Local and regional governments—and neighboring city governments—all face similar challenges: rising costs, funding constraints and aging infrastructure, just to name a few. As such, city leaders need to set realistic expectations of smart city projects and partner with technology service providers (TSPs), like Spectrum, who can measure, prove and capture smart city benefits.

Gartner Key Findings

• “Very few smart city projects stand up to scrutiny in terms of delivering quantifiable ROI during the initial deployment period.”
• “By 2024, 70% of smart city programs that do not adopt and govern a multisource funding model addressing community goals will fail to scale.”
• “Lay out achievable goals for each stage of deployment based on cities’ digital journeys, and guide investors to envision future requirements.”
• “Focus on outcomes that matter by tying the key business benefit of your smart city project to the city’s strategic goals and key performance indicators aligned around the city’s digital journey and the needs of stakeholders."

What This Means for City Leaders

Becoming a smart city isn’t a one stop solution, but a journey that grows over time. Once you can prove success on one project, not only will it be easier to secure funding for the next project, but the teams and community will have the confidence to propel them forward.

According to Gartner, “Once cities begin to look beyond initial smart city projects, city planners will begin to envision how to generate greater benefits from smart city initiatives by moving toward a strategy-led approach. Dynamically identifying the roadmap to help smart cities project investors envision and measure outcome is a critical value-add.”

By choosing to partner with Spectrum, city leaders can design methodologies that accurately capture smart city benefits, and successfully implement projects that maximize their return on investment (ROI) while meeting their citizens’ most pressing needs.

Get Started with Spectrum Smart Cities

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Gartner Market Trends: 3 Trends Impacting the Measurement of Smart City Technologies Benefits, Milly Xiang, 31 August 2020.

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