5 Ways to Grow Competitiveness in the Facility Management Industry by 2020
The way we inhabit our workspace is changing and so are the workplace strategies we must have in place to attract and retain talent as well as to drive productivity and performance. Here are 5 ways facility managers must fulfill their customer needs and innovate their practices to stay competitive in the facility management industry by 2020.
- Evolve from passive supplier to proactive strategic partner
It’s a competitive world and competition gets more competitive by 2020. It’s now time for all the facility management companies must shift focus from traditional asset deployment and move beyond that such as using workspace more efficiently and effectively. This concept broadens the Facility Management role. HR & IT teams are required to collaborate with each other on strategies for the overall company growth.
To achieve this, all facility management companies need to develop sets of relevant KPIs strategies which help in measuring such as Office environment impact on the productivity of employees, Knowledge scaling up, Capabilities and ability of knowledge creation, client satisfaction, change adaptability and flexibility, cultural impact and maintaining balance and innovation
- Focus on Value Creation – Not Just Cost Savings
Traditionally the medium to measure success rate for facility management industry was completely on cost factor,i.e, how to get more for less cost, through cost-cutting. Cost cutting strategy will always continue across the industries having the with the main emphasis on lowering occupancy costs – being a strategic partner will also require finding new ways to create value for the workspace inhabitants and other stakeholders. This is a creation of a path in the process of adopting new wave of thinking and of forward-thinking technologies that allow more mobility or provide better conditions for employee training or creation of a healthier workplace environment that can increase employee productivity, decrease absenteeism and minimize overall stress levels.
- Develop Sustainable Solutions
In the corporate real estate industry, the facility management industry has become one of the most important. As majorly facility management services’ focus is responsible for health & safety, energy management, waste management, water consumption & recycling of water and most importantly reducing the carbon footprints. These responsibilities will only expand in the future as it’s a given fact that buildings account for almost 40% of global energy use, sustainability has become an important strategic topic. Since the priority has always been sustainability, the pressure on facility managers will increase to deliver sustainable solutions across all platforms and activities of the organization. The professionals will be forced to rethink all of their existing assets and system into a sustainable framework, including making life-cycle assessments and undertaking life-cycle building management. Training employees in maintaining a sustainable workplace and developing new methods to reduce energy levels, waste and carbon footprint overall, will, therefore, be one of the key ways to gain new market shares and improve the competitiveness of a facility management business overall.
- Optimize the Use of Space
Concept Money=space, Space=money is very true. Optimal utilization of Space towards working environment including virtual employees or mobile employees, investing time in the investment of time in any new workspace designed, can only help them in the utilization of the space to the maximum which can result in impressive cost savings. Few of the most methods used to get maximum utilization of value current properties are flexible-workstations, distributed workplace, strategy & mobile workplaces. Facility management companies keen on developing skills and expertise within workplace design in combination with technology utilization will on that basis be well positioned to experience higher demands.
- Leverage Technology
Towards 2020, more facility managers will be keen to leverage more technology in their service offerings to stay competitive. The idea of a workplace is nothing but the concept of the virtual workplace. Technology is emerging in facility management quickly because of 2 facts: (a) Its double-edged axe showing where we perform and how best do we perform. The workplace is new and different eg: assigned workplace, home offices, flex offices, shared..etc. (b) Technology changes and updates every day, facility management professionals must make use of this to make effective and efficient workplaces/spaces for employees. Leveraging available technologies in the most optimal way must be decided by facility management.