Building Management Systems and Facility Management Firms Increasingly Intertwined in the Post-COVID-19 Workplace

This IDC Market Perspective discusses building management systems (BMS) and facility management (FM) firms being increasingly intertwined in the post-COVID-19 workplace. Building management systems and facility management applications have had similar paths in both the COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 environments, utilizing increased levels of data to enhance automation, leading to smarter building and facilities solutions. A few BMS specialists have acquired FM applications vendors over the past two to three years, ensuring that the two will be increasingly intertwined in the future."The future of FM is tied with both building management system firms and the acquisition of data to support future technologies, including AI, GenAI, agentic AI, digital twins, and building information management systems," said Brian O'Rourke, research manager, Enterprise Asset Management and Smart Facilities at IDC. "Firms that don't have access to the needed data need to figure out how to get it, whether internally, through partnerships, or through acquisitions."