October 2018 | Dallas, Texas – PRNewswire RealFoundations, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting and managed services for the real estate industry, today announced the completion of a comprehensive, 18-month technology transformation project for Mid-America Apartments (MAA) following its 2016 merger with Post Properties.
MAA, the largest U.S. multifamily REIT by unit count, now benefits from a new consolidated, scalable system for highly efficient portfolio accounting and resident/tenant management, and is better positioned to take advantage of digital technologies – key for continuing business growth and expansion.
MAA owns approximately 100,000 units nationwide, has a total market capitalization of approximately $15 billion and is ranked No. 1 in the 2018 NMHC Top 50 Owners List, published annually by the National Multifamily Housing Council. The company engaged RealFoundations to provide strategic planning oversight after the merger. With a focus on business process improvement, MAA’s top objectives were to reduce the number of disparate technologies each original entity utilized and to more fully incorporate leading practices in property and portfolio accounting, operations and asset management and analysis.
During the technology integration strategy planning sessions, facilitated by RealFoundations, it became apparent to MAA’s leadership team that broader use of Yardi® Voyager, one of the leading Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platforms for the real estate industry, could better position the organization for growth and efficiency. The project eventually entailed the implementation of solutions from the Yardi® Multifamily Suite for residential and commercial management, general ledger, job cost, maintenance and online leasing and resulted in what is believed to be the largest Yardi data transformation to date.
“This merger gave MAA a unique opportunity to realize synergies from both scale and aligned practices across two high-quality portfolios,” according to Al Campbell, EVP & Chief Financial Officer, MAA, who was the sponsor for this business transformation. “RealFoundations led us through a process of assessing the two organizations’ business processes and supporting technology stack to build a platform to combine the two companies and solidify MAA’s foundation. The end result of this transformation is that we are better positioned to provide an improved resident experience, achieve greater operational efficiencies and take full advantage of business growth opportunities in the future.”
Throughout the engagement, the MAA and RealFoundations teams faced several challenges, including the full redesign of the existing charts of accounts. Also, MAA needed to produce consolidated corporate financial reports during the post-merger, Voyager implementation period, using data from the original disparate systems. RealFoundations created a “data bridge” to transfer information from older systems to the new system of record, standardizing data and establishing a new chart of accounts, which permitted timely, accurate and consolidated portfolio reporting throughout the project.
“Events like the MAA / Post Properties merger provide an opportunity to transform the use of existing technologies from both organizations, providing longer-term benefit and support of targeted operational synergies across the organization,” according to Phillip McCorkle, Enterprise Managing Consultant, RealFoundations. “The success of MAA’s technology transformation is a testament to Leadership’s commitment to establishing technology platform capabilities that reduce risk, support growth and improve work efficiency across the enterprise.”
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To learn more about how RealFoundations can help you run real estate better, contact our Director of Presence and Assets Naomi Souza by email or +1 214 292 7000.
About MAA
MAA, an S&P 500 company, is a real estate investment trust, or REIT, focused on delivering full-cycle and superior investment performance for shareholders through the ownership, management, acquisition, development and redevelopment of quality apartment communities throughout the United States. As of June 30, 2018, MAA had an ownership interest in 101,362 apartment units, including communities currently in development, across 17 states and the District of Columbia.
About RealFoundations
RealFoundations (RF) is the world’s foremost professional services firm focused solely on the real estate industry. Through our delivery of Management Consulting and Managed Services, we help companies that develop, own, operate, service or invest in real estate make better, more profitable decisions. We are proud partners to over 500 real estate companies around the globe, providing accelerated solutions that solve some of real estate’s most complex challenges. We Make Real Estate Run Better.
