BIM is not a technical fix

For years, building information modelling (BIM) has been discussed across the construction industry as a question of software, file formats, and 3D modelling. But the sheer volume of conferences, webinars, and training courses on the subject tells us we have moved past the early stages of hype and unfulfilled promises. The technology has matured, and the real value now has to be proven on the bottom line.

And yet most organisations still struggle to turn that promise into tangible value. A large part of the reason is that BIM is managed project by project. Each build is optimised in isolation, the model is handed over at completion, and the data that should have outlived the project is left to decay. When you close in on a single project, you capture a fraction of the benefit and lose the portfolio. The harder question, and the one that actually moves the business, is how an asset owner builds value across the entire asset lifecycle.

Capturing the benefits requires a fundamental shift in mindset. Some have made that shift, but plenty of capable asset owners still see BIM as merely a technical fix you can buy on a subscription. Our argument is this: as long as an asset owner treats BIM as something that belongs to the IT department, it will remain just an expense. The benefits only arrive when the asset owner takes control of project delivery, collaboration, and value creation across the full asset lifecycle, and starts treating BIM as a critical business discipline rather than a tool.

From hype to no-nonsense value creation

In our experience, very few people still ask whether BIM works. We know it does. The question now is rather how we integrate data across the entire building’s lifecycle, from the first line drawn to daily operations 30 years later.

This is where most projects fall short. The model is built to get the building delivered, not to operate it afterwards. The requirements for the data that operations will actually need are set too late, if at all. The asset owner inherits a model that looks complete but cannot answer the questions that matter once the building is in use. By then, fixing it is expensive, and the value that should have compounded over the life cycle never materialises.

The deeper issue is one of maturity. Many companies still treat BIM as an isolated tool for producing drawings, its most basic form, used by consultants and contractors to generate models. The real shift happens when BIM is understood and used as a business tool by the asset owner, where the data in the model is structured, maintained, and actively used to support facility management, operational optimisation, and long-term decision-making. That is what makes continuous asset monitoring, predictive maintenance, and efficient energy use possible, and it is the backbone of any serious move towards Digital Twins and AI-driven optimisation. This is where the real savings lie – not in faster drafting time, but in fewer errors on site, optimised energy consumption, and proactive maintenance, driven by reliable data across the full lifecycle of the asset.

Move BIM out of the IT department

To support this, BIM should be seen as a business practice that spans four dimensions: technology & infrastructure, data, processes & governance, and behaviour. Most organisations have activity in all four. The problem is that each dimension is managed in isolation: technology gets procured by IT, data requirements sit with BIM coordinators, governance lives in project management, and behaviour is treated as a training issue. Each dimension runs on its own track. The value of BIM is not in any single dimension but in how they reinforce each other across projects and over time. When that coherence is missing, even a well-resourced BIM programme delivers far less than it should.

This is why BIM cannot be treated as a technical implementation. It is a business decision about how value is created and who owns it. Technical BIM produces models and drawings, scoped to the project, owned by the IT department. Business BIM produces decisions, scoped to the lifecycle and the full portfolio, owned by leadership. Where you sit on that divide determines what value you get:

The prerequisite for success: a clear strategy

If BIM is going to transform the business, it does not start with a computer. It starts with leadership making decisions. It also takes maturity to scope and set requirements: to define, up front, what the asset owner actually wants out of its models, including what operations will need years later, rather than receiving whatever the project happens to produce. Successful digitalisation requires more than automating existing, inefficient processes. You have to redesign them.

Addressing that requires a strategy that cuts across all four dimensions. As such, a clear BIM strategy should address three core areas:

• Purpose over function: What are we trying to achieve? Faster execution, better risk management, or higher asset value through better operational data? It is the asset owner’s job to set that direction and turn it into concrete requirements. Without a clear goal, BIM just becomes another cost.
• Data as an asset: We have to stop seeing the BIM model as a drawing and start seeing it as a database. The quality of the decisions we make today, and the ones we let AI make for us in the future, depends directly on the quality of data capture.
• Culture shift: Moving BIM from a technical to a business discipline requires project managers, finance functions, and operations staff to understand their role in the data supply chain. ‘Doing BIM’ is no longer just the engineer or architect’s job, and the asset owner has to take an active role in defining how BIM data will be used across operations.

The way forward

We are at a crossroads. Companies that continue to see BIM as a technical discipline will experience it as a heavy administrative burden. Those that move it out of the IT department and treat it as a portfolio management tool at the core of their business operations will hold a significant competitive advantage. But that is also a question of ownership: the process belongs with leadership and the business, not with a single technical coordinator, because that is the only level from which BIM can lift value across the whole organisation rather than just one project at a time. The benefit is there just waiting for a strategy strong enough to capture it.