in 2017. We will deploy new digital tools to continue promoting Group-wide networking and collaboration. Even though our working models are already flexible, we want to continue enhancing them with the digital and mobile options available.

The transition period for implementation of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (EU-GDPR) ends on 25 May 2018. Aareon ensured early on that its German data centre, which has received multiple certifications, meets the EU-GDPR requirements. A certificate issued by TÜV Rheinland i-sec GmbH, a technical inspection agency, verifies that, especially in the area of order processing, Aareon has effectively put in place technical and organisational measures aimed at protecting personal data and data that could be related to individuals. In addition, we have actively informed our customers, making them fully aware of the consequences of the EU-GDPR.