FEATURE
DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF
OUTCO Managing Director Andy Barry discusses how bundling outdoor FM services will take the stress out of estate management.
Let’s start with a familiar paradox. Company A spends ten million pounds on FM outsourcing. The sum of £9m goes to a handful of major contracts - fulfilled by large and highly professional providers that - for the most part - prove relatively predictable and simple to manage. The last million is where things get tricky.
Once core demands are dealt with, a plethora of smaller scale needs remain that are fulfilled by a patchwork of small contracts and smaller contractors that consume a disproportionate amount of time to procure and manage. We all know the 80/20 rule about working smarter in business that states that 80% of the gains can come from 20% of the effort. With outsourcing, this rump of small yet time consuming contracts is an oppressive 20/80 burden.
My own part of the FM world - outdoor maintenance - has for the most part been stuck in this tricky final segment: Whether its landscaping, grounds maintenance, car park repairs, cleaning PV panels, or winter gritting, customers are often weaving together numerous service providers – often in each location – to attempt to create a coherent whole. Which is not to say that excellence doesn’t exist.
Often, there’s no substitute for experienced workers that know a site or location well. However, for larger companies managing multiple sites, the lack of a consistent approach and the absence of the operational
26 | TOMORROW’S FM
finesse of larger outsourcing partners makes procurement and management a major challenge. Furthermore, when addressing liabilities on site - for example, trips and falls on dangerous surfaces or the danger of falling branches - a lack of professionalism and transparency can carry significant financial and reputational risks.
The picture painted here should be familiar to many readers, but a real-world example should help bring this to life further and illustrate how a better way is possible. Until recently, one of the UK’s largest supermarket chains was meeting their outdoor FM needs in exactly this way. 13 different services around their stores and distribution centres were being fulfilled by six different companies. This involved dealing with six different help desks, six different portals, six invoices and required a large team to manage the relationships. While clearly defined responsibilities provided clarity, it also meant that thousands of ad hoc tasks around the store portfolio would be left unattended (this was a particular challenge given the company’s ageing property estate).
Working with the supermarket’s main FM partner, we developed an alternative approach that replaced these multiple contracts with a single bundled service offering for all outdoor FM requirements. Under this new strategy
twitter.com/TomorrowsFM
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74
