Cadillac Fairview is building on the success of automated invoice processing​

Automating the future: Cadillac Fairview’s digital transformation 

In 2021, Cadillac Fairview began a transformational journey to integrate automation and AI into its Finance department, which quickly developed into a key component of their core business and technology strategy. The initiative began with identifying internal processes burdened by manual work and primed for optimization.

“An early standout achievement was the deployment of robots for the Development contracts and invoice processing within the Development Finance team, which resulted in immediate efficiency gains in processes.” -Enkelejda Sinaj, Senior Director, Development Finance 

This optimization dramatically improved the Development Finance team’s efficiency. The success of the Development Finance automation created a proof point for the potential success of a larger automation strategy, and validated the potential of AI-driven solutions to address complex, high-volume processes across other departments.

Upon hearing about the success of the new technology, the Finance Services team began to inquire about how they could leverage the UiPath Platform™ and bots for their own processes. It was their interest and quick adoption which led to the growth of the automation team. 

Establishment of automation center of excellence at Cadillac Fairview 

The early success of automation instilled great confidence in how automation could improve business results and trigger the development of the Automation center of excellence (CoE) at CF. However, CF knew they needed to establish clear guardrails to ensure healthy and sustained growth. In mid 2023, Cadillac Fairview developed a robotic process automation (RPA) CoE playbook to standardize automation practices along with an Automation Audit Control Framework to help govern and guide deployment of automations with appropriate controls.

“The Automation CoE was established primarily to ensure adherence to governing principles and best practices for each bot deployment. Additionally, the Automation Audit Control Framework was implemented to enforce CF’s policies and protocols. Overall, the program has received a warm welcome across the organization for its efficiency and experience, and we anticipate substantial growth as the program scales to other areas.” -Habib Qayumi, Director, Business Solutions 

One of the first initiatives, the Automation CoE helped lead UiPath Document Understanding™ to verify data on invoices for matching ‌PO and vendor data.

“The automation tool we implemented and used to simplify how we enter sales and verify AP has helped remove the administrative process of our operations, allowing us to refocus our efforts. These automations have improved how we interact with our internal and external stakeholders, allowing us to streamline processes, save time, cut down on repetitive work, and deliver results more efficiently and timely. Most of all, it has improved the team's deliverables by moving effort from administrative to analytical, achieving increased job satisfaction.” - Doug Rosa, Vice President, and Mary Pukas, Senior Director, Finance Services  

Building a culture of automation across the business 

With the Automation CoE in place, Cadillac Fairview has expanded automation into Development Finance, Finance Services, Operations, and Data & Technology.

“Currently we have nine bots in production today across multiple lines of business. We plan to grow our reach even further in 2025 through a robust pipeline.” -Daniel Rico, Senior Manager, Automation CoE

The Automation CoE has saved thousands of hours within the organization and has enabled employees to focus on strategic thinking. As a result, they have seen a large shift in team involvement and an increase in use case submissions.

“As we look forward, we will be scaling the automation program over the next couple of years and keeping a close eye on the development of AI and its incorporation with the automation practice at CF. Understanding the capabilities of automation and learning more about how we can enhance our existing bots to think smarter, is critical to our overall success and evolution.” -Daniel Rico, Senior Manager, Automation CoE

Cadillac Fairview’s internal communications strategy, including newsletters, town halls, and success stories, has fostered a culture of innovation. Employees actively engage in identifying new opportunities for automation, sharing feedback, and championing change.

Automation within the organization today, and what’s next  

Looking ahead, CF aims to scale AI-powered automation to support sustainability goals, improve tenant experiences, and harness data analytics for deeper insights.

“The company envisions automation as not just a tool for operational efficiency, but as a strategic enabler for resilience and competitive advantage in the evolving real estate market. One of our latest developments was the implementation of an AI CoE. We took our lessons learned and experiences from the Automation CoE and applied it to this new governing body at CF. By leveraging AI’s ability to learn, adapt and predict, CF aims to optimize processes with the right controls and policies in place to deliver innovative solutions." -Katia Saenko, SVP, Data & Technology

Cadillac Fairview’s automation journey exemplifies how a well-designed CoE, strategic partnerships with stakeholders, and a focus on continuous improvement can unlock the potential of AI and automation to drive innovation and savings.” -Habib Qayumi, Director, Business Solutions