Technology takes industry to a whole new level.

Technology has turned the role of the modern day property manager on its head and shattered the image of the underpaid, overall-clad boiler man who collects rent every week.

The modern property manager has to operate the most technologically advanced security software, create real-time access to property data and set up online bidding processes for service providers.

"Technology has infiltrated every aspect of real estate, whether residential or commercial," said Liz Majkowski, director of asset services with Cushman & Wakefield, which managed 54 million square feet of property in New York alone.

"From getting work orders from tenants to emailing responses to enquiries, from lighting systems to metering--they have all undergone technological advances in the last five years." Indeed, according to the Institute of Real Estate Management, technology is now the number one issue confronting managers of both commercial and multifamily properties, who are challenged to stay on the cutting edge of evolving technologies.

Operational productivity and strengthening customer relationships through technology are among managers priorities for technology, but as business pressures rise, real estate managers are looking for ways to utilize technology to create a sustainable competitive advantage.

"Our managers look at the technology as the only solution to the puzzle of providing better, faster service and reducing costs in their own operations--technology is the most important answer to that formula" said Fred Prassas, the new IREM president and former technology chair.

He said technology's elevation to the top of the demand heap is a result of several factors. "There are always pressure from clients for their property managers to provide more, better information and to make the information more accessible to them--providing a statement by the middle of the following month isn't quick enough, clients want to be able to go onto their computer and see the information real time.

"At the same time, we are finding that, in operations, if we are going to provide better services, it either means more staff or more technology and technology is clearly better in terms of cost efficiency."

Steve Stadmeyer, of Rose Associates, is the general manager at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village in Manhattan, an 80-acre community containing over 100 apartment buildings that more than 20,000 people call home.

"The complex is similar in population to many of the city's suburban towns," said Stadmeyer.

"The use of technology is vital to making everything run smoothly. It not only enables use to provide a service, but to meet the needs of the residents and to provide the owners [of the complex] with a tool than enables them to quantify how services are provided. It also makes the whole operation much more transparent."

The property's owner has already spent several million dollars upgrading technology throughout the complex, including the installation of a fiber optic network, key card entries and digital security cameras.

"Our neighborhood is one of New York's safest, and maintaining a secure environment for our tenants and their guests is management's top priority," said Stadmeyer.

"We've installed a state-of-the-art electronic security system that features nine Code Blue Kiosks positioned throughout the grounds which connect callers directly to live security personnel, allowing for voice and video communication."

Technology's impact on a firm's bottom line is a major factor in today's trends, according to Stadmeyer. "With the cost of labor being so high, you try to look into ways of using technology to provide better service at realistic cost benefit," he said.

"Today's market is very competitive. People are shopping around to find buildings that provide the best services. The demographics of Manhattan show the main client to be a 25-40 year old who is technologically savvy and aware of just what is available--we have to be able to provide them with that."

At Trammell Crow Company--which uses the very latest in technology to operate its $100 million national property management division--Linda Aronson, vice president of property services, said all of the high-tech gadgets in the world are worthless unless people know how to work them.

"We utilize technology to help our managers, and anyone associated with a particular property, in every way. It makes us more efficient and reduces paper clutter.

"But the most important thing is the training of the people who use it. We spend a tremendous amount of time training people to use the new technology. At the end of the day, the people become as important if not more important than the technology because they have to be able to use."

David Kuperberg, president of Cooper Square Realty--one of New York's top residential property management firms--agrees. "We are in the service business and, although technology helps us to provide better service, the people you have and service you provide is much more important."

Kuperberg's firm spends millions every year training employees in the latest technology and has pioneered several of the most innovative techniques in building management training and operations.

"We are in the information age and customers demand the level of service that only technology can provide," said Kuperberg. "But most of the technologies available to property managers were not written for that particular company's application so firms have been forced to adapt their processes to the technology in order to have effective technology.

"It really requires investment in technology for the company not just to use what's available but to convert it for use in property management."

Kuperberg believes that those firms that fail to embrace the technological age will likely meet their demise.

"I would say that small firms are going to have more and more trouble being able to provide the services that are demanded because they are using a combination of technologies [instead of one holistic network].

"If they are going to survive, they have to invest significant dollars in developing those technologies."

Those not willing to get with the program will likely be devoured by the new breed of property manager the technological age has produced, according to Cushman & Wakefield's Majkowski.

"Today, more people are coming into the field with different educational backgrounds, either from the technology end or from the financial side," she said. "A lot of people treat it as an asset management position because of the amount of information and services you have to deal with and it has now become a career of choice for many.

"Although there are still some property managers who have worked their way up from the boiler room, if they are not going to get technologically savvy, they're not going to get far.

"The types of owners we are getting in the New York market are buying their property as an investment and they want to deal with someone who has an understanding of the value of the asset--they are less interested in speaking with someone who knows how the boiler works."