What is a Digital Enterprise? One CIO’s perspective

Gerry Robinson: What is your definition of the digital enterprise? 

RJ Juliano: The digital enterprise is one that collects, manages, and analyzes the maximum amount of information possible in order to engage its partners and to plan and inform its strategy. We are innovators in an industry where traditional processes and technology do not easily enable the digital enterprise. It is a very manually driven industry.

What steps in your strategic roadmap were designed to ultimately serve this digital trend?

The roadmap focuses in a couple of key areas that relate to the digital trend:

1. Build scale and flexibility to support data collection and analysis.
2. Upgrade infrastructure, applications and processes to accelerate digital innovation.
3. Replace existing "point solutions" with tools that enable massive scale and quick time to market as we acquire and integrate new assets.
4. Build analytics and processes to allow us to apply learning closer to real time. This includes pushing information to customers and systems more quickly, real time load management, and dynamic pricing.
5. Work actively with partners who deliver customer experience in mobile and web. Instead of chasing those technologies ourselves, we are building a platform that can easily integrate with companies who are experts in that area.

At a high level, what is your vision for the digitally engaged consumer as it relates to Parkway’s mission and service?

We want the customer experience to be seamless and a non-experience. Our customer should be able to access us so easily and quickly that they don't even think about interacting with us. That can be a differentiator between us and the laggards in our industry.

What has  been the biggest barrier to "digital enablement?" 

Key vendors and providers are seeking to live in digital islands to preserve their market share. They often actively obstruct integration and data exchange to ensure their own survival.

Where is the biggest demand coming from for digital initiatives? How do you solicit requests from the consumer?

Our consumers want a better experience and we want to give it to them. We have our front line field and customer service staff actively channel feedback and suggestions to the operations and tech teams.

How do you partner with the "business" team members in your department to create ideas and execute the plan?

Our ops and tech teams are heavily integrated, so the exchange of ideas is active and free-flowing. We have a designated manager of innovation implementation who is responsible for turning ideas into workable business cases and project plans.

How do you balance over-sharing with data privacy?

We balance oversharing and data privacy by focusing on why we really need the information.

Instead of leaving sensitive information “out in the open," we only collect what we truly need to operate, and then carefully manage access. If a partner needs data for functional reasons, and it is data that we don't need, we ensure that the partner collects the data and we keep it out of our systems. 

About RJ Juliano

RJ Juliano is Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Parkway Corporation, an leader in the industries of parking management and real estate development, based in Philadelphia. Juliano has over 25 years of business leadership and consulting experience specializing in technology strategy, media and marketing, operations, team development, and business process. Prior to joining Parkway in February 2016, he served in executive technology and marketing/media leadership roles in the real estate, higher education, and investment industries. He has also served as chairman and treasurer of the Society for Information Management (SIM) Philadelphia Chapter and was previously co-chairman of the advisory committee for Realcomm. Juliano earned both his Master’s degree in Business Administration and Bachelor’s degree from the University of Delaware.