 from Seattle, Washington. It's theCUBE, covering Smartsheet Engage 2019. Brought to you by Smartsheet. Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's live coverage of Smartsheet Engage here in Seattle. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host, Jeff Frick. We're joined by Kristin Kamasa. She is the VP Process Improvement at Collier's International Wisconsin. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks for having me, I'm excited to be here. So you're here direct from Milwaukee. Tell us, tell our viewers a little bit about Collier's International Wisconsin. Yeah, so Collier's International Wisconsin, we are recognized as the largest full service commercial real estate company in the state of Wisconsin. And when I say full service, it means we have everything from brokerage to property management to facilities, architecture, development. I mean, we cover the gamut on both the commercial and we've actually started a residential program as well. So we've got you covered. Excellent, so tell us now about your Smartsheet story. There was a movie that played during the keynote address that where you heard a lot about your Smartsheet experience, but you tell our viewers now. Yeah, so I started using Smartsheet in 2012 when I came to Collier's, and really it was a one specific project that we needed to really wrap our arms around and other methods weren't doing it at all. So I discovered Smartsheet. And ironically, if you took Smartsheet from 2012 and put it next to Smartsheet 2019, you wouldn't think they're the same product at all. But it solved our issues at that time. We were able to really elevate what we were doing with that client. We, I mean, we were recognized. And the company ownership saw that if you could do this with one client, what could you do with the whole company? And over the past years, we have really rolled it out both internally through the operational side from how we just manage our day to day business to also how do we get in with those clients and how do we manage their real estate with this software program? So that's kind of been my journey and it's been fun. And it's been amazing. And I'm looking forward to the next phase. So what was the killer app in 2012 that you couldn't do with any other tool that was so breakthrough? I mean, you know, we were starting with Excel and it was just an extremely large portfolio. We tried to do Google Sheets, that didn't work. And Smartsheet was the app of choice that we could collaboratively work on this entire portfolio but manage it with a security level because it was a banking institution that they were concerned. And Smartsheet, even at that time, they knew that security was a big issue with their clients. So was it the ability to cross company collaborate with the banking client as well as your own teams? That was so good. It was a large team. We had 15 people, so you can imagine version control was huge. Yeah, a nightmare. Nobody wants to see an Excel document sent to 15 people asking for revisions. And again, we had to be able to report to this banking customer in their own format and we had to, again, really aggregate that data in a consistent and repeatable way but yet still maintain that control. And Smartsheet allowed us to do that in a very flexible and customizable way. So we didn't buy something off the shelf that we maybe used 50% of it. We used 100% of what we purchased. So 2012, that's a while ago. But can you talk about the cultural change from your company to now that you use Smartsheet on a regular basis and how that has helped you collaborate and helped you be more creative with each other, helped you understand the big picture? Yeah, so really in 2012, we were a slightly smaller company. It was coming right out of the recession and when there was a lot of REO properties and just there were some issues in real estate in general. And we were able to really ride that wave and come back a lot stronger than we were because we were able to cross collaborate between all of our different company divisions and really show our clients, one of our taglines is better together and that's what we were. And it's easy to be better together when you have a platform that helps you build that up. And our company has since kind of shed some of those maybe less desirable properties or product type and really moved into the class A downtown markets because we're able to now work with some of those more sophisticated owners of real estate and those sophisticated clients that are really looking for not just a real estate expert but an advisor for them. How do you help me take my real estate and make it work for my business? And Smartsheet was a big part of that. So it really has evolved your role, as you said. I mean, it's much more of a, you're much more of an advisor now. Yes, we are definitely much more of an advisor of a consultant of a trusted partner is what we are. And it's not always just about the real estate anymore. It's about building those relationships but showing them as well as to, how can we put all those pieces together and then still have full transparency with you? And with our other vendors and our clients and bringing everybody together. So I love that you look at the big picture and big changes in the big picture but you've also talked about it's all, it's a combination of lots of little things that add up to the big thing. I think one of your videos you talked about, you know, a push notice for an accept decline was a game changer. And then today we heard in the keynote that a copy paste, you know, from one to the other got a standing ovation. So what was your favorite feature for today? And I'm just curious, you know, is that approach something that you've adopted also in the way that you use the tool to engage with your clients? I mean, every engage that I've been to, I leave and I'm just so excited to get back and start implementing everything because again, Smartsheet really listens to their clients but really from what the things that were announced today, it seems like a simple thing but I'm really excited about Move Row. Because when you're done with a project, it doesn't take a lot of time to actually grab it and move it down but if somebody forgot to do it and it's rolling up to your aggregate data and all that, it's just such a little thing but it makes such a big difference. You know, show me only my active in-flight projects. I don't want to see my completed ones or my closed or my on hold if I change the status. Give me what I care about front and center. So Move Row was my big thing. I love it. I mean, but that is what we've been talking about frankly all day is how these little things can add up to be the big aggravations of work. And so when you are slowly chipping away at all of the annoyances, that leads to a much more pleasant work day. It definitely does. And a much more satisfying work life. I'll take any second I can gain back in the day. Right, I mean, so we talked about how the Colliers International in Wisconsin has really evolved from sort of not a small time real estate but now you are this trusted partner of so many wealthier clients. Talk about the internal culture though in terms of how you all work together. Yeah, so some of our key features are like, warrior spirit and this better together and being innovators. And that's really what Smartsheet has. Encourage us to be is more of these innovators and working together and really being a champion internally. You'd be amazed, you know a lot of real estate companies, they have a lot of brokers and then employees and maybe not everybody, they're different personality types and all that, but our company has been able to figure out a way to pull everybody together and aggregate that data for a real big picture from both sides. You know, instead of looking at employees versus consultants, but just everybody, what is Colliers? And it's been amazing because Smartsheet has been that platform that we've utilized to do that and to bring everybody up. The collaboration that it has encouraged between different departments. Everybody knowing what is going on with a project or knowing that if you're talking to the same client that I'm talking to and how do we now work together versus you make a phone call and you just called my client. I don't want that happening and it makes you sound kind of silly, you know, but how do we work together for a common purpose basically is what's happened. So is it the primary work tool that's open on people's desks? Yes, it is. It's open on my desk 100% of the time and we have actually created individualized dashboards for every single one of our brokers and it is their ground zero where they go to for all of their information, for if they have a new listing, if they have to submit commission information, if they want to submit a referral to another one of our lines, that is where they go. Our property managers, we're working right now to create their individual dashboards where again, they're going to be living in there and how they're communicating with their landlords and their owners and how do you aggregate that tenant data in there so that everybody on your team is all on the same page, but again, it's living in Smartsheet is what the entire company is doing these days. So you talked about how this was 2012 when you first adopted it, the real estate business, particularly and commercial real estate, not in a great position, in a much better, more solid position today. What are you thinking about for the future in terms of how your industry evolves and how you're going to need tools to help you evolve? Yeah, I mean, you know, our clients, it's a tech world, everything. I mean, your fridge can order milk for you these days. If you have a real estate and they're not an advisor, they're just a real estate broker and they're not accessing the technology that is out there to help you get market intel at the touch of fingertips. I mean, they almost want you to anticipate what their question is going to be before they ask it and they want that data available at night, on the weekends, in the morning at their own schedule. If you are not able to provide that but you have to send them an email and they have to wait on it, I think that you're going to fall behind. You have to be able to keep up with the world of technology and becoming less of a one, I'm just going to help you on this single transaction too. I'm helping you on this one, but what's the next one? And how does it affect your business? And how do I become your partner and your advisor and just that trusted partner? And that's where it's going, I think. And have you been able to, are you able to do those things because it has freed up your time? Because that's another thing we hear about this technology is that because it is automating so many of the manual repetitive tasks, you do have more time to be creative, to think more holistically and more about the future. Yeah, and that's really what we're pushing is if it's an administrative task, if it's something that you can automate it, do it. Don't take another day sending a repetitive email or you checking your calendar, did somebody finish something? Have the system do it for you? Did somebody, if you assigned a task, did they do it? You shouldn't have to babysit them for it. And yes, it should free you up to, how do I look strategically? How do I look forward into something instead of constantly trying to look backwards as to what did we do? Has it been completed? It should be done and we should be on to the next step at this point. So you said that you always come away from engages, so excited, so happy to come back to your office and talk about what you've learned. What do you think it's going to be from this one? Besides MoveRow, which I know is going to change your life, Kristen. MoveRow will change my life, but there's a lot of things. I mean, you know, it's so many things. Again, Smartsheet, I can't reiterate enough, they listen to their customers. And going back and figuring out how do I optimize something that I already thought was the apex thing that I was going to create, how do I now make it better? How do I make it so that it frees up somebody else's time so that maybe them moving a row down, they no longer have to do that? How do I now make the next one even better? So I'm just, I'm excited again about that continuous process improvement. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was a pleasure having you. Thank you, I'm excited to be here. And now you're a CUBE veteran. And now I'm a CUBE veteran, thank you. I'm Rebecca Knight for Jeff Frick. Stay tuned for more of the CUBE's live coverage of Engage 2019.