As budgets tighten for everyone and everywhere, it is more important than ever to demonstrate the ROI of all the systems and software in your stack. That includes calculating the return of smart building technologies including various factors such as specific risks, costs, and time. Elements of measuring ROI require a deep understanding of your current systems and future goals.
One of the most common challenges is the prevalence of disparate disconnected point solutions. There is a multitude of vendors of smart building technologies that are designed to do one thing and do it well. However, in the long run, point solutions are usually not a smart investment because you end up spending more time stitching together multiple point solutions rather than achieving the overarching goal of a fully integrated smart building system.
At Cohesion, we recognize the complexities of smart building systems and the variety of vendors that customers may already have deployed or installed. That’s why we created our Smart Building Platform seamlessly connects to the systems you already have, while also introducing new features and capabilities to your properties and spaces.
When baselining ROI with a new customer – or assisting them in regular reporting, we focus on 3 1/2 pillars that define how we optimize investments: Software Unification, Employee Productivity, Operating Efficiency, and Payback.
1. Software Unification
With the endless array of smart building software and systems to choose from, software unification has become a vital differentiation. It is now the most innovative and efficient way to harness smart building technology. Cohesion’s platform integrates all necessary smart building features into one mobile experience, accessible on everyone’s phone, and collaborates seamlessly with the systems you already have.
We have divided these capabilities into three products:
- Smart Access includes features such as digital key cards, visitor management, and a cloud access portal.
- Smart Experience focuses on front-of-the-house data, such as reservations, transportation, and communication.
- Smart Maintenance handles back-of-the-house data like work orders, vendor management, and temperature controls.
Not only can we integrate our software with your existing stack, but we also ensure that we are adding the most advanced features to improve workplace efficiency. For example, with Cohesion’s mass communication feature in the Smart Experience app, you can send out in-app notifications, robocalls, text messages, and emails in bulk to all users. This capability improves responsiveness and enhances overall safety within a building or set of properties.
We see our customers realize a $44 savings per year when they move from point solutions precariously stitched together to a more unified platform like ours.
2. Employee Productivity
At Cohesion, we operate in speed-mode daily. We know employee productivity is one of the most important business metrics yet also one of the hardest to quantify. Empowering employees with automated systems that they can control significantly contributes to this. Cohesion’s smart building platform enhances productivity for everyone in your spaces—tenants, employees, and staff—and can increase employee productivity by up to 35%. Our platform eliminates significant amounts of busy work for employees, including sending individual invites and managing visitors, thanks to features like bulk notifications, automated emails, and QR code access. Our streamlined solution condenses the arduous workflow of your point solutions to a one-step process on a single platform.
Cohesion customers can see savings of $22/user.
3. Operating Efficiency
With shrinking management teams and the decline of in-person office attendance, improving efficiency with minimal resources is crucial. As employees are constantly swamped with everyday work, why add more to their plate when you can simply give them access to smart tools that will lighten their workload?
Everyone has to prioritize more with fewer resources.
Cohesion’s digital tools streamline manual tasks, implement workflow automation, and ensure operational continuity. This level of productivity is equivalent to the work of 1.9 full-time employees.
3 ½. Payback
At the end of the day, the most critical question when calculating ROI is: How long will it take to make back the money I’m investing? Customers that invest in the Cohesion suite typically break even in less than a year. Within that year, customers will see significant savings from what they would normally be spending on employees to do the tasks that Cohesion automates. These are many other metrics to use to measure the ROI on smart technology.
Whether it’s software unification, increased productivity and efficiency, or quick payback on investment, Cohesion will help you reach your goals. Not only do we strive to achieve the most efficient and affordable smart solutions, but they are also configurable across all buildings and scalable across all portfolios.
Ready to make a change? Book a consultation with our experts today.
