Facilities Management is the practice of supporting and enhancing the modern day businesses’ core practices and ROI by focusing on all aspects of the business. Leading facilities managers must wear many hats and wear them all well. Through the efficient management and modernization of an organization’s assets and procedures, today’s FMs make their company relevant in our ever changing marketplace. A marketplace where every company’s survival hangs in the balance and a quality support team can make all the difference.
The facilities management team’s charge is to determine how to do more with less and do it better than everyone else. Thoroughly analyzing the use and maintenance of a company’s spatial and tangible assets, as well as examining all of the business’ daily procedures, are critical to every facilities manager’s success. Identifying what procedures need to be abandoned and what policies could be enhanced through tools such as IWMS are a massive undertaking in and of themselves. Add to that the task of convincing those in the offices upstairs that these investments will yield big returns adds that much more weight to the FM’s shoulders. It is the FM’s job to help make the big picture clear for all to see.
The factors that drive an organization to embrace their need for a professional facilities manager vary depending upon the company’s size, short and long term goals and current operating procedures. Obviously a corporation with a major property presence is going to have many more operational procedures that must be streamlined, paving the path for the FM to focus on the larger tasks at hand. The stakeholders and their visions for the company on a whole may vary tremendously, each vision with it’s own importance. The small local catering business’ focus may be more on stronger efficiency that leads to overall savings. Since the smaller companies may not have the budget to create a dedicated facilities management team, facilities outsourcing may prove more beneficial.
The FM industries growth over the last twenty years has been led by major corporate leaders seeking real-world solutions to every day problems. As a result, they have seen long term financial savings. . As the field has grown, so have the tools, such as software solutions, making it universally beneficial and affordable for organizations of all sizes. . This continued success, and the sharing of these successes in our information-based society, has led to the acceptance of facilities management as a staple in the business community.
. Statistics regarding the continued growth in the FM field, FM outsourcing and the adoption of FM principals, as well as their organization’s growth, are irrefutable evidence that the facilities management industry is a profession that produces results and is here to stay. .
Written by: Elizabeth DukesPartner at iOffice, Inc.