THERE is no doubt that outsourced facilities management (FM) can address key challenges for building owners. It can drive a high standard of service provision in areas such as cleaning and MEP maintenance, reduce overheads and boost less tangible benefits such as employee satisfaction and better health for those living and working in the building. Despite all of the benefits, the application of these ideas is still very much nascent in the Middle East. Often it is hampered by a short-term view of how to look after the built environment, the largest capital investment many companies will make. But this is a view that underestimates the value that quality FM can bring to an organization and its assets. A well prepared scope for FM will absorb many of the asset owner's regulatory requirements regarding the properties in question, reducing any compliance headaches for the in-house management team. It can also help to create a more sustainable approach to managing the asset, from the adoption of green cleaning techniques, to introducing best practices in energy usage and waste reduction. These are processes that will help smart clients realize significant long-term savings. In setting out to make such savings a question owners believe they face is whether to use single or multiple providers. The optimal FM service delivery strategy will vary from company to company. There is no one size fits all option, which is why a strategy needs to be developed around the individual company, its goals, aspirations and requirements. However, I do believe there are some significant benefits to be enjoyed from outsourcing all requirements to a qualified integrated FM provider. These include having a single point of contact, seeing savings across your operation and increasing the chances of having international best practice in place on your assets. But getting full advantage from these services takes work and some of that work needs to happen right at the very start of a project. Having conducted hundreds of design reviews on many major projects I wish I could point at state of the art buildings with marvelous new technologies and say they work brilliantly. But time and time again developers and architects overlook the basic pre-requisites of good FM, such as sufficient access, storage and labor welfare. Like the 80:20 rule, getting the basics right will achieve 80 percent of the optimal operability we seek. All too often these basics are not in place when people start chasing the final 20 percent through the late introduction of services and technologies that could and would make a huge difference if properly introduced at the design stage and properly implemented during construction stage. The solution to all of this is simple. I would ask any owner to bring us — the FM industry — into their project at the design stage because this is where the real savings can be achieved. Once the building is complete year-on-year savings are marginal at best. While the Saudi Arabian market is some way off from this scenario, we have seen a marked upswing in interest in FM as a way to protect and preserve the value of a built asset. The recent economic slowdown may have slowed progress temporarily, but once signs of a recovery take hold we can and will see a greater understanding of the benefits of FM. This understanding will lead to increased take up and exponential growth in the industry and give us all the chance to get the basics right. — Michael Moore is the Operations Director and Principle Consultant for DTZ. He is presenting FM Contracts 101: Developing effective performance measurement systems at the Facilities Management Leaders' Conference, as part of FM EXPO Saudi, on Jan. 15 at Jeddah Centre for Forums and Events.
