Making a mark with quality service

Facilities management (FM) is a field that has a strategic role to play in the experience of the end user of buildings and facilities. This is becoming popular in the country in commercial as well as residential segments. The management of basic facilities in buildings  has now emerged as a professional field with more and developers as well as other organised players entering this field. According to Technavio’s analysts forecast the facilities management services market in India to grow at a CAGR of 17.19% during the period 2016-2020 owing to the developments in end-user industries and the need for a safe, comfortable, and professionally-maintained work environment. Larger Facility management players have been highly successful in providing cusotmised solutions to clients, which provides benefits not only in terms of commercials but to the entire value chain of the organisation.

However, many international property management companies have entered into this market and achieved phenomenal growth rates over the last five years. 

“On a day-to day level, effective facilities management provides a safe and efficient environment, which is essential to the performance of any business - whatever its size and scope”, says Rajesh Pandit, Managing Partner, Asset Services & Global Workplace Solutions, CBRE South Asia Pvt Ltd. He talks about the growing footprint of facilities management in the country in an interview. Excerpts:

Why is the concept of facilities management gaining popularity in India?

Facilities management is the integration of processes within an organisation to maintain and develop the agreed services which support and improve the effectiveness of its primary activities.

The outlook of FM services in India is shaping up to be highly optimistic mainly due to the growing maturity of end users and the need for improved safety, comfort and professional maintenance of assets. 

Presence of Global and Indian MNCs across various end-user sectors is mainly driving the market for FM services in India as they are the potential customers due to their increased awareness levels, exposure to facilities and willingness to invest. 

What are the key growth drivers in this field?

The facility management industry is a sunrise sector and the opportunities to move up the value chain in organisations are immense. The key drivers to enhance building management services going forward will be availability of skilled resources through more training facilities and the ability of all stakeholders to understand the costs associated with the services and work jointly in optimising, rather than merely reducing costs to achieve better services. 

The key growth drivers for the sector are: 

• Growing real estate and property management market
• Demand from growing IT/ITES/BPO sector
• Concept of Smarter buildings and cities 
• Greater focus of governments in creating better infrastructure and their management

How are the customers going to benefit from it?

The FM services help their clients make a better decision leading to  better designs that are efficient and easy to operate and maintain, better planning and budgeting, reduce operational costs, better acquisitions,  identify the potential risks, identify the improvement areas, improve service levels etc.

What are the challenges in India for this and how do you think these can be tackled?

Lack of availability of technical and non-technical manpower is one of the biggest challenges the industry is facing currently. The lack of qualified staff has increased the lead times in mobilising resources/staff after a project has been successfully contracted. Increase in inflation and labour cost have forced many customers to replace long-term contracts with medium-term ones. Many customers find it easier to maintain medium and short-term contracts rather than long-term ones as the latter will lead to price rise.

The facility management sector is still largely a people driven industry, heavily dependent on manual interventions for routine activities such as guarding, upkeep and engineering services. Another key challenge faced in building management is conflicting requirement of providing best in class services to tenants and the tenants willingness to pay for the services. This results in dissatisfied customers as well as lower margins for the service providers. 

What is the cost factor and how can it be kept in the reasonable bracket?

The cost factor of services needs to be evaluated in terms of Strategic choice of solutions by the organisations with a risk-free environment of operations. Since the market is riddled with low cost unorganised service providers, pricing and margins come under pressure as these unorganised players provide services at low rates, essentially scuttling the competition from large organised players. 

A partnership approach towards FM solutions drives greater cost efficiencies for organisations while building solution based approach to contain rising cost of labour, material and services.

What are the measures CBRE has taken in this area?

From a facility management perspective, we specialise in taking a strategic approach to facilities management by applying expert knowledge, proven best practices and processes, best-in-class technology, procurement leverage and energy and sustainability initiatives, to enhance value, streamline operations, manage operational risk and reduce operating expenses for our clients

Our core services include

• Strategic Sourcing
• Critical Facilities Management
• Health, Safety & Environment (HSE), Energy & Sustainability, Technology & Innovation
• Finance Integrated Management services (IMS) 

— As told to Geetu Vaid