How is IBM responding to the ever-changing needs of the FM world?

The facility management industry is undergoing a profound transformation, shaped by the convergence of sustainability imperatives, cost pressures, and digital innovation. IBM understands that facility professionals today must deliver more with less—optimizing real estate portfolios, improving asset utilization, and achieving net-zero goals while maintaining operational resilience. In response, IBM is redefining how organizations manage their buildings and spaces through data-driven intelligence.

Recognized by Verdantix as a market leader in the Connected Portfolio Intelligence Platforms (CPIP/IWMS) 2025 Green Quadrant, IBM delivers a unified approach that combines advanced analytics, AI, and IoT capabilities to connect people, places, and processes across the enterprise. By integrating insights from sensors, work orders, energy systems, and occupancy data, IBM helps clients continuously adapt their real estate strategies to evolving business demands and environmental targets.

What research or product innovations is IBM working on to help FMs succeed?

IBM continues to invest heavily in innovation that empowers facility managers to make more informed, sustainable decisions. Launched earlier this year, IBM Maximo^® Real Estate and Facilities solution, is designed to unify real estate, facilities, and asset management. The platform provides a holistic view of space utilization, lease performance, maintenance efficiency, and energy impact.

Through complex tasks automation, Maximo users can streamline capital planning, optimize procurement, and address their compliance obligations across leases and accounting. Its dynamic space planning capabilities allow facility teams to visualize, assess, and reconfigure workplaces for productivity and engagement, supported by real-time occupancy monitoring through connected IoT sensors.

In addition, Maximo provides workplace occupants with the digital tools they need to stay productive—from reserving workspaces and showing maps of the interior spaces, to reporting issues directly—for a cohesive, connected workplace experience.

The solution also facilitates financial control through automated lease payment reconciliation, cyclical accounting review, and robust reporting for informed, data-driven decisions. With integrated maintenance, operations, and energy management, organizations can monitor performance in real time, identify opportunities to address energy use, and optimize operational costs. Mobile-friendly and fully centralized,

Maximo is built to equip facility managers with actionable intelligence to manage risk, improve responsiveness and sustainability outcomes—empowering them to anticipate needs and make informed decisions in a rapidly evolving facility landscape.

To see how IBM is transforming real estate and facility management with intelligent automation and connected data, watch the overview video.

 

How is IBM improving the FM industry?

IBM’s commitment to innovation extends beyond technology—it’s about transforming how organizations manage their built environments at scale. Many facility management teams struggle with fragmented systems that make it difficult to gain a complete view of operations.

IBM Maximo Real Estate and Facilities consolidate these disparate tools into a single, unified platform, enabling streamlined collaboration across real estate, facilities, operations, and sustainability functions. The result is an integrated operating model designed to enhance visibility, control, and data accuracy across assets and spaces.

By unifying building lifecycle management, space utilization, lease administration, and energy performance, IBM Maximo can help clients improve cost efficiency, and deliver higher-quality occupant experiences. In industries such as healthcare, education, and government, IBM real estate and facilities solutions are helping enterprises modernize legacy infrastructure, drive down energy consumption, and support organizations in achieving their ambitious carbon-reduction and efficiency goals.

What’s on the horizon in your industry and how is IBM addressing those challenges?

As organizations face growing pressure to achieve sustainability, resilience and portfolio right-sizing goals, the next decade will demand unprecedented transparency and agility in facility operations. Facility leaders will not only need to reduce environmental impact and strengthen business continuity but also optimize their real estate portfolios to align with evolving hybrid work patterns and shifting space utilization needs.

IBM is addressing these challenges by embedding predictive and prescriptive analytics into its solutions—helping clients monitor asset health, optimize portfolio performance, and model future scenarios for more informed planning decisions. Through capabilities such as digital twins, AI forecasting, and energy optimization (e.g. AI predictive models in energy monitoring), facility managers can anticipate issues, rebalance space allocations, and right-size their portfolios to support both cost efficiency and employee experience.

The future of facility management will also depend on interoperability and open data exchange, and IBM’s commitment to open standards allows clients to integrate with other enterprise systems, from energy management to workplace experience platforms.

Why should FMs pick IBM as a partner?

Facility managers choose IBM because of its track record, commitment to innovation and customer success. IBM offers more than a product—it delivers expertise, data intelligence, and scalability. With decades of experience supporting mission-critical operations, IBM provides tested technology and strategic guidance that enable organizations to optimize resources, meet their sustainability goals, and enhance occupant wellbeing (through services requests, space reservations, mobile access).

IBM Maximo Real Estate and Facilities simplifies facility managers’ day-to-day work by centralizing data, automating maintenance and lease workflows, and providing real-time insights to make more informed decisions. As the facility management profession evolves, IBM remains forward-thinking ally—helping clients unlock the potential of their spaces, assets, and people. In an industry defined by change, IBM stands as a constant source of innovation and insight, helping facility managers to not only keep pace but also set the pace for the future.

To experience how IBM Maximo Real Estate and Facilities can help simplify your day-to-day operations and transform your workplace strategy, explore the IBM Maximo Real Estate and Facilities demo.