Planon’s Acquisition Of Axonize Highlights Market Thirst For Smart Building IoT Data Integration

Planon’s Acquisition Of Axonize Highlights Market Thirst For Smart Building IoT Data Integration

On 7 June 2021, integrated workplace management system (IWMS) vendor Planon announced the acquisition of Axonize, a cloud-based IoT platform provider. Founded in 2015, Axonize specializes in bringing IoT data capture and analytics capabilities to offices and facilities, with a no-code IoT platform that enables easy configuration to customer requirements. Axonize offers out-of-the-box connectivity to smart devices and other data sources, which can be fed into smart building platforms such as Planon’s IWMS. Planon plans to fully integrate the Axonize IoT platform with its Planon Universe platform by the end of 2021.

The acquisition will bolster Planon’s ability to collect IoT data from across the built environment, such as data from smart elevators, HVAC, security systems and sensors. This granular data capture will help customers improve their monitoring of buildings and support new use cases that rely on rich asset data, such as predictive maintenance. In the future, customers will also be able to use the Axonize platform to bring granular building data into Planon’s workflow platform to trigger pre-defined business rules that automate interventions, such as following an asset fault. This extends what is possible from Planon’s partnership with Schneider Electric, enabling customers to connect with a wider range of building assets and systems.

This acquisition signifies a wider trend in the smart buildings market, where IWMS vendors are innovating to enhance their IoT monitoring capability for buildings. For example, in December 2020, smart building software vendor Spacewell acquired energy management software provider DEXMA. The acquisition extended Spacewell’s energy monitoring capability for buildings by enhancing its ability to capture energy data, which in turn helps the provider support clients with their carbon reduction and sustainability strategies. Verdantix believes that this strategic drive to incorporate IoT data into other building management solutions will lead to similar acquisitions of smaller IoT vendors in the future by larger building solution vendors.

To learn more about how IoT data and connectivity is changing the building management landscape, please read Verdantix Strategic Focus: The Future Of The BMS In The Age Of IoT.