An app doth not a smart building make, but it helps. Building apps have the power to collect the data required to predict future working patterns. Invaluable insight if you can get it. Here’s how...

An app in isolation does not equate to a smart building. And yet, over the past six months, activity around tenant engagement platforms has rocketed both in terms of adoption and investment. Following the peak of the pandemic, occupiers and landlords alike have raced to employ every tool in their armoury to attract staff back to offices across the globe. Seamless entry to your building at the click of a button? Done. Heating and ventilation tailored to your personal preferences? No problem. A free coffee and pastry one day a week? You’re welcome. Anything to lure people away from the comfort of their own homes.

It’s not really about complimentary croissants, though. The real currency here, and the one these engagement platforms will rely on when it comes to determining whether they ultimately fail or succeed, is data. And while an app may not a smart building make, mass adoption of an app linked to a smart building platform might. With the right technology in place, the more people you can encourage to sign up to your building app. This means the more insight you have into how they are using the space and, in turn, how your asset can be more efficiently managed. If a free hot drink can bring just a few extra users onboard, that’s well worth its weight in coffee beans.

At a time when workforce trends have never been in such a state of flux, this level of building intelligence has been upgraded from a nice-to-have to commercial real estate gold dust.

If there is anyone who understands the value of tenant app adoption, it’s Dan Drogman.  Along with his team, the founder and chief executive of software platform Smart Spaces has integrated the company's software system into just under 40 million sq ft of real estate across the world. “Adoption is the key to those really useful data sets,” he says. “You need to have adoption within your platform and this is the biggest challenge that occupier engagement apps will have to overcome.”

So how do you drive that adoption? With over 8000 people already signed up to Smart Spaces’s workplace app at AXA IM Alts’ 195,000 sq m 22 Bishopsgate, EC2 mere months after the building officially opened its doors, Drogman is the man to ask.

Tune in to hear more.