#cloudrealestate

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.