Cisco Opens Door for Increased Value, Streamlined Operations and New Services in the Real Estate Sector
May 25, 2005
By Jason Deign, News@Cisco
Half a decade ago large corporations started to realize that they could make significant savings by running all their communications over a single network. Today, the same thing is about to happen all over again with businesses in construction, real estate and property services.
Cisco Systems® is targeting these companies with a framework called Cisco Connected Real Estate (CCRE), which aims to give them capital and operational cost savings and improved efficiency, as well as helping create new revenue streams and improve safety and security.
CCRE's premise is simple. Like large corporations five or six years ago, which typically operated different platforms for their voice, data and video communications, today's buildings are using multiple proprietary networks for automation systems and associated devices.
These systems can cover heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC); security and access; fire and safety; and separate telecommunications and data networks.
As a result, modern buildings are often complex to operate, have high installation, integration and ongoing maintenance costs, and have limited automation potential. So why not simply merge all the networks together? With IP, this is not just possible, but easy.
Many building developers, owners and tenants are already thinking of deploying a converged Cisco IP network, making it straightforward to combine IT and the building systems, carrying voice, video and data signals alongside HVAC, lighting, energy, video surveillance and access information on one network.
The benefits of this networked building approach start during the design and construction process, with a single, open-standards cabling infrastructure reducing the requirement for multiple closed proprietary networks and the associated complexity and cost of installing them.
CCRE also helps reduce operating expenses over the building's lifecycle. The open-standards based building infrastructure encourages a centralized and/or remote approach to monitoring, maintaining and controlling the building environment.
Besides reducing costs, CCRE gives buildings operators the potential to create new revenues by offering tenants special bundles of services including, for example, increasingly popular high-speed Internet access, Web-based surveillance and household automation systems.
In addition, the convergence of IT and buildings systems has a tremendous impact on the ability to create safer buildings, allowing, for example, fire, police or ambulance crews to potentially tap into in-building video surveillance systems to assess an emergency situation.
There is persuasive industry evidence suggesting that the market is ready for CCRE.
According to ARC Advisory Group's Building Automation Outlook for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), 2003, "as BASs [Building Automation Systems] become part of a much larger IT infrastructure, customers are increasingly demanding a scaleable capability.
"ARC says this will be used "to connect, monitor, integrate and control functions in a single building, groups of buildings or even entire cities.
"The BAS industry has come to realize that the convergence [with] IT and the growing demand to share information between systems offers a tremendous opportunity, which is rapidly becoming a requirement."
Like many areas of technology development that Cisco espouses, Cisco's core experience in CCRE is in-house. The company's EMEA operation employs 7,000 people and has an extensive real estate portfolio consisting of 63 sites.
The business implemented a Cisco AVVID (Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data) platform to create an IP-networked building system across its entire real estate portfolio, to provide employees with 'anywhere-connections' to voice, video and data.
As a result, any IP-enabled device, including Cisco IP phone handsets, palm pilots, desktop PCs and laptops, can now be plugged into any access point, allowing voice, video and data to be accessed and shared by anyone, anywhere on the network.
Wireless IP is providing additional flexibility, as an overlay to the wired IP infrastructure. With wireless, staff working anywhere on-site can be on the intranet within seconds. Cisco is also offering wireless hotspots in reception, for visitors to use.
The infrastructure lets the business monitor its own real estate portfolio, detect problems and respond to incidents. With its IP solution, Cisco EMEA can now configure its real estate to match user needs.
Cisco EMEA has already achieved cost avoidance and cost saving benefits valued at some US$330 million.
These include items such as space consolidation; increased employee efficiency and productivity; improvement in real estate management systems; and reduced cabling, furniture, system maintenance and site-to-site call costs.
Worldwide, the company is saving millions of dollars a year on one CCRE application alone: running video surveillance systems over an IP network.
Such benefits are not unique to Cisco. In Holland, for example, the Amsterdam Science Park's Matrix 5 office block has been able to make savings on variable facility costs of at least 23 per cent (and 10 per cent on overall facility costs) by using a converged network infrastructure.
In a similar vein, Manchester City Football Club, one of the UK's oldest soccer clubs, is pioneering an advanced wireless system from HP, Fortress GB and Cisco in its 48,000-seat stadium.
The systems admits 1,200 patrons per minute, extends access to real-time information and e-purse transactions stadium-wide, and enables the club and its sponsors to deliver customer relationship management-driven products to boost relationships, brand value and revenues.
"As one of the country's leading professional football clubs, we have to be agile both on the field and as a business," says Alistair Mackintosh, managing director of Manchester City.
"By enabling us to innovate and expand in our services to fans, merchandising initiatives and sponsorship arrangements, our Intelligent Stadium solution from HP, Cisco and Fortress GB helps us build an even stronger club."
Jason Deign is a freelance journalist located in Barcelona, Spain.
