#cloudrealestate

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Sizing up Connected Real Estate

Sizing up Connected Real Estate – Does size really matter?

Today, I’d like to explore how to size the connectivity aspect when exploring the decision to offer (or just use) Connected Real Estate for a Real Estate Project.

Defining the needs of the target market

While all of the above focus on the tenant base, there is a very large benefit to the long term operating cost as well: Being able to gather real-time data points and use that data to tune environmental controls and tenant services levels the most optimal levels will lower operational cost and, as an additional benefit, positively impact tenant satisfaction and therefore, retention rates.

Taking a look at the future

Once a clear picture is established on who the target market is, it is time to take a look at future expectations. Within the markets that were defined, how would their requirements change over the next 5, 10, and 20 years? Video is increasing in popularity and if you found that Video Conferencing is important for prospects, it is easy to look at the changes in our expectation of TV and see where video conferencing is going. Multiple people at the same time, from multiple locations, will be talking to each other in real time and in high definition. This requires not only ‘broadband’ capabilities (lots of bandwidth), it also requires high quality bandwidth.

When telecommunications or Cloud Services are important, it might be important have redundancy in place to assure business continuity when one of the connections goes down.

It may not be necessary to take drastic steps in the beginning, and understanding where the future might be going will offer a greater chance to be current and stay that way for years to come. A partner in the technology field, with experience and understanding of the real estate market, will be able to help with the future vision as well as the next step:

Sizing up the environment

After looking at the target market and the foreseeable future, it is time to size up the environment itself. The nice part is that for the most part, the prediction can be based on existing data, found at the municipal archives (information regarding zoning and details about companies in the area) and on specialist sites on the Internet.  A technology partner can help you provide this data and give a genuine insight in the immediate needs and those that can be addressed later. This way, preparations can be made to provide additional cabling, providers or even redundancy throughout the site, without having to incur the full cost of implementation, management and maintenance from the get-go.

So, does size matter?

Do you have to be a skyscraper or a shopping mall to do anything with Connected Real Estate? There is only one simple answer, and that answer is ‘no’. Asking yourself if you are too big or too small is –in my opinion- irrelevant when considering Connected Real Estate, simply because of the permeation of Internet utilization throughout businesses today. Every business, big and small, uses connectivity every day for communications, operations, entertainment and control. Connected Real Estate is the logical next step for all businesses in the value chain – from the architects to the tenants – and size is irrelevant.

If you would like more information on what Connected Real Estate can do for your project, new or existing, and locate a partner that will be able to assist in the assessment, implementation and maintenance of your connected efforts, I can be contacted through the information below.

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Cas Mollien in front of 600 Brickell, by Jeffery Newbury.

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Fantastic article written by Rick Huijbregts from Cisco Canada. 

How many of us still don’t believe that our children and their children will expect connectivity, wireless, and access to a personalized environment when the set foot in a home or building. Home many of us still don’t think that mobility, “cloud computing”, and virtualized compute power will change the landscape of the built environment and everything that we do in it, as we know it.

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What is Connected Real Estate and why should you care?

Now that slowly, but surely, the term Connected Real Estate is getting more traction, I often get the question about what CRE is. While there are many definitions from different sides of the spectrum, they all have one thing in common: 

First and foremost, Connected Real Estate defines that a complete real estate project is electronically connected to the outside world, which is most commonly done through a connection to the Internet. 

Having a complete building, shopping mall or other type of community connected as a whole, instead of through individually managed and maintained connections, opens a whole new way of generating value.

History

Not too long ago, the various departments in a company were disconnected from each other, while many of them had access to overlapping pieces of information. Usually, departments like Operations, HR and finance relied on their own methods to keep track of employee information of the same employee, client or vendor. Business systems have added an enormous value by giving all departments access to all of the relevant information through one looking glass, instantly and accurately.

Change..

Now, this change is slowly permeating the Real Estate industry as well. Connected Real Estate makes is possible for building management systems such as HVAC, fire suppression, lighting and other MEP (Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing) systems to communicate - often about the same thing - and exchange important data points.

The collection of these data points can be used with the same purposes as the data in any other business; to improve troubleshooting, increase productivity, bring down TCO and to lead to improvements that can be used on future projects.

Rewards

The rewards for this effort are exponential to the size and scale of the project. The energy footprint can be drastically decreased and changes to the way energy is managed can be made on an ongoing bases. If you think that turning off a single lamp, when nobody is in the room,  helps with the electric bill, imagine what controlling the thousands of lamps in (and around) a smart building could do for the operation cost.

From this perspective, providing Internet services to the tenants of the building really seems a secondary benefit, but one with huge implications. So big even, that providers of services can be coached to provide their services at significantly lower rates or even, to make certain investments, creating a greater benefit for all parties involved.

All, including mother Nature. We're getting one step closer to be self sustaining.