The Future of Facility Management
The facility management profession is facing transformational change from every direction which has resulted in a paradigm shift. Everything from how and where maintenance work is being performed to the nature of the maintenance, is being transformed. With the future of work taking shape, the future of facility management is continuing to emerge. The question now is how facility management teams will be able to tackle the demands of tomorrow?
Several major trends are coming to the fore that are changing the nature of facility management. The workplace is being increasingly viewed as a strategic driver for any kind of organizational change and also a tool for talent recruitment and engagement. No longer is workplace viewed as an overhead expense. Technology is another driver in bringing in transformation in the facility management sector. Advances in mobile technology, the evolution of facility management app, facility management software, IoT, machine learning, artificial intelligence has introduced new ways of managing end to end platforms of facility management workplaces and processes. It is the widespread adoption of web and mobile technology that has led to the emergence of a flexible and virtual mode of working in the facility management sector that has disrupted the traditional modes of working and maintenance.
The need to be more agile is one of the new mandates in facility management. In the pre internet times, the workplace strategy was revisited in a decade or so. Today, an organization needs to evaluate its workplace strategy in every six months as business strategies are susceptible to quick changes depending on the external demands. In today’s fast paced world, organizations are on the lookout for workplaces that are that are flexible in response to business change and that encourage their people to perform their best. And going by the growing rise of mobile working and demand for various workplace options, most organizations require more than a single workspace, an intact they need an ecosystem of multiple workspaces. Flexible networks of different kind of workspaces are becoming the hallmark of the standard workplace of the modern times.
All these changes pose new challenges to the facility management sector. The future of a more dynamic workplace and the increasing emphasis on human experience requires redesigning facility management functions around the demands of the 21st trends and workplace.
As organizations are keen on adopting new approaches, facility managers are required to look beyond the old and physical facilities and embrace the new concepts of flexibility and agility, digitization, employee and tenant experience and of course productivity. This means that facility managers need to be adept in using technology and data to deliver new insights and services concerning the management and maintenance of a facility. The innovations in IoT in particular, are now coming to the forefront. Initially they were used to power the smart building systems that are able to self-adjust and save energy and reduce the operational and overall costs. Today, this technology is being increasingly used to drive the strategies and services of facilities and workplaces. Recent studies show that the IoT has been found to improve human experience in the workplace as well and today it goes far beyond operational efficiency and capital planning that are associated with smart buildings.
The IoT along with different other workplace and building facility management technologies can help facility managers to rise to the challenge of the future. Since many organizations are undergoing digital transformation, the facility management is going through digital transformation as well. Keeping productivity and agility as goals, the yesteryear’s workflows and spreadsheets no longer apply now. Facility management teams are expected to be more proficient in using technology in order to help businesses quickly respond to changing conditions and be adept with using business intelligence and predictive analysis that will influence decision-making.
However, it is important to remember that it is not always enough to add technology to workflows that are not supportive of the news demands of facility management roles. In fact, the end to end lifecycle of facility management services are required to be revamped. The digitization of facility management services is all about three important dimensions: productivity, entrench and sustainability management and compliance. In all these areas, sensors, computers and data are used to streamline the facility management functions into value added services.
The shift to digital facility management is all about automating facility management business processes and this includes everything from service requests to move ins and energy management to workspace customization. Through digitization, facility managers are able to analyze and collect data for better decision-making and capital planning. Through technology, facility managers are able to improve facility experience of tenants and visitors alike. Therefore, having embraced digitization, facility management today is a sector that is expected to save more time and money and improve the overall user experience in the future.