Digital is now the backbone of tenant experience and building performance. But in too many commercial real estate (CRE) projects, responsibility for the building’s most strategic systems is handed off to the wrong people.
Property managers are often tasked with specifying and managing technology they were never trained to oversee—leaving buildings with fragmented systems, stranded data, and mounting operational chaos.
The Problem:
Property managers are experts in occupancy. They manage tenant needs, execute lease strategies, and maintain day-to-day building operations. But they are not network architects, data strategists, or systems engineers. When owners assume that PMs can specify or manage building-wide connectivity, it creates risk across every phase of the building lifecycle.
From vendor selection to system integration, property managers are forced to make high-impact technology decisions with limited visibility and support. The result? Systems don’t connect. Data doesn’t flow. And everyone onsite is left managing digital infrastructure they didn’t choose—and can’t fix.
Impact:
The fallout from misassigned digital responsibility is substantial:
- Siloed Systems: Access control, HVAC, lighting, WiFi, and building management tools that can’t talk to each other—resulting in duplicative vendor relationships and lost automation opportunities.
- Stranded Data: Valuable building performance data is trapped in vendor portals or lost completely.
- CapEx Waste: Owners invest in systems that lack interoperability, leading to expensive retrofits or parallel platforms within five years.
- Operator Burnout: Site teams bear the burden, fielding tech support calls, chasing down login credentials, and acting as the middleman between tenants and disconnected vendors.
- Missed OpEx Savings: Without connected systems and usable data, owners & operators miss opportunities to automate tasks, reduce energy consumption, and streamline vendor management—leaving real dollars on the table every month.
Solution
Every building needs a Digital Architect: a dedicated digital infrastructure expert who designs, owns, operates, and evolves the property’s connected systems. Whether in-house or through a strategic partner, this role is critical to long-term NOI growth, tenant satisfaction, and operational resilience.
A Digital Architect ensures that your systems are:
- Strategically aligned with your asset and business goals
- Interoperable and future-ready
- Secure, stable, and vendor-agnostic
- Designed for data ownership, not vendor lock-in
Clarify who owns your infrastructure—and who should. If your digital systems are specified by the lowest bidder or defaulted to your property management company, you’re not building for the long game.
You’re building chaos.
If you don’t own and control your digital infrastructure, your vendors do. And your operators are left managing the consequences.