Stakeholder collaboration can maximise the benefits generated by deploying smart technologies for public and private facilities in urban environments.
The discussion will help policy makers, building owners and technology vendors better understand how working together can grow investment in smart technologies to expand economic development and sustainability.
A new IDC report Business Strategy: Building Synergies in the Smart Ecosystem – How Smart Cities can Support Smart Building Technology Deployment, presents the results of interviews with smart technology vendors, city executives, and leverages the market constructs developed by IDC’s Smart Cities and Smart Buildings research services.
Smart building technologies enable the optimisation of facilities and generate economic and environmental benefits, key goals in the development of sustainable smart cities. However, smart building initiatives in urban areas are often developed and orchestrated independently from the larger city or municipal effort around energy management and sustainability.
Smart building initiatives for publicly owned buildings may also be developed without including the larger ecosystem of players because the champions and beneficiaries of the improvements generated by deploying smart building technologies come from different stakeholder groups.
Collaboration between stakeholders could maximise the economic and environmental benefits for both public and private building owners and extend value to the larger Smart City ecosystem as well.
Key findings of the report include:
* City and state governments should provide the leadership to engage stakeholders. Cities that conscientiously build an issue-based ecosystem around sustainability in buildings will most effectively promote smart building technology adoption and maximise progress toward Smart City energy, sustainability, and private development goals.
* City governments, private and public building owners, and technology vendors share many goals for operational efficiencies, facility cost reductions, and sustainability improvements. Stakeholder collaboration is the foundation for developing and executing strategic investment plans to develop smart buildings in the urban environment.
Cities need to develop strategies to promote common sustainability and efficiency goals and help building owners adopt smart building technologies at a faster rate.
Strategies to do this include:
* Fostering a smart building innovation ecosystem;
* Developing policies that support smart building as part of larger sustainability initiatives;
* Accelerating investment through focused financing; and
* Using city efforts as proof of concept for private building owners.
The report highlights the shared goals of stakeholders and puts them in the context of the motivations driving these goals. In addition, it generalises how key stakeholders perceive a variety of economic and environmental goals and can be used to identify opportunities for co-ordination of policy, strategy, and investment.
“Building owners, city governments, municipal utilities, and technology vendors can all benefit from collaborating on the development of energy policies, investment strategies, and education to further the demand and deployment of smart building solutions,” says Ruthbea Clarke, research director, IDC Government Insights.
“Smart building solutions generate energy and operational efficiency improvements that support the goals of city governments, building owners, and utilities while driving new business for technology providers. Co-ordination provides a win-win situation for all stakeholders in the smart building-smart city ecosystem.”