Case Study – Autopalace Group
Auto Palace had long been looking for a supplier of a suitable technology solution to collect data on customer movement at their showrooms.
“We are glad that there are customers who indulge in the luxury of automation and do not perceive it as a necessary evil,” says Katerina Sochorova, CSO of M2C holding, which has been providing comprehensive services in real estate management for 30 years. She has been with the company almost since its inception. During her tenure, the original number of fifty employees has grown to an impressive 8,500, the company has representation in 13 countries, and more than 1,300 clients.
You offer a wide range of innovative solutions in your portfolio. Are you interested in modern technology?
Certainly, yes. I can’t imagine life without modern apps today, and I can’t do without a smart mobile phone. I book and order vacations, hotels, restaurants, groceries, and clothing through it.
I essentially have mobile applications for everything. On the other hand, I don’t want, for example, my fridge to determine what I should buy and cook for the week. I like to manage many things myself. If I respect anything, it’s artificial intelligence and its further development. I see great opportunity in this, especially for our products.
M2C’s Innovis technology division offers clients a wide range of tailor-made solutions. How do companies approach innovation? Are they afraid of it?
The Western market is now more open and flexible to innovations than the Czechs. We can see this especially with clients at our branches in Germany and the Netherlands. Here, we are mostly more conservative in this respect, and we don’t want to change established things. However, there are companies that want to innovate. They focus on automation, digitalization, data collection, and reducing their carbon footprint, thus contributing to climate protection and limiting the burden on the planet from emissions leading to the greenhouse effect.
We are glad that there are already customers who indulge in the luxury of automation and do not perceive it as a necessary evil. For automation, they often use, for example, our e-Reception product, which helps automate and streamline access to buildings.
You started developing the product four years ago. How is e-Reception doing today?
We are glad that we have persevered, survived the uncertain pandemic period, and today we see a growing interest in this solution. e-Reception can now be found in many properties not only in the Czech Republic but also abroad. Initially, the greatest interest was mainly in the logistics sector. For example, we are expanding the automatic gate project due to its successful implementation in the PERI complex to other countries.
Today, however, we also have demand for electronic reception from office buildings. We are glad that some customers no longer view it as a replacement for human labor but as an opportunity to innovate. A very successful project in this area was with Parker, where we built the entire reception infrastructure in addition to the autonomous e-Reception device.
In property care, you offer clients a wide portfolio of breakthrough technological solutions. What are their main benefits?
We help customers increase the value of their real estate. We are able to reduce the operating costs of a building, increase its lifespan with various technological solutions and software. Through the energy management and monitoring system, we provide the client with a detailed overview of consumption. The client digitalizes and optimizes their operations, saves energy, reduces their carbon footprint, and increases the ESG performance of their company. Such a system also facilitates the client’s path to LEED, BREEAM, WELL, and ISO 50001 certification.
Innovis helps customers not only in managing buildings in the field of technology and energy but also in their core business. In retail, thanks to the analytical functions of the camera system, we provide marketing data, such as information on customer movement and behavior. In the industry, it is about automating the control of defects and shortcomings in products.
Customers appreciate that we always bring added value to their business. We recently partnered with Good Sailors, a company focused on IT consulting and application development. Thanks to this, we are now able to program individual solutions ourselves, customize them, and develop applications tailored to clients’ needs.
Which of your services and products is the market most interested in?
There is still the greatest interest in our integrated facility management services, which applies to all of Europe. Our innovative approach and tailor-made services help us a lot in this. In times of constantly increasing operating costs, we can save and streamline our clients’ processes through M2C’s solutions.
