Download IT and Facilities Management Find Common

WH IT E PA P E R
IT and Facilities Management
Find Common Ground in
Technology
Market
Pulse
TO N AV I G AT E THE CON VE RGE N CE, ENTER P R ISES SEEK SINGLE
PA RT NE R WI TH E X PE RTI SE ACROS S BOTH FIELDS.
The rise of technologies like automation, analytics, and the
Internet of Things is closing the long-standing gap between IT
and facilities management. Savvy IT and business execs are
seizing the opportunity presented by that convergence, creating
a holistic framework that can be brought to bear on shared
goals—from boosting revenue growth to driving operational
efficiencies.
B OTH DISCIPL IN ES, UN SU RE OF TH E IR
R OLE S IN A MO RE IN TEGRATED EN VIRO NM E NT, CONTIN UE TO STRUGGL E TO
COLLAB OR ATE EFFECTIVELY TO DELIVE R
OPTIM AL VAL U E FO R THE BU SIN ES S.
IT and facilities have historically been worlds apart. IT leadership has a mandate to build out infrastructure to store and
manage information flow and support key business strategies.
Facilities grew out of a real-estate function with a charter to
oversee HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning), lighting,
security, and other building-specific systems. The clear delineation of labor gave birth to separate organizations, each with
different priorities and best practices. The two groups rarely
interacted or shared data unless a problem arose, and siloed
systems and separate networks ensured there was little transparency across functions.
The domains are even further apart on key measures of
success. Facilities responds to “keeping the lights on” metrics
such as maintaining low operating costs or reducing enterprise
energy consumption, while IT is assessed on how well it can
meet service-level agreements (SLAs) and enable business
strategies.
There are also marked differences between the two camps
from a cultural and technology adoption standpoint. IT has
grown up with rapid-fire technology change, and thus expects
to continually learn about and implement the latest innovations. Facilities management, on the other hand, hasn’t been
faced with the same pace of technological advancement. As a
result, IT generally perceives facilities as less technically astute.
For its part, facilities is skeptical that IT has full understanding of
the systems under its jurisdiction, as well as the impact of data
center operations on the broader enterprise.
While there’s been some convergence through the years,
driven by a common IT network infrastructure based on the
Internet Protocol (IP), the promise of efficiency and a common
agenda has been thwarted by misunderstanding and skepticism
that the groups can collaborate effectively and work toward
shared goals. Both disciplines, unsure of their roles in a more
integrated environment, continue to struggle to collaborate
effectively to deliver optimal value for the business.
CHANGE IS COMING
The maturation of both domains and a common set of external
pressures are combining to open the door for change. Soaring
Top Seven Business Priorities for the
Next 12 Months
42%
Revenue growth
Business process
improvement
33%
27%
Improved profitability
Product/Service innovation
26%
Business growth/scalability
24%
Security/risk management
24%
Cost reduction
21%
SOURCE: IDG RESEARCH SERVICES, JULY 2014
2
IT AND FACILIT IE S M A NA G E M E NT F IND C O M M O N GR O UN D I N T E CHN O L O GY
energy costs coupled with environmental regulations are
pressing companies to take a hard look at energy consumption
and develop strategies to bolster efficiency and reduce costs.
Uptime, reliability, and business continuity are now essential to
competing effectively in this era of technology-driven business.
Confronted by these mandates, IT and business leaders are
recognizing that a partnership and a shared technology vision
with facilities leaders are critical to achieving objectives across
such a broad scale.
The need for such a partnership is reflected in the priorities
identified in an April 2014 CIO/IDG Research Services survey of IT
and business leaders. The survey finds that revenue growth is a
top business priority over the next 12 months (42%), followed by
business process improvement (33%) and improved profitability
(27%). Large enterprises (those with 1,000 or more employees)
are significantly more likely to cite cost reduction as a top priority
(41%) compared with the 7% of small- and mid-sized companies
that emphasize such reductions.
IT process improvement ranks as very important to nearly
two-thirds of survey respondents as a way to reduce operating
expenses (OpEx) while improvements to facilities management is
second, ranked as significant by slightly more than a third (35%)
of participants. In comparison, downsizing (15%), upgrades to
HVAC systems (15%), and reduced travel (9%) are not viewed as
significant factors for reducing OpEx.
There are also signs of convergence related to budget allocation. IT management is primarily tasked with managing budget
for facility maintenance specific to the data center. Building and
facilities management, on the other hand, has responsibility
for determining the budget and spending specific to building
maintenance. Even so, the demarcation in budget priorities is
not as pronounced as one might anticipate, according to the
Cutting OPEX: IT Process Improvement
Leads Way
IT process improvement
Improved facilities
management
50%
16%
3%
32%
Data center consolidation 6%
27%
Hardware automation
Downsizing
18% 9%
39%
26%
21%
4% 21%
Outsourcing IT processes 5% 15%
22% 7% 4%
2%13% 20%
37%
30%
Upgrade heating, ventilation, and air conditioning 1% 14% 23%
(HVAC)
37%
Reduced Travel
41%
1% 8% 30%
9%
25%
41%
21%
19%
21%
35%
25%
19%
SOURCE: IDG RESEARCH SERVICES, JULY 2014
Market
Pulse
survey results.
Moreover, with facilities systems starting to mirror what’s
happening in IT, the groups are finding even more common
ground. Traditional building system silos are being replaced
with open systems that trade up proprietary protocols for open
APIs and Web interfaces that can facilitate the design of smart
building systems, the proliferation of wireless technologies, full
building integration, and support for a single IP/Internet bus,
WH ILE FA CILIT IE S MA N A G E ME N T IS AP T
TO D E VOT E T H E LIO N ’S S H A RE O F I T S
BU D G E T TO MA IN T E N A N CE A N D RE PAI R S,
IT T E N D S TO E A RMA RK BU D G E T TO F UN D
N E W D E VE LO PME N T S A N D PRO J E CT S.
according to analyst firm Frost & Sullivan. Software, as opposed
to hardware, is becoming central to building automation, as is
integration with the Internet. Finally, building automation
systems (BAS) are becoming a fixture on the information
systems backbone.
There is precedence for convergence. The Frost & Sullivan
report cites the running of voice, data, video, and business
applications on the same network as one example. The transition
to enterprise Voice over IP (VoIP) is another. In these cases,
while voice domain experts were initially reluctant to partner
with IT decision makers, they eventually realized they could
benefit from IT’s data expertise to help orchestrate the migration to VoIP and take ownership of the IP PBX purchase decision,
Frost & Sullivan finds.
IT PRIORITIZES INNOVATION SPENDING
Despite signs of coalescence around goals, there are still differences in how IT and facilities prioritize their agendas. While facilities management is apt to devote the lion’s share of its budget
to maintenance and repairs, IT tends to earmark budget to fund
new developments and projects.
For example, of the respondents to the CIO/IDG Research
Services survey who provided estimates for their building/facilities management budgets, 2 in 5 (42%) say they plan to direct
more than 80% of their budgets toward maintenance and repair
projects as opposed to new developments over the next 12
months. The budget not earmarked for maintenance and repairs
will be put to use to fund renovation, new technology implementation, and expansion efforts.
Slightly more than one-fifth of respondents (21%) indicate that
their organizations will refrain from any major building- or facilityrelated initiatives outside of routine maintenance projects.
Moreover, the majority of respondents say they are satisfied with
the reliability and operations of facilities and building manage-
3
Market
Pulse
IT AND FACILIT IE S M A NA G E M E NT F IND C O M M O N GR O UN D I N T E CHN O L O GY
Hotbed of activity: Data Center to Feel Impact of Server Virtualization,
Mobility and Public Cloud
44%
Increased use of server virtualization
Mobility
30%
Integration of public cloud services
30%
26%
Data center consolidation
Insight discovery/trend spotting/
Big Data analytics
21%
20%
Increased use of desktop virtualization
High performance computing and increased
adoption of blade servers/chassis
16%
15%
Energy monitoring/management
13%
Software-defined networking
Other
No major initiatives impacting the data
center over the next 12 months
7%
21%
SOURCE: IDG RESEARCH SERVICES, JULY 2014
ment, with fire safety and building security, in particular, ranked
highest. With approval of such systems relatively high, it makes
sense that companies aren’t directing significant budget to major
facilities transformation.
In contrast, the data center appears to be a hotbed of activity.
Survey respondents say they have major initiatives planned for
server virtualization (44%), mobility (30%), and integration of public
cloud services (30%). To support those plans, survey participants
have specific IT investments in their sights, including network
security and firewall upgrades (45%), deploying managed services
(30%), and upgrading networks to 10GB performance (31%).
There also appears to be a slight IT bias in how to address the
shared business priorities, particularly when it comes to revenue
growth and reducing OpEx. For example, while two-thirds of
respondents cite IT process improvement as critical for reducing
operating expenses, only 15% say upgrades to large-scale facilities systems like HVAC would have an impact, and even then,
only slightly more than reduced travel.
The disconnect illustrates there is still more work to be done
to align the priorities of IT and facilities while promoting a holistic
approach to achieving shared objectives. This can also be interpreted from another survey data point: One-third of respondents report dissatisfaction with building automation systems,
indicating companies see the potential in integrating building
automation into the IT infrastructure, so building-related data
like energy consumption can be easily accessed via the Web
and managed alongside enterprise application data.
DATA CENTER CONVERGENCE AND BEYOND
Alignment and a long-term partnership between facilities and
IT have great potential to transform a host of facilities-centric
functions within the enterprise.
Some examples include:
» Energy efficiency: As the primary energy consumer, the
data center needs to be the primary target of any energy-savings
initiative, but there are other opportunities to reduce usage and
optimize spending. Without IT and facilities cooperation, there is
no holistic view of energy consumption, putting mission-critical
IT applications at risk or prompting companies to prematurely
invest in building out additional power and cooling infrastructure
A LIG N ME N T A N D A LO N G -T E RM PA RT N ERS H IP BE T WE E N FA CILIT IE S A N D IT H AS
G RE AT POT E N T IA L TO T RA N S F O RM A
H O S T O F FA CILIT IE S -CE N T RIC F U N C T I ON S
WIT H IN T H E E N T E RPRIS E .
when there is no formal need.
With a unified view, organizations can more readily optimize
energy consumption in a number of ways, from dynamically
provisioning servers to respond to changing business requirements, to intelligently balancing workloads to optimize consumption while controlling costs. Energy-usage information can also
be merged with other enterprise data—for example, financial
data to aid in more accurate budget forecasts, or productivity
data to find correlations between employee comfort and
4
Market
Pulse
IT AND FACILIT IE S M A NA G E M E NT F IND C O M M O N GR O UN D I N T E CHN O L O GY
Organization Will Upgrade Network Security, Deploy Managed Services
and Bolster the Network
45%
Upgrade network security and firewall
39%
Deploy managed/3rd party services
31%
Bolster network (i.e., 10Gb)
Upgrade HVAC
13%
Leverage alternative cooling
12%
Reconfigure floor layouts
(to maximize airflow)
12%
Other
19%
SOURCE: IDG RESEARCH SERVICES, JULY 2014
increased workloads.
» Fire systems: Integrating fire safety systems as part of an
overall IP-based building system opens the door to a number of
benefits. Whether for advanced planning purposes or during the
course of an actual emergency event, building maps, maintenance records, and spec sheets can be made readily available to
firefighters and company managers via smartphones and other
mobile devices, aiding in the response effort.
Building automation: By integrating building automation
capabilities into the overall IP-based IT architecture, building
managers and IT managers can centrally access, monitor, and
troubleshoot specific building systems and controls using the
same familiar Web-based technologies. A centralized Web architecture will also ensure that notifications about building status
or problems can be issued via texts, voice messages, or email
to smartphones, enabling more widespread sharing of data,
particularly when staffers are remote, and to facilitate improved
problem solving.
» Building security: A security command and control
system that encompasses safety, alarm, surveillance, intrusion detection, and communications systems and is integrated
into the enterprise IP network infrastructure can readily deliver
prompt emergency communications via audio alarms and SMS
messages.
BILINGUAL PARTNER CAN STEER THE COURSE
Given that IT and facilities have traditionally been worlds apart,
companies may find it advantageous to bring in a technology
partner fluent in both disciplines to serve as a mediator. Such
a partner, with domain expertise across IT, data center management, building automation, and security and safety systems,
can be an effective resource for developing a roadmap for
holistic IT/facilities management integration. Such a partner
can also help translate the high-level integration strategy into
tangible business benefits while ensuring each discipline under-
G IVE N T H AT IT A N D FA CILIT IE S H AV E
T RA D IT IO N A LLY BE E N WO RLD S A PART,
CO MPA N IE S MAY F IN D IT A D VA N TAGEOUS
TO BRIN G IN A T E CH N O LO G Y PA RT NER
F LU E N T IN BOT H D IS CIPLIN E S TO S E R V E
A S A ME D IATO R.
stands the impact of an action on the enterprise as a whole.
The competitive business climate and stricter energy
mandates are pushing IT and facilities in similar directions. Rather
than pursue the isolated efforts of the past, it makes sense that
the disciplines combine their respective strengths around a
common technology foundation. With the right partner to help
navigate, IT and facilities can lead the enterprise to a future
of innovation and efficiency, reducing OpEx while increasing
revenue. ■