In light of its latest launch, to suggest the M3 Group is technology-obsessed is an understatement
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In light of its latest launch, to suggest the M3 Group is technology-obsessed is an understatement.
M3 Tech—which will be headed by Andre Boisvert, M3’s new chief technology officer—will leverage scale, data and innovation, including artificial intelligence, to make brokering—and, by extension, client relationship cultivation—a breeze.
“Using data and the latest and greatest, in terms of profiling but also artificial intelligence, is also a core,” said Boisvert. “That was the mindset in creating the division and we want to make sure we have the best goals, best organization and best mindset in order to accomplish that. We want to be attractive to new talent in this very competitive space is important, and also putting into place the new tools and processes in the organization. It’s making sure that we’re continuing to serve the business, which is our number one goal, and making sure we keep innovating and contributing to the organization.”
Duties for the 32-person tech team include everything from day-to-day IT management to strategic oversight, as well as the organization’s long-term focus on innovation. Much of it stems from the vision M3 developed during its inception.
“When we got into this space, one of the opportunities we saw was technology because it wasn’t being leveraged in a very high level,” said Dino Di Pancrazio, M3’s executive vice president of strategy and innovation. “We pushed a bunch of broker-led technologies and we’ll continue working on technology-driven pieces because that’s been a really big part of our success since the beginning.”
Di Pancrazio notes that consumers are, by and large, in the driver’s seat today. Their expectations of service providers are higher than they’ve ever been, in part because of behemoths like Amazon that have revolutionized retail.
“It’s a lofty goal, an ambitious goal, but our goal is for consumers to think of us as the Amazon in our space,” said Di Pancrazio.
M3 Tech will use data, as well as artificial intelligence and profiling technology, to make brokers’ lives easier.
“The world has changed and consumers are behaving differently and, as such, what we want to make sure that our technology platform will support brokers and create more opportunities for them to use data,” said Boisvert. “We’re very much data-driven and we’ll also use the latest and greatest profiling—that’s our division’s mindset, and we want to make sure we have the best people in this organization in order to accomplish that, because we’re in a very competitive space.”
The network will also launch M3 Innovation Lab at the National Mortgage Conference later this month in Montreal.
“What that is—and you’ve seen it in a number of different industries—is we’re partnering up with big industry players,” said Di Pancrazio. “We already have them locked in—TD, First National, Equifax—and we’re going to do an ongoing collaboration; a dialogue about how innovation in technology is changing the eco system that is mortgages, home equity and financial services. What we’re going to create is a conversation with the goal of generating ideas that will impact the whole space. We want to take those ideas coming out of the lab with our partners and put them into action.”
