Companies are looking at their facility assets and services with an increasingly strategic point of view, and are looking for ways to focus their resources on their company’s core mission and values. Senior leaders are exploring ways to leverage their facility assets and services to support and even enhance their core business while minimising their costs.
Simply put, they want to maximise the value delivered through facility assets and services.
The worldwide facilities management (FM) outsourcing market is expected to grow from $959.2 billion in 2012 to $1.314 trillion in 2018. This market is far from just expanding, however; it is evolving, with growing public- and private-sector demand for FM solutions that are both global and integrated.
Along with this evolving market, customer expectations are broadening to include more value-added FM services: customers increasingly expect FM providers to assume responsibility (i.e., accept risk transfer) for regulatory and labour law compliance, for example, and to take an active role in advancing the company’s strategic mission. To this end, FM suppliers are having to evolve from service providers to strategic partners.
These changing demands require a new way of thinking about the delivery of FM services, as the industry transitions from having a single-service, local outsourcing model to providing integrated services delivered seamlessly to the customer on a national and even global scale.
“At ISS we are focused on bringing these service improvements to our clients and their work place,” says Richard Ganski, Regional Manager of Technical Services, Global Corporate Clients. “We are continually developing and focusing our business to deliver to our customer’s purpose and our model is based on focusing on outcomes rather than inputs to service.”
Company leaders are also looking to respond to increased social, economic and regulatory pressure to be good global citizens. They are looking for companies that can partner with them to enhance the effect their facility assets and services have on these areas.
At the same time, they see FM and services as non-core to their business and are looking to benefit from forming strategic long-term relationships with companies that are facility experts.
Another way companies are looking to derive greater value is through simplification by reducing their contracts through centralising procurement on a national and even international scale. This simplification requires service providers who can perform on a broader scope both geographically and across multiple lines of service. Agility is the key.
Currently, FM service providers are focusing on strategic initiatives such as workplace change management and risk mitigation as a way to increase the value they deliver to the client. By using technology to enhance services delivered by interfacing traditional building technology systems with FM management systems, FM service providers can improve work flow, provide proactive rather than reactive maintenance strategies, anticipate the needs of their clients while also improving productivity.
“Why clean a room if it is already clean or why service a piece of equipment which has not been used?” Richard continues. “Too often prescriptive agreements which focus on input specifications force FM providers to over service and under deliver in the areas where the most value can be obtained.”
FM service providers looking to deliver more strategic value to their clients will take on even more aspects of their FM services, including sustainable workspace and environmental performance, as sustainability becomes an even higher corporate priority. Hand-in-hand with this is the management of building intelligence – literally utilising time and motion studies to further drive smarter FM, which delivers cost savings to the client with no drop in service delivery.
Along with this, there are flow-on benefits to workforce productivity. FM service providers clearly see cost benefits with increased employee productivity and retention versus the cost of reactive maintenance. Focusing on outcomes such as these provides greater benefit to both the provider and their clients.
The continual outsourcing of further FM functions over the years has coincided with a shift from service bundling to service integration or integrated facility services (IFS), sustainability management, and finally to Workplace Management.
“In the modern world of FM, we are able to accurately manage and measure the condition of equipment or services,” Richard says. “With our internal centres of excellence we are able to tailor service and maintenance solutions to meet the customer’s individual needs, ensuring that their highest priorities are attended to first.”
In both the public and private sectors, IFS is seen as a way to simplify by streamlining the number of contracts, lowering costs and driving increased value. No longer are FM functions performed and managed in silos, because FM is looked at holistically.
Facilities are no longer simply the places where a company’s employees work; they are recognised as assets that can be configured and maintained flexibly to accommodate a company’s core mission, culture and strategic evolution, providing a truly fit-for-purpose workplace.
At ISS, a global leader in IFS solutions, this holistic technological approach has been driving real client results, while also delivering savings to the bottom line.
“This way of delivering FM requires a level of trust and confidence in the organisation you are working with to deliver,” Richard concludes. “But the benefits of this way of thinking far outweigh the risks.”
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This article was contributed by ISS Facility Services. ISS adopts an integrated approach to FM combining all support services into a holistic solution. By bundling services, ISS is able to reduce overheads and allocate resources more efficiently.
