IoT and AI driven proptech start-up Facilio was established in 2017 with the aim to overhaul the way buildings are managed. With its software approach, the Chennai based firm helps property owners harness data of a property to achieve real-time operational efficiency. Within short span of time, it has been able to manage about 20 million sq.ft of space across over 150 commercial buildings in the US, Middle East and India and now the company is looking for an aggressive global growth.
In an exclusive interview with TechObserver.in's Shalini Shukla, Prabhu Ramachandran, CEO and Co-Founder, Facilio says, “2019 is going to be an exciting year of accelerated growth for Facilio as we actively expand globally. Real-time facilities optimization and digital retrofits will be a key theme for us and we have a strong product roadmap with our vision to be the preferred technology partner for CREs & FM's to help them run highly efficient buildings that offer a superior occupant experience.
What are the key focus of Facilio?
We are facilities management tech start-up. We provide IoT and AI-driven facilities optimisation solution that helps property owners achieve real-time operational efficiency and sustainability across portfolio and create a smoother tenant experience.
The company was established in 2017 with the objective of transforming the way buildings are managed, in response to a growing market need for redefining the facilities experience for customers and end-users alike. We started global operations the same year, after securing funding from Accel, reputed international venture capitalists that have funded companies like Facebook, Dropbox & Flipkart.
Buildings play a pivotal part of our everyday existence, and they have the power to impact and improve billions of lives, if they work in continuous efficiency. And we believe if we could incorporate technology to enable buildings and create experiences for the end users, we would be creating a much-needed revolutionary product for the built environment. This is how the idea called Facilio came to be.
At Facilio, we are trying to change the way facilities are being managed. We are constantly trying to make buildings smarter by empowering the shift from traditional, tactical facilities management towards smarter, sustainability-first facilities experience. The future of real-time facilities experience is here and we feel we can help Facilities Management's transcend into the next phase of service by becoming value players in the building management ecosystem.
What kind of technologies are being adopted in the facility management segment?
Technologies such as AI and IoT are disrupting industries across in India. The Facility Management industry in the last one decade however, has only been hardware-centric. When we started our company, the industry was yet to discover digitalisation. Hence, Facilio makes the work of facility managers and building owners more efficient and easy. We offer a unified software suite powered by IoT and AI to streamline buildings manage assets and bring down operational costs and increase efficiency. It seamlessly integrates with existing building systems and improves efficiency, through centralized and real-time facilities optimization.
Implementing Facilio does not mean one has to completely uproot the existing infrastructure, nor does it require the addition of new hardware. It efficiently works with any existing set up. It uniquely focuses on real-time data collation and analysis of data, enabling actionable insights. It delivers continuous and predictive management of operations and performance, through the means of an IoT and Machine learning enabled solution – scalable across all possible real-world requirements. The Facilio solution delivers elegant simplicity in management and impressive performance metrics.
How is the Facilio proposition different from the other protech startup?
Traditionally, corporate real estate environment (CREs) have relied on standalone and makeshift FM software (repurposed industrial application) that have placed them at a blind-spot and led them to firefighting issues rather than proactively controlling operations and the building performance.
This traditional software has been associated with a high CapEx, while also being time and effort-intensive to setup and run. This high cost, long implementation cycle, and the rigidity of these silo-ed systems have prevented customers from keeping pace with the rapid transformation and modern trends in the real-estate industry like Smart Buildings, co-working spaces, and experience-driven services.
Facilio has broken these myths and boundaries by providing a pure-play tech-driven software solution that helps CREs and FMs to remain agile, and leapfrogs their digital transformation, at scale and speed. The potential of AI & IoT driven solutions to bring in real-time OPEX efficiencies and sustainability, savings and ROI, without high upfront costs is very high. By providing a centralized IoT and AI-driven solution, Facilio uniquely manages all aspects of building operations, predictive maintenance, real-time asset performance, and IoT-driven energy analysis, under one umbrella.
How Facilio business is doing and what are your expectation for FY19-20?
Facilio's goal is to empower CREs to not only be proactive but also become efficient value-partners. Our vision is to facilitate a disruptive evolution in the facilities management space, similar to the transformation in e-commerce, ride-sharing and travel stay.
Overall there are now more than 20 Million sq.ft of space managed by Facilio across 150+ commercial buildings globally across the US, Middle East and India, within a short span of time since our commercial product availability in early 2018. Our entire team works very hard towards the continued success of Facilio and we are happy that large institutions and enterprise customers have adopted our holistic and modern facilities optimization solution and realize its increasingly tangible benefits
2019 is going to be an exciting year of accelerated growth for Facilio as we actively expand globally. Real-time facilities optimization and digital retrofits will be a key theme for us and we have a strong product roadmap with our vision to be the preferred technology partner for CREs & FM.'s to help them run highly efficient buildings that offer a superior occupant experience. We hope to be at the forefront of leading the transformation in FMtech.
What are your company's future plans?
The role of facilities management is changing rapidly, with building owners increasingly expecting facilities management teams to be stakeholders and collaborators for business growth. The focus is shifting towards highly efficient operations and an elevated occupant experience. Large real-estate owners see tremendous value in making use of existing BAS data for Operational and Sustainability efficiency. Being able to manage their entire buildings portfolio centrally, based on real-time data, is putting the control back in the hands of our customers, allowing CRE's to be in the driver's seat to steer operational efficiency and provide a superior facilities experience to tenants. And this is exactly what our early adopters have enjoyed, across our territories in the US, India, and the Middle East – tech-enabled opportunities that provide a competitive edge to enhance their overall facility offerings.
The global annual spend on facilities services stands at close to $1+ trillion dollars today, with the spend on buildings energy management almost close to that number. Any value that can be added to economies of such scale is itself enormous in potential. At Facilio we are extremely proactive about the market because of our understanding with projected augmentation in technology, as well as the response we have received so far. As a rule, even before savings are realized by our clients, the efficiencies generated by our solution results in their highly enthusiastic approval.
The emerging mindset towards urban living and the concept of Smart Cities is the environment that we at Facilio want to thrive in. We are vigorously expanding in the Middle East and US markets and are actively building a robust partnership network within these regions, to engage with local stakeholders.
