More than 80 percent. That’s the proportion of the $400 million market for remote monitoring services in intelligent buildings that commercial and retail end users will represent in 2016, says a new study by IMS Research.

Offered by third-party companies that audit and report on the operational performance of a building, remote monitoring services in intelligent buildings have two key selling points. First, auditors can make recommendations to save energy costs by determining, for instance, a more efficient schedule for the building automation system. Second, the building owner can reduce internal staffing costs for the facility by using a third-party service provider.

“Remote monitoring services are gaining increased traction as building owners find significant savings to be made, in terms of both decreasing energy bills and reducing staffing costs,” said Sam Grinter, market analyst for building technologies at IHS. “The drive to reduce overheads has been reinforced over the last five years by tough economic conditions.

“Commercial and retail end users have been the fastest to take advantage of remote monitoring services in intelligent buildings,” he added. “Because the slashing of operational expenses has been a higher priority for them than for government or institutional end users.”

Remote monitoring service providers have found success with commercial and retail end users by demonstrating the effectiveness of the systems in trial deployments. Then, once the return on investment is demonstrated, services are rolled out throughout the wider building portfolio. The services in intelligent buildings are looked upon as a competitive advantage, which explains why adoption has spread relatively quickly.

As the market develops further, other end-user industries such as education, government, data centers and hospitality will increasingly take advantage of the services, IHS believes. The systems are expected to not only improve building efficiency but also reduce internal staffing costs for monitoring and maintaining buildings.

Above is the projected growth for remote monitoring services used in commercial and retail buildings from 2012 to 2016, with a snapshot of what the market will look like by 2021.