One of the things they taught us in Marketing 101 involved basic market strategy. The main goal, it is said, of smaller and startup companies is to take market share away from existing players. However, a key element of a market leader’s strategy should be to grow the entire market. It is better to maintain a strong share of a growing pie than fight over pieces of the existing one.

Johnson Controls is clearly a leader in the Building Efficiency industry. The company’s heritage traces back to Warren Johnson’s 1883 patent for the "electric tele-thermoscope,” which came to be known as the electric room thermostat. The Corporate Headquarters campus just north of Milwaukee, Wisconsin boasts four LEED platinum certified buildings (PDF). The company’s systems help manage 1.5 billion square feet of commercial real estate around the world. Its fiscal 2010 revenue in the Building Efficiency market was over $12 billion.

Johnson Controls has a strong commitment to sustainability within its own company and, for obvious business reasons, its customers’ facilities. In addition, it seeks to educate people and organizations around the world on energy efficiency and clean energy and how to achieve these benefits. (I’ll leave to the business ethicists the question of whether this is being done for altruistic reasons or simply to act like a market leader and grow the market for its products and services. What is important is the result.)

Last week Tom Mahowald, Pike Research’s VP of Global Business Development, and I visited Johnson Controls in Milwaukee. One of our meetings was with Kelly Smith and Julia Currie of the Institute for Building Efficiency. Johnson Controls established the Institute about a year ago to provide “information and analysis of technologies, policies and practices for efficient, high performance buildings and smart energy systems around the world.”

The Institute not only has a sizable staff, but also has recruited a Network of Experts and Advisors to collaborate on a variety of projects. Each member of this small but influential network is a leader in his or her field.

One of the Institute’s main activities is market research. The Institute has taken over Johnson Control’s partnership with the International Facilities Management Association (IFMA) to conduct the annual Energy Efficiency Indicator, a wide-ranging research project to examine the attitudes, priorities, practices and investment plans related to energy management among decision makers across the world. Not only does the Indicator provide valuable information, but Pike Research and others have been able to use insights gained from this study as starting points for additional analysis. This is exactly the kind of result the Institute is hoping for. The 2010 study surveyed 2,800 people responsible for managing commercial buildings and their energy use. The reach of the 2011 Indicator may be even more extensive.

The Institute also seeks to be a clearing house for information, research and informed reporting on the topics of Building Efficiency and Clean Energy. This large and growing library of reports, case studies, presentations and interviews covers areas such as Existing Building Retrofits, Smart Grid, Financing Clean Energy, and Energy & Climate Policy. All of this material is available for free from the Institute web site.

In addition to taking a look at the materials the Institute already has available, Smith and Currie encouraged us to sign up for the Institute’s RSS feed so that we can keep up with new developments. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if I suggest that you consider doing the same. Pike Research is going to be looking for ways to work with the Institute in the months ahead. I look forward to telling you more about our efforts.

Photo by lkiller123/flickr/Creative Commons

Mike Wapner is a senior analyst at Pike Research with a focus on building efficiency.