Interestingly, this applies to the execution of both core and non-core business operations.In the case of the latter, Facilities Management (FM) has a pivotal role to play in support of the core business and must be closely coupled with the organization’s strategy overall.

Trends have shown that FM contributes most to an organization when it is approached from the strategic level. To be fully effective, your FM strategy must be aligned with the corporate objectives. To ensure that this is achieved, the FM department needs to work collaboratively with senior management.

Ideally, your FM strategy should include a number of key components, such as:

Management strategy: This defines your FM business unit objectives and describes how it operates and how it is structured. Key competency requirements and associated professional development plans should also feature.

Performance Management strategy: The Performance Management strategy of every FM should carefully outline the measurement metrics of the FM department and a sustainable approach to continuously improve the set targets.

Support services strategy: This is a very key component of the FM strategy because it ensures that the operational needs of your customers are met and they are satisfied. This is further reflected in the most appropriate way of delivering service with regard to in-house or outsourced resources.

Accommodation and workplace strategies: It is essential that your organization understands its current and future accommodation requirements. This is to ensure that it neither runs out of space nor carries the burden of excess space. This strategy informs decisions regarding your property portfolio and guides the organization’s attitude towards workplace design, specifically in relation to alternative workplace strategies.

Maintenance strategies: This strategy responds to a range of factors including: your corporate image, condition and age of your buildings, lease period remaining, etc. Given these variables, it is important to fully understand the life cycle of your assets and to find the most appropriate balance between planned and reactive maintenance.

Although listed distinctly, these strategies are all interlinked and interdependent. Changes in one area of your FM strategy will more likely influence the other.

To gain insights into the effective development and deployment of these strategies, register to attend the Ghana Facilities Management Masterclass 2.0

But do you know that in the chaos surrounding the kidnapping, the attackers are sometimes vulnerable? So we have decided to bring you some professional advice you can share with your colleagues, friends and close circle members – just in case. So, in a hostage situation, here are four things to consider. However, if you do not have a clear and safe means of escape, we strongly advise that you comply and not fight – it’s important to remember that people are working to get you released.

• Stay Alert: Once taken, you’ll usually be brought to one or more transitory spots before you arrive the long-term internment, usually the camp of your captors. Those intermediate locations may provide opportunities to escape as well – if you are not blind folded. Keep your eyes open for situations advantageous to you while you are being transited to your likely ‘base’. However, we advise you think of escape with a lot of caution!

• Seek convenience: In cases where escape is not an option, you’d need to stay well and alive. So you can suggest to your captors few things that will increase your health and improve your living circumstance. You can gently request for a pillow, blanket, or other essentials that will ensure your comfort. Remember: escape is not an option, the best you want to do is make yourself comfortable. Most times, your captors are interested in the ransom not your life. Things like a pillow or blanket, for example, can go a long way in making you comfortable in an otherwise difficult situation.

• Never Try to attack the captors: If there’s a rescue attempt, do not help your rescue force to attack your captors. Let the rescue team do their job; you’re not James Bond. Usually, when a rescue force comes into situations like this, they’re looking for violent or non-violent behaviors. They’re looking at hands, because hands carry weapons. If you make an aggressive movement, especially in the dark, you could be seen as being violent toward them or mistaken as one of the ‘bad guys’. Do exactly as you are told. Stay calm. Let the rescue force do their job.

• It’s not yet time for Pats on the Back: Rescuers don’t want you hugging or backslapping them during the raid. You can show your appreciation later. When they invade the kidnappers’ camp to rescue you, remember they don’t know you; all they have is your description, and they need to make sure you don’t have any weapons, and you haven’t become sympathetic with your captors. They can’t figure that immediately. So, stay calm, show your hands, and stay safe. It will be time for hugging and pats on the back after you’ve been rescued.

This Article is by Alpha Mead Security Systems and Technologies (AMST). Please Click Here to subscribe to our daily security update. To know more about us, visit our website Here.

One of the major areas of contention between Facilities Management Companies and their customers is the demonstration of value. At one time or another in the course of their career, most Facilities Managers have had to prove value to their organisations or customers because in the first place; both parties did not align as to what value would be. At another level, FM customers themselves set KPIs that are supposed to signal that FM is delivering value to the organisation, but most times, even when the KPIs are met, the business still doesn’t seem to be getting value for its money.

In all these situations, both FM service provider and customers are usually frustrated. The customer feels “I am paying for services that have no direct impact on my P&L (profit and loss)” and the FM feels “I have done everything required of me, these customers are just impossible”. This contention is so profound that at the breakout sessions of the 2015 FM Roundtable, virtually all the panels (involving both FM service providers and customers) complained about FM not demonstrating value, and how FM service providers need to begin to develop capacity to show they are not conduit for draining customers’ bottom line. You can download the 2015 FM Roundtable Compendium HERE.

One particular reason this arguments have continued is because FM companies and their customers are yet to get clear definitions for the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and where these definitions exist, they are most times not clear in ways they speak cogently to specific business needs. For example, there are wide varieties among what constitute critical equipment for banks versus what constitute critical equipment for residential apartments. If these are not first identified by both FM companies and their customers and the right KPIs set, a residential building may never be able to appreciate power availability as much as a bank would.

Therefore, before you begin to check if your KPIs in these areas are right and probably set new ones for your FM services, you must be able to ask and answer these three important questions. When you have answered the questions, it is then time to set new KPIs or review existing ones.

The first set of KPIs we want to look at in this article include:

1. SLA Performance: SLA is an abbreviation for Service Level Agreement. It is considered as the first relevant measure to FM leaders because it measures the percentage of works done within the SLA. This KPI is usually measured in percentages, that is: “% SLA PERFORMANCE”. Secondly, it is important because one impact area of an FM service is responsiveness, and customers expect that works request are completed within agreed timeline. The SLA KPI has several variants that all point to the same objective. Some of them include: “% Request fulfilled within agreed SLA”, “% Deviation on Mean Time to Resolve (MTTR)”, etc.

2. PERCENTAGE OF CRITICAL EQUIPMENT AVAILABILITY: This measures the number of hours particular critical equipments are available – up and running such that the users benefit from the service. However, we must note that critical equipment vary from organisation to organisation, and they are usually determined by the business needs of the customer. Each organization must determine its list of critical equipment, according to the terms of the FM contract.  This KPI is important because without the availability of essential facilities services, the customers’ FM needs cannot be satisfied, and value cannot be extracted from services paid for.

3. PERCENTAGE OF PLANNED PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE COMPLIANCE: This KPI is a measure of adherence to Planned Preventive Maintenance (PPMs). It is important because it is indicative of both service delivery as agreed in most FM contracts, and a measure of positive actions towards preservation of the critical assets of the facilities.

4. SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE CRITICAL PERCENT (SMCP): This is very closely related to % PPM Compliance. SMCP simply helps the Facilities Manager choose between two overdue PM schedules and which to give higher priority. You will agree that unplanned maintenance is generally more expensive than planned maintenance, so performing your PMs on time can help avoid any unscheduled breakdowns, repairs and downtime.

5. RECORDABLE CUSTOMER ESCALATIONS: This is a negative polarity measure that reflects the state of your facility, whether or not your customers are satisfied with your service. It means that when the number of recordable escalation is low, the customer is to a large extent, satisfied. On the other hand, having a high recordable escalation shows that the customer is not satisfied and that the FM is not proactive – that is, the FM only fixes the problem after they have been identified and escalated by the customer. This KPI is particularly important to you, if your facility is multi-tenanted.

Final thoughts: we have just explored operational KPIs that can prove that you are delivering value to your customers, and can guarantee your customers that they are getting value from the services you offer. In the next edition, we shall be focusing on other value-adding KPIs, as they relate to key business performance measures such as: financial and customer satisfaction metrics.

While some, particularly the Blue Chip Organisations, clearly articulate their objectives and document them, it can hardly be established that SMEs have theirs in any form of documentation. Notwithstanding the category any business belongs however, the reality that Real Estate and Facilities Management activities gulp up to 30% of business overhead cannot be lost on them.

So in the face of current economic situation, it is no surprise that most organisations are taking a closer look at their overhead and seeking creative ways of reducing overhead or increasing productivity to salvage dwindling bottom line. But how can organisations reduce Real Estate and FM spends without heaping up deferred maintenance or truncating operational efficiency required to deliver the result at the end of the day?

Here are few lessons that could help you meet your REFLM objectives and your corporate goals, without impacting negatively on your business performance. These lessons stem from the top drivers identified in a case study survey of 250 top business decision markers in the United States.

 The following are some actions the survey attributed to the superior performance. Thus, for businesses looking to align their corporate goals to REFLM objectives, here are actions to be taken:

1. Standardize your Policies, Processes and Procedures: This is the first step to consider if you want to align your REFLM objectives with your corporate goals. Standardizing your processes, procedures and policies gives a clear picture of your organisation’s entire asset management process – from procurement, to maintenance and eventually disposal. This helps in better planning of the business operations. For example, the policy can state clearly what could be procured, when to procure, how to procure and even how to dispose. When things like these are under control, the business goals are clear and the REFLM objectives can be easily planned into it. For example, if a bank has a clear policy on new branch roll out, then it is easy for it to plan its Real Estate and FM operations ahead.

2. Place your Spend under Management Control: This is the next thing to do after standardizing your policies and procedures. Doing this engenders process efficiency and helps the procurement department deliver strategic value, because there are established plans upon which they can leverage economy of scale to the benefit of the corporate goal. It also ensures that spends are made strategically as, approval will be base on business cases and operational exigencies.

3. Computerize your Operations and Maintenance Systems: According to the survey, best-in-class organisations who have strategically aligned their corporate goals and Real Estate and FM objectives achieve 56% savings through improved operational efficiency. This figure becomes instructive in the face of the increasing sophistication of Real Estate assets, especially in emerging markets like Nigeria.

4. Support Capital Projects Planning with Systems and Technologies: If your corporate goal and FM objectives must align for better business performance, this support is very essential. Planning elements such as budgeting and fund allocations must be supported with systems and technologies is such ways that they impact operational areas like space planning and put in place measureable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). From result of the survey, organizations that did this were able to save up to 29% on capital project expenditure.

5. Improve Space Planning: If the REFLM objectives of any organization must deliver on its corporate goal, space planning will play a critical role. Planning, besides helping businesseses optimize the use of space, also plays significantly in employees’ productivity. For example, the survey under review shows that best-in-class organizations increase their utilization by 2.5% and achieved 14% cost savings from higher visibility in space-related costs.

6. Establish Measurable KPIs: We have written a few articles on different KPIs and the important questions to ask before setting them. This part further gives credence to the need to set realistic and measurable KPIs that align with your corporate objectives. However, we must quickly establish that while cost savings should be one of the KPIs that make up the list of KPIs for operational efficiency, businesses must be careful not to starve productivity and key business drivers on such basis.

In addition, no one needs to be told that in spite of the fact that approximately 60% of the country’s health services are provided by the private sector, the general state of the Nigerian healthcare infrastructure facilities still leaves much to be desired.

Experts say this declining status and the attendant lack of confidence in the healthcare system in Nigeria can be traced to inadequate planning of the Integrated Healthcare Facilities Management Model (IHFMM) of most healthcare institutions before construction.

Ironically, Nigerian doctors and healthcare professionals rank at par with their counterparts in most of the countries where Nigerians seek medical attention. In fact, available record showed they are in large numbers practicing in most hospitals abroad, where they give good accounts of themselves. This is fueling an increase in brain drain, as most of them have to go abroad to get expose to modern medical equipment, which are lacking in Nigerian hospitals.

So if Nigeria must reduce the rising capital flight on account of medical tourism, improve the state of its healthcare facilities to earn patient’s confidence, and retain some of its brilliants medical experts to develop its healthcare sector; here are some of the areas to focus, and how Facilities Management will help:

1. Unavailability of Modern Equipment and Obsoleteness of Existing Ones

This is about the biggest issue with the Nigerian healthcare system. It is responsible for why foreign medical trips remain the only option for affluent Nigerians or patients in dire need of the right diagnosis. It is common place to trace the root causes of most of the wrong diagnoses to lack of the right equipment or the faulty nature of existing ones.

Rather than just focusing on outright purchase and installation of these life-saving equipment without recourse to their lifecycle management and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with manufacturers, FM can come to the rescue by defining processes around the required SLA, and planned scheduled replacement of the obsolete inventory.

These can help keep existing equipment in good shape and adequately plan for the disposal and replacement of outdated or faulty ones.

2. Avoidable Harm to Patients

It is not unusual to hear stories of medical errors and how they have accounted for avoidable deaths in some Nigerian medical facilities. This is also one of the many reasons why most Nigerians remain uncomfortable with healthcare practices in the country and will rather go abroad for medical attention.

Ironically, medical errors are not peculiar to Nigeria; in fact, a landmark study in the U.S once revealed that between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans died annually because of medical errors committed in hospitals. But patients’ confidence in Nigeria’s healthcare keeps dropping due to unavailability of operational procedures, or lack of clear processes to ensure procedures are followed, where available.

Specialized FM service can help curtail the spate of medical errors by defining and implementing processes that will ensure that the procedures are sufficiently adhered to.

3. Facilities Maintenance

It is usually said that 90% of the lifecycle of any asset is dependent on FM. Looking around today; this notion becomes instructive, as most public health institutions are mere shell buildings, and new private ones are also fast giving way to wear and tear. The reasons for these remain that all the attention was given to the design and construction of these facilities, while less though went into the life of the buildings after construction.

The dilapidated nature of most of these assets is responsible to the inconducive environment and the shortened lifespan of most healthcare facilities

However, where FM is introduced, healthcare assets can fulfill their lifecycle, maintenance cost can be tracked to continuously ascertain the profitability of the asset, equipment failure can be predicted and prevented to improve productivity, and downtimes can be minimized to reduce the total cost of maintenance.

4. Integrated & Effective Heating,Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system:

Anyone who has visited healthcare facilities in the country will admit that HVAC is a major challenge. Very often the air released and which permeates the healthcare environment is odious and capable of infecting otherwise healthy people with new disease(s), due to microbial and fungal growth within the circulating air.

However, FM can help improve this condition with a well integrated and effective HVAC system, which often ensures internal climate controls (temperature, humidity, air flow, and air filtering), and identify energy-saving opportunities through an implementation, monitoring and evaluation plan. The energy management system as a result of this improvement is also known to check fungal and allergens growth that could easily lead to asthma and other health challenges.

5. Effective Waste Management System

A common observation in most healthcare institutions is the uncoordinated approach to waste management. It should be taken for granted that healthcare facilities implement a sustainable process that properly separates regulated from non-regulated medical waste at all times. Unfortunately, only few medical institutions could boast of an effective system than manages both solid and liquid wastes.

For FM, an effective medical waste management process will encompass a regular collection, handling, storage, transportation and processing of waste. This, in addition to creating conducive environment, can significantly reduce the transmission and spread of microorganism infections in healthcare facilities.

6. Efficient Structure Process and Output (SPO) Model

Every organisation is expected to rely on a mix of functions and services to provide the supporting essentials to its core business operations. Ensuring that these supports are available in the right form, at the right quality and for the right cost is a major task for Facility Management.

At another level, the there is a major void in efficient management of process that integrates the entire activities that happen within the healthcare facilities. For instance, in most of our existing health institutions, it is difficult to specifically speak to what a process is in the reception of an emergency, assures efficiency through the treatment period and keeps a patient comfortable through the recovery phase.

However, FM can come to the fore with a well defined SPO model that can enable improved operational structure, clinical process, and enhance patients’ outcome.

In all, current economic realities and state of Nigeria’s healthcare system is beginning to call for improved healthcare system that can save the country from the increasing capital flight and improve the productivity of its people.

Facilities Management is a very integral sub-sector of the Real Estate. In fact, it has been said that up to 80% of the Asset or Real Estate life-cycle is Facilities Management. In addition, besides things like location, infrastructure, design and construction; FM services also contribute significantly to the value of Real Estate assets.

In the face of these realities, Real Estate developers and promoters are pressed for value-driven FM service; and there is no hope that this demand will abate in 2017. If anything, FM will be one of the Real Estate sub-sectors to be especially tasked to add and retain value for Real Estate this year. And some of the skills that will be in high demand to help Real Estate promoters, owners and developers ride against the tide will include:

STRATEGIC PLANNING: Giving that Real Estate cost constitutes up to 40% of business overhead, the market’s pulse this year will requires a strategic alignment between organizational goals and Facilities Management objectives. This is because if well-structured, FM can play significantly in the goal of most businesses to reduce cost of overhead. So FM professionals with the requisite skills and know how in development and implementation of strategic processes, procedures and tactical plans will be highly sought-after.

For FMs willing to be in high demand in 2017, their strategic planning skill should also be developed to include ability to lead, manage and organize Man, Money and Machine to help organizations achieve their corporate goals.

EXCELLENT PROJECT MANAGEMENT SKILLS: Because of the wide range of project scopes, complexities and financial risks available in the Real Estate sector today, professional FM with no sound Project Management skill will always play second fiddle. Project owners, Real Estate developers and investors need to be assured that their FM Company or professional can run through the spectrum of their projects: beginning with the strategic planning, right scoping, scheduling and detailed reports scooped from structured evaluation mechanism. FMs who will dedicate time and resources to acquiring this skill will be in high demand this year.

OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE: Well, this is the core responsibility of the FM Company or manager. However, the 2017 FM market will require that FMs have a working knowledge of building systems – interior, exterior, structure, etc – to be able to make the building function efficiently, reliably, safely and securely in a manner consistent with existing regulations and set organizational goals.

FINANCE & BUSINESS Acumen: With the turn of event in today’s Real Estate market, the knowledge of financial technologies and fundamental accounting concepts are must-haves for the Facilities Managers. This is because from corporate Real Estate to residential, retail and commercial, the Real Estate asset is a key business asset. Moreover, in the current market setting the critical metric the FM customer understands is how much he has saved or how much FM has added to his bottom line, by ensuring process efficiency. Therefore, the FM must think like a business owner who sets out to declare profit to its stakeholders at the end of the day. To this end, demand will be high for FMs or companies with the right people process and procedures that support making business cases, analyzing financial reports, contracts and procurement management, among other capabilities.

The truth is that Nigeria’s current economic situation boasts of all the signs and more. This is expectedly compelling asset class holders, especially Real Estate investors, promoters and developers, to seek survival strategies that can help preserve the value of their assets, because Real Estate draws significant impetus from the condition of the economy.

It therefore gives to reason that for Real Estate investors and promoters to successfully build or invest in this current economic dispensation, they must employ time-tested strategies that can defend the value of their assets, reduce lifecycle cost on the assets and more importantly; maximize their return on the asset (ROA).

One strategic imperative for asset managers, owners or developers to achieve the aforementioned is to look beyond the phase of design and construction, and pay adequate attention to the total lifecycle of their assets, rather than just the cost of design construction. This is important because besides design and construction (which constitute about 20 percent of the total asset life cycle) unalloyed attention should equally be given to the other 80 percent of the lifecycle and strategic elements in the defense of value.

These strategic elements include: occupancy, repair, rehabilitation, maintenance, disposal, etc. So for those who are building or investing in Real Estate in this recession, here are some of the critical areas to rethink if you want to retain your asset value:

Design: This is the conceptualization phase of a project, but very important to the eventual life cycle cost of the asset because if given adequate attention, the total lifecycle cost of the asset can be kept at controllable level in the face of unfriendly economic climate. Therefore from design stage, promoters must pay attention to balance functionality, maintainability and operationability of the asset rather than aesthetics.

Procurement: One of the areas that has proven to heap huge cost on Real Estate asset classes is procurement. If you procure wrongly, you eventually pay the price in the long run. It is advisable to procure materials based on quality, cost, favourable payment terms, delivery condition, pedigree of the vendor and after-sales support. In spite of operating in a distressed economy, attempting cost saving through wrong procurement method will mean kicking the can down the road. The asset will still have to pay for it in some ways, either cost of repair, replacement or deferred maintenance.

Construction & Installation: Ensure you secure a very good contract with well spelt out scope, performance requirements and payment milestones with adequate incentives and penalty clauses to motivate good performance. Contracts should include retention fee to be held all through the defect-free period.

Commissioning & Handover: Perhaps the most exciting stage of a project but if not carefully done, could scuttle all preceding inputs. Here ensure you conduct a joint final inspection with the contractors, design engineers, facility managers and other relevant parties to certify completion state and agree on snag list with specific close out dates before final demobilization of the building contractor from site.

Operation & Maintenance: This part speaks critically to the most important 80 percent of the total asset lifecycle. For developers or Real Estate promoters, this is when you need a professional and competent Facilities Manager. First, agree on an annual maintenance and operations budget. This helps ensure that the asset retains its value in spite of the economic conditions. Second, ensure that the Facility Manager develops a good Asset Reference Plan comprising of the asset register, maintenance plan and condition and maintenance history of the various components of the asset in return. This can help address the issues of deferred maintenance that may come to hunt the project in the course of its lifecycle.