The most advanced buildings in the world aren’t the ones with the most sensors. They’re the ones that can take their data and connect it all together to show you the big picture. 

Your data is talking, but who’s listening to it? 

If you’re leading operations, facilities, or sustainability in a large enterprise, you already know that there is never a shortage of data. It’s being generated with every HVAC system, lighting control, and access badge swipe. It’s generated with your work order system, your building plans, your occupancy sensors, and your utility bills. 

This data is useful, but there’s a big problem: it’s all siloed. It’s fragmented across departments, vendors, and systems. IT owns digital systems like enterprise applications like ERP and Maintenance Management (CMMS), cloud infrastructure, and cybersecurity. OT runs physical operations for Building Management/HVAC, access control, elevators, and energy systems. Both generate immense volumes of useful data. But without a shared language or framework, this data lives on separate islands, limiting its ability to drive intelligent action. 

That’s why unifying these domains into a single, contextualized data estate is a priority. This transformation unlocks operational intelligence, empowers new user personas, and builds a foundation for AI to deliver real, measurable outcomes. 

IT and OT were never designed to work together

  • IT (Information Technology) systems are optimized for cloud computing, cybersecurity, enterprise analytics, and knowledge work. 
  • OT (Operational Technology) controls the physical environment, including HVAC, elevators, energy meters, and maintenance tickets. OT often utilizes legacy knowledge and needs to be handled on-site.  

Historically, these two domains have operated independently.  Unsurprisingly, this results in a fragmented digital environment where: 

  • Facilities teams can’t get real-time visibility across systems 
  • Sustainability officers struggle to track progress toward decarbonization goals 
  • IT teams lack the context needed to secure or optimize operational systems 
  • Leadership can’t see the full picture of risk, cost, or opportunity 

This data is unfortunately locked in proprietary formats, scattered across vendors, or lacking the metadata that makes it useful. 

The high cost of siloed systems

When you can’t see your data in a unified space, you’re not able to see the big picture of what’s going on in your facility. There are many problems that constantly present themselves with siloed data, including: 

  • Inefficiency: Redundant inspections, over-ventilated rooms, and energy waste you can’t track in real time. 
  • Risk: Inability to detect or respond to system faults quickly or learn from them over time. 
  • Knowledge loss: Institutional expertise is locked in the heads of aging OT staff, and much of it will leave with them when they exit the workforce.. 
  • Compliance blind spots: Significant gaps in emissions reporting, building code readiness, and occupancy metrics. 

Modern operations need modern solutions. One answer? A unified view of the built environment, where digital systems and physical assets are not just connected, but contextually aware and acting in tandem. 

Enter the shared data estate

A shared data estate bridges IT and OT by enabling a real-time digital twin of your entire facility footprint, bringing together a coherent, connected view of operations. A digital twin is much more than a simple 3D model of your building; it’s a resource that knows and understands how your assets, systems, and people all interact. 

With a unified data estate in place: 

  • AI can ingest data more intelligently, structuring messy, fragmented data into meaningful relationships. Willow enables this through our Knowledge Graph.  
  • Operational teams can work predictively and proactively, automating tasks like fault detection or adjusting asset behavior in response to real-time conditions. For instance,  Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport uses real-time insights from Willow that have helped drive 25% year-over-year savings by shifting from reactive to more predictive operations. 
  • IT and OT teams can collaborate in a shared environment, where they can  align on mappings of builiding locations, assets and capabilities across systems, and joint value delivery. 
  • Leadership can unlock ROI by optimizing performance, reducing downtime, and even monetizing energy flexibility through virtual power plant participation. 

Consider this example: by overlaying occupancy data with HVAC settings, Willow enabled one customer to identify spaces being unnecessarily heated and cooled when unoccupied. Using just those two data sets of HVAC and occupancy, this customer was able to reduce energy consumption by 7–9%. These types of insights and the ROI generated from them are only possible when the underlying systems are unified and connected. 

This shared estate becomes the foundation not just for current efficiency, but for future opportunities: new services, revenue models, and strategic differentiation. 

Why the time is now

According to IoT Analytics, the global IT/OT convergence market, estimated at $720 billion in 2023, is growing roughly 8.5% annually and projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2027—pointing to how critical of an area this is becoming for organizations worldwide. 

Additionally, several other factors contribute to this growth: 

  • Rising pressures: Regulatory mandates and ESG frameworks now demand real-time visibility into building performance. 
  • Aging workforce: Research shows that 70% of service organizations fear that they will lose critical expertise within the next 5 to 10 years. Capturing it in a system-of-record is mission-critical. 
  • AI-readiness: Without a shared data layer, AI can’t deliver meaningful insights or take safe, automated action. 
  • Financial urgency: Inflation, energy volatility, and capital constraints are forcing companies to find efficiencies or fall behind. A recent review found that digital twins can reduce building energy consumption by 15–30%, cut maintenance costs, and enhance comfort through real-time monitoring and AI-enabled control. 

We’ve reached a tipping point with IT and OT: you either connect your operations, or you fall victim to their complexity. 

The strategic advantage

The companies getting this right—like airports, universities, and Fortune 500s using Willow—aren’t just cutting costs. They’re future-proofing their buildings, and they’re equipping their teams with the tools to anticipate, not just react. 

Every day, it becomes more clear that a connected data estate isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the foundation of intelligent operations for your facility, and the only wy to turn valuable data into enterprise value.