Smart Cities Need Smart Advisors

Smart Cities Need Smart Advisors

Smart cities are not delivered through technology alone. They are delivered through specific interventions that improve how cities operate, allocate scarce public services, collect revenue and make decisions, within real institutional and financial constraints.

Across Asia, governments are under pressure to modernise urban mobility and other systems in response to rapid urban growth and rising tourism. Digital management solutions are often proposed as the answer, but in practice many initiatives struggle because they are insufficiently grounded in existing processes, funding structures and institutional capacity.

This is the interface at which Misca Advisors operates, helping governments design smart solutions that are not just operable, but viable and commercially realistic.

Since 2020, we have worked on delivering smart city strategy solutions in Cambodia. Most recently in 2025, and building on our early work that established the analytical baseline, stakeholder relationships and operating context, we helped the Preah Sihanouk Provincial Administration to optimise its approach to managing tourism flows in the city of Sihanoukville, supported by the United Nations Capital Development Fund’s Smart Green ASEAN Cities programme.

What smart solutions look like in practice

Under the Smart Green ASEAN Cities programme, support has focused on moving beyond generic smart city concepts towards targeted, deliverable interventions.

In Sihanoukville, this has included:

• Designing an enterprise architecture for a Tourism Management System that integrates data across land, sea and air arrivals, accommodation activity and fee collection processes
• Developing a data framework that enables clear ownership, validation and traceability of tourism and revenue data across government departments to be established
• Mapping existing fee collection mechanisms and fund flows to identify leakage, duplication and opportunities for improved transparency
• Defining practical system options that improve monitoring and decision making without assuming wholesale digital transformation

These are not abstract smart city ideas. They are operational systems intended to improve revenue efficiency, service planning and investment decisions in a tourism-driven city.

Commercial and institutional realities

Experience from our work shows that smart city solutions are often only marginally viable. Revenue streams are limited, institutional responsibilities are fragmented and operating budgets are constrained. Success therefore depends on careful system design that enables iterative development rather than aiming for wholesale transformation at scale.

Digital platforms must align with who collects fees, who controls budgets and who is accountable for operation. Without this alignment, even technically sound systems fail to deliver value. For this reason, equal emphasis is placed on institutional arrangements, governance and financial flows alongside technology.

Integrating technical and financial thinking

What differentiates Misca Advisors is the ability to bring technical design and financial assessment together. Smart solutions are tested against affordability, operating cost implications and long-term fiscal sustainability, rather than assumed to pay for themselves.

This integrated approach allows governments to prioritise systems that deliver incremental but sustainable improvements, while retaining a clear pathway for future expansion as capacity and funding allow.

Why Misca Advisors

Smart cities require advisors who understand cities as operational, financial and institutional systems. Misca Advisors brings this perspective, combining digital architecture, infrastructure planning and financial analysis to deliver smart solutions that can actually be implemented.

By focusing on what works in the real world, smart city ambition can be translated into credible, investable outcomes.