Bridging the TCO Gap: How IT and Real Estate Can Finally Speak the Same Language
Organizations widely agree upon the value video conferencing brings to the workforce. For example, 87% of workplace leaders agree that a strong workplace experience can lead to improvements in collaboration and productivity. However, while the benefits are clear, there remains a disconnect in how key stakeholders (e.g., IT and real estate teams) evaluate their investment in video conferencing and other workplace technology solutions.
While IT and Real Estate are fundamentally solving for the same human outcome (a productive employee experience) and evaluating their success via a key overarching metric (TCO), their definitions of success are completely unaligned from financial and operational lenses.
This issue largely stems from how each defines TCO. While IT teams are focused on total cost of ownership, real estate teams are focused on total cost of occupancy. What does each mean and how can each team find more common ground earlier in the purchase process? Let’s explore.
What is total cost of ownership?
According to TechTarget, total cost of ownership (TCO) is an estimation of the expenses associated with purchasing, deploying, managing, using, and retiring IT assets, such as a product or piece of equipment.
The expenses that contribute to total cost of ownership include:
Direct costs such as purchase price, installation, and maintenance.
Indirect costs such as training, downtime, and performance inefficiencies.
Intangible costs such as employee productivity loss and compliance risks.
IT teams look beyond the up-front purchase and installation fees to capture the lifecycle costs of the technology: compatibility, reliability, security, and support. For them, cost of ownership covers everything from firmware updates to device management and troubleshooting. Their priority? Seamless user experiences, minimal disruption, and easy scalability.
What is total cost of occupancy?
Total cost of occupancy is an estimation of the expenses associated with owning or renting property from base rent to recurring expenses such as utilities, maintenance, and insurance.
Real estate leaders see investments as pieces of a bigger puzzle, accounting for how efficiently spaces are used, how much spaces cost to equip, and how easily they can adapt spaces as business needs evolve.
Video conferencing adds new considerations to the equation. Lighting, acoustics, and furniture all carry weight when creating the ideal meeting experience. It’s not just plugging in screens; it’s rethinking how every square foot of space inspires connection and collaboration.
Where are the biggest friction points between IT and Real Estate?
Ultimately, both IT and Real Estate have shared goals when it comes to purchasing video conferencing equipment.
They want their teams to collaborate effectively and get more value from every meeting.
They want to deliver a consistent experience for employees whether they are in an office or at home.
They want that experience to translate into improved employee satisfaction and higher employee retention.
The problem is, while both teams share many of the same goals when it comes to the employee experience, strategy and planning is taking place in silos.
According to Logitech’s The Workplace Equation report, both real estate and IT teams believe they are the primary authority of the workplace experience, but most aren’t working together at the start of a project. In fact, only 24% of IT teams are consulted before room planning begins. As a result, the decision-making process is typically disjointed:
Metrics: IT measures TCO as cost per user/device, while Real Estate measures it as cost per square foot.
Capital allocation: IT views tech upgrades as high-speed operational investments while Real Estate views office space as multi-year depreciating assets with rigid lease terms.
User experience: A state-of-the-art office is useless if the room booking or video conferencing tech fails. Conversely, seamless tech is wasted in an underutilized location.
If IT and real estate teams want to make the best possible investment in their video conferencing experience, they need to establish a more cohesive partnership. So let’s break down what that looks like.
How IT and Real Estate can better align on workplace experience
As long as Real Estate and IT are misaligned on the aforementioned evaluation points, they will continue to underdeliver on their video conferencing experience. They can start to bridge that gap by finding common ground.
While this won’t happen overnight, there are some important steps you can take to accelerate the process. The common theme throughout these steps is the commitment to deeper collaboration between the central teams.
Create a workplace experience team
When everyone believes they’re in charge of the workplace experience, no one is really in charge. To change that dynamic, you can establish a dedicated workplace experience team. In doing so, you begin to treat the workplace experience as a core business strategy, something only 27% of organizations currently do, according to the Workplace Equation report.
Why is this so important? Because when something matters enough to become a core business strategy, it gets the attention and thought it deserves. Roles are determined, processes are established, and metrics are defined. This puts the infrastructure in place to make decisions on workplace experience that everyone can get behind.
Standardize workplace experience success metrics
When teams work together towards a common goal, every decision becomes more intentional. So once you assemble your workplace experience team, you need to establish metrics that everyone can align on.
The following chart breaks down how the individual focuses of IT and real estate teams can evolve into a collective focus:
|
Shared metric
|
IT focus
|
Real Estate focus
|
Combined benefit
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Utilization
|
Room tech usage, peripheral usage | Space allocation, occupancy and utilization rates, office footprint | Dynamic space right-sizing based on actual tech and space usage |
|
Energy efficiency
|
Data center/cloud efficiency, device lifecycle energy, compute | HVAC efficiency, lighting efficiency, building systems | Integrated building management (smart shut-offs driven by sensor data) |
|
Employee productivity
|
Device uptime, hardware support, connectivity | Workplace design, office amenities, location/commute | Frictionless flow from home login to desk setup to large meetings |
Co-own the digital and physical stack
All too often, decisions on room and space technology are made far later than they should be. As a result, there is often a lack of thought given to how technology can influence a space and best support the people who use it.
If you treat meeting rooms and flex spaces as shared responsibilities where room design and video conferencing equipment are considered together from the start, you inevitably make smarter, more value-driven decisions.
Why TCO alignment is a competitive advantage
Aligning IT and Real Estate isn't just an administrative exercise—it's a competitive advantage that impacts organizational efficiency, talent retention, and cost discipline. The sooner organizations recognize this, the sooner they can reap the benefits.
How aligned is your organization on the workplace experience? Read through The Workplace Equation 2026 report to see where you fit on the spectrum of workplace experience maturity.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between total cost of ownership (TCO) and total cost of occupancy?
Total cost of ownership estimates the expenses of purchasing, deploying, managing, using, and retiring IT assets (direct costs like purchase and installation, indirect costs like training and downtime, and intangible costs like productivity loss). Total cost of occupancy estimates the expenses of owning or renting property, from base rent to recurring costs like utilities, maintenance, and insurance. IT teams typically use the former; real estate teams use the latter.
Why do IT and Real Estate teams define TCO differently?
Because they're solving for the same outcome (a productive employee experience) through different lenses: IT measures cost per user/device and views tech as a fast-moving operational investment, while Real Estate measures cost per square foot and views office space as a multi-year depreciating asset with rigid lease terms.
How often are IT teams consulted before room planning begins?
According to Logitech's The Workplace Equation report, only 24% of IT teams are consulted before room planning begins, despite both IT and Real Estate believing they are the primary authority on workplace experience.
What expenses contribute to total cost of ownership?
There are three different expense categories that contribute to total cost of ownership: direct costs (purchase price, installation, maintenance), indirect costs (training, downtime, performance inefficiencies), and intangible costs (employee productivity loss, compliance risk).
How can IT and Real Estate teams better align on workplace technology decisions?
Create a dedicated workplace experience team, standardize shared success metrics across both teams, and co-own the digital and physical stack so room design and video conferencing equipment are planned together from the start.
What percentage of organizations treat workplace experience as a core business strategy?
Just 27%, according to the Workplace Equation report. This is a key reason for establishing a dedicated workplace experience team.
Why does TCO alignment matter for the video conferencing experience specifically?
A state-of-the-art office is undermined if room booking or video conferencing technology fails, and seamless technology is wasted in an underutilized space. Alignment ensures investment decisions account for both the technology and the physical environment it operates in.
Is aligning IT and Real Estate on TCO worth the effort?
Yes. It's a competitive advantage affecting organizational efficiency, talent retention, and cost discipline, not just an administrative exercise.
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