Intelligent Places, Spaces, Workplaces

For CFO, COO, CHRO, CIO, Asset Owner, Facilities Managers, Workplace Designers, Tenants

Success is driven by intelligent assets

Over the years, we have been asked to speak on occasion to a number of industry bodies to share our opinions on future of the built environment and how technology will continue to impact how we go about our lives and our work in ‘smart’ places, spaces and workplaces.

I focus here on building folios as intelligent assets (e.g. corporate offices, airports, universities, hospitals, factories etc) but the same insights are equally applicable to any tangible asset, be it a built product (e.g. bridges, stadiums, municipal spaces), a piece of equipment or machinery, or operational infrastructure (e.g. transport systems, utilities and telecommunication infrastructure, water/sewer systems).

‘Success’ in real estate used to be defined by ‘location, location, location’, but it is now the ‘location, analytics, experience’ nexus that drives value. The combination of economic and valuation downturns, work from anywhere expectations, and net-zero target obligations outlined by the World Green Building Council, have created enormous challenges for the built environment of our cities and corporate real estate.

Humans as workers want community with collaboration and connection to do their best work. Managers want to maximise workforce productivity and attract and retain top talent. Executies are adapting operating models to optimise physical assets and leverage AI and new technologies. Owners and operators must offer flexibility of intelligent, sustainable assets to meet the expectations of their tenants and optimise the value of their folio assets.

And the wins are huge for those that get it right. Human-centred organistions with flexible ways for workers to do work outperformed the market:

• Attraction and retention - over 60% outperformance

• Productivity and performance - over 70% outperformance

• Cost savings - over 2.5x (due to engagement and operational efficiencies)

• Engagement - over 2x (due to collaboration, communication, ways of working)

The value of intelligent assets

An intelligent asset is the context of a building is essentially using data-driven insights to infer intelligent use and management of the asset across the life-cycle of the building.

Real estate needs to shift from property and space provision to intelligent assets powered by data-driven insights and best-in-class experience. This relies on automated ways to collect, analyse, and act on data with predictive insights.

These can range from diagnosing historical events, root causes and occupant behaviours, to adapting operations and services in real-time with AI and automation. This also includes tracking and reporting carbon emissions for certification to net zero, to planning for the future by running simulations and what-if scenarios to assess and predict building and occupant performance and impacts on design, construction, and operation.

When organisations shift their thinking to exploiting intelligent assets, the value multipliers are huge.

• Energy consumption (1x) - Optimised energy, water, air and waste management and automation, monitoring, reporting, and ESG and decarbonisation.

• Portfolio and operating costs (3x) - Proactive/predictive maintenance, infrastructure and inventory monitoring, security and risk mitigations, reduce portfolio size/cost per person metrics, streamline lease renewals, ensure standards compliance, optimise investment of capital programs.

• Workforce attraction, retention, productivity, and engagement (10x) - Intelligent space management, interactive workplace services for convenience, health, productivity and experience.

Let’s take energy. We use the platform, sensors, data you already have to create a baseline. Using data correlation, we identify ‘low hanging fruit’ such as predicted and actual occupancy to identify excessive HVAC usage to significantly reduce energy consumption and a better operator and occupant experience. Value is a 3-way win for owner, operator, and tenant.

The next step - delivering value from intelligent assets

Sustainable value from intelligent assets needs interconnected solutions, approaches, and effective stakeholder group orchestration. But unfortunately, many organisations do not co-ordinate themselves in this way. Organisational departments end up making isolated decisions or run at different speeds. Risk aversion and inter-departmental siloed thinking often means investments are either too narrowly focussed or programs are too broad or too long to deliver tangible value. Technology and data systems are too disconnected to exploit data-driven logic for insight and intelligent automation. Executive teams are often left scratching their heads as to why measurable ROI cannot be banked.

It is a team sport with several lenses. Your multi-disciplinary team should be leaders from Property, HR, IT, Finance, Lines of Business, Strategy and Executive teams that each own specific priority outcomes:

• Strategy Executives

• Outcome is business strategy articulated through workplace and asset optimisation objectives 

• Delivered through business strategy, real estate optimisation, workplace vision and design

• People and HR Leaders

• Outcome is talent strategy, organisational capabilities, and ways of working to deliver on business strategy

• Delivered through experience design, workforce agility, change management, talent strategy

• Property and Facilities Managers

• Outcome is a portfolio and workplace to enable target way of working and asset optimisation targets

• Delivered through baseline and trending building and environmental performance data, lifecycle cost optimisation, space/asset maintenance and investment, decarbonisation and retrofit trajectory

• Data and Technology Leaders

• Outcome is to collect, analyse and correlate data and generate predictive insights to inform recommendations and opportunities for intelligent automation and trigger actions

• Delivered through applications, sensors and integration infrastructure, data and AI structures, platforms for data correlation and insight-driven automation, and operational support models

• Finance and Folio Asset Owners

• Outcome is asset costs and operational maintenance are optimised and value realised

• Delivered through the development and financing of value-based backlog of initiatives, investments and value capture models (cost and energy reduction, asset optimisation, workforce activation)

We offer strategic and practical expertise to your multi-disciplinary leadership team across all of these lenses. We work alongside your teams to focus on capturing tangible return on investment through high priority immediate actions and designing longer term plans to deliver guaranteed ROI and build your organisation’s intelligent asset capabilities.