Using Data as An Asset: The Future for Building Owners and Operators

A sensor can collect temperature, light, humidity, or equipment information without changing a single decision. Jordan Cram drew that line clearly in a Constructrr conversation published in 2019. He called data “a crucial strategic asset,” then described the discipline required to structure, store, and protect it.

Calling data an asset raises the standard. The organization has to decide how the information will be collected, structured, stored, and protected, even when every future use is not yet known.

Collection needs a decision attached to it

Jordan Cram compared data with resources such as gold or water. The comparison was about stewardship, not volume. He described leaders who set expectations for how information is collected and structured even before every use is known.

He also warned that the status quo keeps organizations repeating familiar work while hoping for a different result. Adding sensors or a new platform to the same operating habits does not answer the question the data was meant to support.

Collection becomes useful when a field is tied to a decision, such as a scope choice, cost forecast, schedule adjustment, or operations handoff. Without a person or group responsible for that decision, the information is likely to sit beside the work rather than guide it.

Internal alignment comes before a shared platform

Jordan Cram described owner organizations with separate groups developing procedures, contracts, and technology workflows without coordinating them. One team could define how work should happen, another could write the commercial requirements, and a third could build the system.

The gap between those groups becomes a data problem. A field can be technically available and still be missing from the contract. A requirement can appear in the agreement and still fail to reach the workflow that produces it.

Jordan argued that contracts should move beyond protection alone and help create value. That did not remove risk management. It asked whether the agreement also helped useful information reach the next person in a form they could use.

Scope, cost, and schedule need to travel together

Later in the conversation, Jordan Cram connected the data question to scope, cost, and schedule. Leaders comparing options need those views together. A cost number without the related scope or timing can narrow the decision instead of clarifying it.

The same requirement follows the asset into operations. Information created during planning, design, and construction has more value when it remains usable at handover and in facilities management.

At the delivery-to-operations handoff, place the receiving decision beside the information required and the group responsible for producing it. Any blank between them points to the field, contract requirement, or owner that needs attention.

Data deserves to be called an asset when the organization can carry it into a real decision and act with greater clarity because it is there.