{"id":17366,"date":"2020-01-07T11:00:29","date_gmt":"2020-01-07T19:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2020\/01\/07\/news-11102\/"},"modified":"2020-01-07T11:00:29","modified_gmt":"2020-01-07T19:00:29","slug":"news-11102","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2020\/01\/07\/news-11102\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Steps to Secure Approval of Your Building Infrastructure Refresh Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Credit to Author: Tim Geiger| Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2020 16:51:52 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tim Geiger is the President of Stark Tech Group. The Stark Tech Group is a Master-level BMS EcoXpert<\/em>\"\u2122\".<\/em><\/p>\n

Facilities personnel responsible for building management<\/a> play an important role in supporting building owner modernization goals: specifically, they are tasked with introducing and implementing technological innovation. A key challenge facing facilities managers, however, is how to achieve buy-in from executives for the funding of technology upgrade projects. The critical success factor for securing these funds is the ability of facilities personnel to communicate the functions of new technologies in terms that reflect either a reduction of business risk or an increase in business value. Miscommunications often result in budgets that are too small to accomplish all the work needed to achieve necessary facility improvements.<\/p>\n

\"building <\/p>\n

As an experienced building automation<\/a> systems integrator and Schneider Electric master-level EcoXpert<\/a>, our company Stark Tech Group<\/a> recommends several tactics to help facilities managers ensure executive buy-in for upgrade projects:<\/p>\n

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  1. \n

    Partner with IT in order to leverage more flexible IT budgets\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    A strategy that we often suggest to our budget-constrained facilities clients, is to partner with their IT department to secure funding. Facilities systems today are more automated than ever and, in many cases, can be regarded as IT systems. Many of these facilities’ power, cooling, and access control<\/a> systems are now linked to cloud interfaces and can justifiably be categorized as IT projects. IT funding mechanisms are more fluid than budgets surrounding traditional facilities projects. By partnering with IT for connectivity and network compliance of facilities systems, budgetary options can be expanded.<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    Assess your facility\u2019s ability to gather, interpret and act on physical infrastructure data<\/h3>\n

    The ability to easily gather and analyze facilities data is another key that opens executive funding pocketbooks. Strategically, certain data within a building envelope can clearly indicate how to reduce operational energy costs. Monitoring data from low voltage equipment and power meters<\/a>, building management systems<\/a>, and HVAC equipment, can help to quantify performance and to calculate corresponding business impact. The ability to generate analytics places the discussion on the level of business value instead of arguing the technical merits of a system upgrade. Looking at the numbers provides an easy way to prioritize the investment and to place it on the executive budgeting radar screen. The data gathering and analysis exercise can be accomplished either internally or with outside help. This is where co-sourcing\u2013working hand- in-hand with a systems integrator<\/a>\u2013 can become an attractive option.<\/li>\n

  3. \n

    Make it easy for C-level executives to decide in your favor by bucketing priorities<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Executives speak the language of opportunity cost, cost avoidance, Net Present Value (NPV) and, beyond the financials, are very concerned with their building\u2019s sustainability footprint. In order to catch their attention, place the highest priority building improvements into specific buckets to make it easy for executives to make the right investment decision. Those buckets should align to three investment consideration categories:<\/p>\n