An Interview with Tony Garcia, SBT Alliance CTO: ‘We Redefine How IoT-Control Projects and Smart Spaces are Engineered, Deployed, and Supported Long Term.’

“Our SSaaS offering empowers end-users with a project funding vehicle that’s akin to many other subscription-based programs used throughout an organization (think Office 365 for facility management).”

Smarter Building Technologies (SBT) is an IoT integration partner that guides small, medium, and Fortune 500 clients to a digital future built on the IoT. SBT achieves this by engineering, deploying, and supporting the industry’s latest IoT technologies to create intelligent spaces, and funds projects through its Smart Space-as-a-Service (SSaaS) program.

The company was incorporated in 2018 and is headquartered in Long Beach, California.

Tony Garcia (TG), SBT Alliance Chief Technology Officer, spoke exclusively to The Silicon Review. Below is an excerpt.

TSR: Explain your services in brief.

TG: SBT Alliance is a leading IoT systems integrator that guides small, medium, and Fortune 500 customers to a digital future. We design, deploy, and support IoT-enabled solutions, systems, and technologies that help future-proof businesses.

TSR: What are the important factors that you address while designing, developing, and manufacturing IoT solutions?

TG: SBT Alliance is different from other market players because of our long history of working within the LED lighting, advanced controls, and construction service industry. SBT team members bring a depth of knowledge steeped in experience within the lighting market; moreover, SBT’s experience is unparalleled compared to other technology firms trying to enter this particular market.

Because of our long history within the market, we understand the many pitfalls, challenges, and heartaches that plague facility managers, building owners, and operators, not to mention the countless operational efficiency trials businesses contend with on an ongoing basis.

Our overall goal is to help facilities with the advancement of IoT technologies. We are structured, well organized, and agile as a company to address the many needs of a client.

An ideal IoT solution can come in many forms depending on the client. The ultimate package may include various IoT technologies, including wireless controls and environmental sensors, to noise masking. We don’t have to install all of the solutions at once. We can install in phases depending on where the customer is in their journey. SBT can be nimble in this way, and that’s what our customers need. We are willing to bend over backward to modify solutions, so customers do not have to start from scratch and can work with what they have now. As we like to tell our clients, it’s far more efficient to ‘Start Smart’.

TSR: Do you provide tailor-made services to clients based on their services? If yes, how do you collect the necessary inputs of data?

TG: Yes, we do. At the core of SBT Alliance is an agnostic approach to today’s facility management and IoT device manufacturers. We understand and appreciate the fact that there is no one building system to rule all. We thrive on this amalgamation of building systems, as our key market differentiation and service offering is centered squarely on designing, deploying, and supporting these various systems to achieve a client’s end goal.

To Smarter Building Technologies, our model is focused on obtaining the most value out of smart digital infrastructures for our clients. We achieve this customized service offering at scale because of our vast industry experience in multiple verticals. For example, the same issues that Y manufacturing plant experiences, X plant also experiences at least 80-90 percent of the same issues. Understanding a customer’s key pain points is central to designing a solution that addresses their unique challenges. A significant portion of the work can be addressed with proven IoT solution sets that SBT Alliance has deployed in tens of millions of square feet of commercial spaces across the country.

Besides, more than just IoT solution sets, the core of SBT’s business model focuses on the streamlined management of a client’s various compilation of IoT systems. SBT achieves this through a singular platform and productivity tools powered by our S|HUB Tablet.

Our Smart Space as a Service (SSaaS) program empowers end-users with a project funding vehicle that’s akin to many other subscription-based programs used throughout an organization (think Office 365 for facility management).

This model empowers end-user clients to obtain the IoT infrastructure they need to improve facility and operational environments without having to spring and deplete typical capital improvement budgets.

With all the benefits of a best-in-class computing device, our S|HUB Tablet brings the convenience of advanced technical support to our clients’ fingertips while putting deep system insights front and center for easy access. Crafted to ease the ongoing maintenance of today’s advanced control and IoT systems, the S|HUB Tablet directly connects clients to our industry-leading team of system support engineers, technicians, and so much more.

TSR: How do you deal with the privacy concerns surrounding the use of IoT devices?

TG: We have Secure Mobility Endpoint Management software on our S|HUB to further enhance the IoT manufacturers’ security protocols. Being a systems integrator, our IoT solutions are as secure as the technologies we deploy. By selecting only the most secure and robust IoT solutions and using our networking expertise, we can ensure our solutions meet or exceed our customer’s requirements. Our S|HUB Tablet uses commercial-grade mobility management software to provide the highest security protocols, including a locked-down kiosk mode, biometric authentication, and geofencing capabilities.

TSR: Do you have any new services ready to be launched?

TG: We do. When it comes down to it, SBT’s IoT solution engineering, deployment, and system support-as-a-service not only empowers end-users to take advantage of the IoT to improve operational efficiencies, we vastly improve environmental safety as well. From environmental factors such as light levels to more complex challenges as presented by the Coronavirus, our IoT-based solution sets take the best of the industry’s IoT devices and systems to arm organizations with the tools they require to ensure the environmental health of their facilities. As such, we have just launched our ‘Safe Space Initiative’, which is detailed below:

SBT Alliance Safe Space Initiative: The ‘Safe Space Initiative’ equips our clients with the tools and technologies required to prepare, confront, and launch response efforts that aim to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

This initiative assists businesses of all sizes in their preparedness efforts to safeguard the environmental health of employees, staff, visitors, and customers. It also provides end-users access to the latest secure, cutting-edge IoT technologies to help them combat the spread of COVID-19 as part of their re-opening strategy.

Confronting New Challenges: Businesses across the country face a bevy of new challenges in preparing environments to reduce the spread of the virus. Under the ‘Safe Space Initiative’, our clients lead the charge with the latest technologies to confront the following operational challenges:

• Entrance/Exiting/Re-entrance Protocols
• Effective Risk Mitigation and Contract Tracing
• Data-Driven Disinfection and Sanitization Management
• Technology and IoT System Management

TSR: What are your trajectories for the next five years?

TG: As mentioned, SBT Alliance is a solution-first company, and we see ourselves expanding that role to more customer segments over time. When you look at the facility management and building operations space, hundreds, if not thousands, of system manufacturers are vying for a piece of the building management pie. SBT Alliance sees our unique skill set, service, and software offering as a tool to empower not just building owners and end-user businesses but also the organizations and companies that ensure smooth building operations.

In addition to this, our mission is to become the central point in managing our customer’s IoT systems – helping to streamline operations, foster multi-system communication, and achieve the goals a client has set forth to better their business. We look at our S|HUB Tablet as a singular platform tool to achieve this goal while powering innovations and value streams for clients through new specialized software-based applications, big data analytics, and AI in the coming years.

Our overall goal is to help facilities with the advancement of IoT technologies. We are structured and well organized and agile as a company to address the many needs of a client.