According to IDC Energy Insights, the global Smart Buildings technology market is expected to experience a 27% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2010-2015, as energy efficiency becomes an increasingly valuable operational asset to the facilities management industry. The maturity model provides a framework for understanding the growing ecosystem of Smart Building solutions and serves as a tool for communicating the benefits of investing in increasingly sophisticated energy management technologies.

IDC Energy Insights defines the Smart Buildings market in six technology verticals:

•Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC)
•Lighting
•Plug loads
•Fire & security
•Distributed energy resources
•Analytics & data management
As such, the maturity model is based on a five-point scale of maturity for each technology segment in terms of functionality. The cornerstone of the Maturity Model is the idea that a truly optimized Smart Building will have fully integrated control and automation systems providing unprecedented visibility into facility operations for real-time adaptation to external signals and internally generated policies.

The first report, Business Strategy: Smart Buildings Maturity Model for End Users, (Document #EI233133), serves as a tool for building management decision makers as they evaluate their facilities, and define investment priorities that will advance their properties toward becoming Smart Buildings. As the industry transforms due to increasingly impactful and unpredictable energy costs, an ever-growing group of decision makers are evaluating building operations in order to control costs, hedge financial risks, and achieve strategic business goals related to the relationship between energy consumption and facility operations. Unlike anything else in the market today, IDC Energy Insights' Smart Buildings Maturity Model will provide a common language for all participants in the discussion.

The second report, Business Strategy: Smart Buildings Maturity Model for Vendors (Document #EI233130) defines an ecosystem of energy management solutions for commercial and industrial buildings and presents a framework that enables technology vendors to evaluate the sophistication of their particular solutions and the market's overall competitive landscape. The commercial and industrial building management industry is undergoing a transition due to ever-increasing, yet difficult to predict energy costs. Coupled with broader economic pressures, building management decision makers are looking for innovative solutions to drive down costs and improve efficiencies. Unlike anything else on the market today, IDC Energy Insights' Smart Building Maturity Model provides vendors with a valuable tool to evaluate the sophistication of their solutions, understand how to communicate the benefits of more intelligent solutions, and identify potential partners to engage early movers and establish market leadership.

"As we look to new opportunities to manage our national energy demands and develop more responsible energy policies, energy efficiency has an important role to play. The buildings segment cannot be overlooked, and Smart Buildings solutions represent the most innovative and comprehensive energy efficiency solutions for this market," said Casey Talon, research analyst, IDC Energy Insights. "The Market Maturity Model provides a framework for exploring investment in Smart Building solutions that will support broad adoption of energy efficiency technologies in the commercial and industrial building sector."

Source: finance.yahoo.com

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