A recently released spotlight report, Cracking The Smart Buildings Code: A Spotlight On Retail And Commercial Real Estate, reveals that investments in smart buildings are essential for leaders aiming to enhance sustainability and security, and save money.
“Smart buildings are not just a trend; there is growing recognition they are a necessity for modern commercial real estate,” says Vijay Sankaran,Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Johnson Controls. “This report highlights the urgent need for integrated systems and expert partners to navigate the complexities of today’s commercial real estate market to achieve long-term success.”
The digitalisation of buildings provides an immense opportunity to gain a clearer picture of the operation of facilities to create sustainable, healthy and safe environments – a critical differentiator for both commercial real estate tenants and buyers. Notably, 75% of commercial real estate and retail leaders say smart buildings are important to accelerating their digital transformation efforts. Nearly two-thirds of leaders indicate that smart buildings are important for reducing costs, accelerating sustainability initiatives, and driving business growth. These results reveal that retail and commercial real estate leaders are seeking outcomes that have a positive impact for building owners, occupants and the bottom line.
Additional key findings include:
- Competitive differentiator: Investing in smart buildings is a competitive differentiator. Smart buildings not only help commercial real estate and retail leaders attain sustainable, secure and efficient outcomes, but they also competitively differentiate their facilities in the market.
- Integration gaps: Only 13% of commercial real estate and retail leaders say they have fully integrated building systems, leading to inefficiencies and increased risks. This lack of integrated data and insight is reducing operating efficiencies (62%), reducing customer loyalty (59%) and increasing regulatory penalties (57%).
- Vital insights: Building data is crucial for decision-making across various departments, including security, sustainability and facilities management, and many leaders recognise the current risks they face by having limited data.
- Partner expertise: Leaders seek partners with advanced technology, integration capabilities, and industry experience to drive smart building initiatives.
In August 2023, Johnson Controls commissioned Forrester Consulting to evaluate the state of smart buildings. Forrester conducted an online survey with 3,445 respondents responsible for smart building strategy to explore this topic. This spotlight is focused on a subset of 299 smart buildings decision-makers in retail and commercial real estate.
