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Clockworks Bet Early on Tech-Enabled Services — Partners Channel is Now Proven Model for Scaling FDD Beyond Owner-Staffed Campuses
Clockworks Analytics has always sold its FDD software directly to building owners. But five years ago, the company made a parallel bet: fault detection would only reach most commercial buildings if it could work without deep owner-side engineering teams.
That assumption shaped how Clockworks designed its platform and its partner channel. Instead of treating FDD as a self-service analytics product, the company assumed interpretation, prioritization, and execution would often sit with third-party service providers.
“There was a long stigma that FDD only belonged in huge facilities with big budgets,” Donahue said. “That all goes out the window when technology is embedded in a service contract.”
Clockworks' partner channel was built to extend FDD into buildings that rely on contractors for ongoing operations. The assumption: service providers—not software—would be responsible for turning diagnostics into work. “We've proven FDD has a place as a tool for service providers to do better work in buildings,” Donahue said.
That assumption influenced the product itself. Clockworks avoided highly customized rule sets that require constant tuning and instead invested in a standardized global data model informed by thousands of connected buildings. “The output of the tool is consistent and clean,” Donahue said, reducing onboarding effort and making recurring workflows easier for service teams to manage.
For contractors like MacDonald Miller, the appeal was operational efficiency: “We didn’t want our smartest people hiding in the backend managing rules,” said Reid Powell. “We needed them focused on customers and outcomes.”
Donahue framed the broader implication: FDD scales when it strengthens service delivery models—not when it assumes owners or contractors will become analytics experts.
Learn more:
- Watch the full presentation from NexusCon 2025
- Sign up for the Nexus Labs newsletter to get five similar stories for owners each Wednesday:
Clockworks Analytics has always sold its FDD software directly to building owners. But five years ago, the company made a parallel bet: fault detection would only reach most commercial buildings if it could work without deep owner-side engineering teams.
That assumption shaped how Clockworks designed its platform and its partner channel. Instead of treating FDD as a self-service analytics product, the company assumed interpretation, prioritization, and execution would often sit with third-party service providers.
“There was a long stigma that FDD only belonged in huge facilities with big budgets,” Donahue said. “That all goes out the window when technology is embedded in a service contract.”
Clockworks' partner channel was built to extend FDD into buildings that rely on contractors for ongoing operations. The assumption: service providers—not software—would be responsible for turning diagnostics into work. “We've proven FDD has a place as a tool for service providers to do better work in buildings,” Donahue said.
That assumption influenced the product itself. Clockworks avoided highly customized rule sets that require constant tuning and instead invested in a standardized global data model informed by thousands of connected buildings. “The output of the tool is consistent and clean,” Donahue said, reducing onboarding effort and making recurring workflows easier for service teams to manage.
For contractors like MacDonald Miller, the appeal was operational efficiency: “We didn’t want our smartest people hiding in the backend managing rules,” said Reid Powell. “We needed them focused on customers and outcomes.”
Donahue framed the broader implication: FDD scales when it strengthens service delivery models—not when it assumes owners or contractors will become analytics experts.
Learn more:
- Watch the full presentation from NexusCon 2025
- Sign up for the Nexus Labs newsletter to get five similar stories for owners each Wednesday:
This is a great piece!
I agree.