This, in addition to an anticipated 170,000 Square Metres of prime office and retail spaces, and a rising profile of a luxury residential assets are fast giving Ghana’s Real Estate sector the status of being the nation’s economic crown.

These impressive statistics, coupled with increasing Real Estate activities in the economy are opening up another window of opportunities in the market. These opportunities are in the area of Facilities Management.

With the Ghana Real Estate market attracting billion-dollar investments, investors are keenly interested in how to preserve the value of their asset, increase occupancy and reduce operational costs to guarantee their returns.

So how should Facilities Managers in Ghana position for these opportunities?

1. Grow Capacity and Understand Global Standards: For any individual, Facilities Management company or service provider to take advantage of the huge opportunity in Ghana FM market, they must develop the capacity to be able to respond to the volume of work, sophistication and demand for international quality standards of the foreign Real Estate investment. FM professionals who lack this knowledge will soon become irrelevant in the scheme of things.

2. Speak the language of Business by Demonstrating Value: Investors want to make profit on their Real Estate assets. So there is high demand for Facilities Management professionals who can demonstrate how process efficiency, reduction in breakdown and availability of critical equipment affects the bottom line.

3. Understand Strategic FM Planning: Giving that Real Estate cost constitutes up to 40% of business overhead, those who want to take opportunities in the market will understand how to align organizational goals with Facilities Management objectives. This is because if well-structured, FM can play significantly in the business performance goals of the investors. So FM professionals with the requisite skills and know how in the development and implementation of strategic processes, procedures and tactical plans will be highly sought-after

Want to develop yourself or your team for these opportunities and more? Sign up for our Facilities Management Master Class HERE

A close look at the country’s 2017 budget puts the nation’s total oil and non-oil revenue at N4.9trn. This, in the face of increasing recurrent expenditure of which the National Assembly accounts for N2.9trn, while our creditors take up another N1.6trn; is bound to leave the nation with tough choice of borrowing as much as N2.36trn from local and international sources to fund capital projects.

Interestingly, Nigeria is a place where, regardless of the shortfall in revenue, the recurrent expenditure always get 100% funding allocation at the expense of capital projects. In fact, over the past five years, the nation has spent more 5 times more on recurrent expenses than capital projects. This presupposes that capital expenditure always have to scramble for crumbs or survive on inflows from creditors, who may consider our plight through high-yield government instruments that overcrowd the private sectors ability to borrow, grow the economy and create jobs.

In the face of these challenges, Real Estate and Construction remains one of the most viable sectors that the government can concentrate on to stimulate the economy. It is not by chance that the sector is the second largest employer of labour behind the Agricultural sector in Nigeria; it is a demonstration of the opportunities it has brought to other economies.

If judiciously explored, these opportunities have the capacity to create jobs, increase spending and then return confidence to the Nigerian economy. While this is not a blanket position on the possible ways out of the current economic challenges, as a player in the Real Estate space, this article is about immediate actions that I believe can help Nigeria explore Real Estate as one of its economic drivers in 2017.

Foreign Exchange policy

A rather inconsistent foreign exchange policy in the last 24 months significantly contributed to the country sliding into an era of Stagflation. If not fixed, our anticipated growth will only be momentary. The Nigerian FX market can be likened to a borrower who needs to borrow money without having the cash flow (which is FX inflows) to repay its obligation or collateral security (FX reserves) to even secure it.

In my view, the 41 items that were banned can be seen as one of the major issues creating this issues and the divide between the inter-bank market and the parallel market rates. Most of the items on the banned list are responsible for $4bn to $5bn worth of imports annually.

Secondly, our country is structured as an import dependent economy and cannot have a ‘floating rate’ or ‘flexible rate’. Countries like Egypt who have implemented this policy are dealing with high inflation in excess of 24 percent. In view of these situations, it is obvious the government needs to shore up its position through assets disposal and a slight devaluation to N350-380 range to encourage investments and reduce impact on our lean reserves.

To do this successfully, government will have to eliminate capital controls cancel the so called “floating rate” and peg the exchange rate, shore up its foreign reserves to boost confidence, devalue the naira to a mid-range average of N330-N350 and lift the ban on the 41 items excluded from the inter-bank market and provide more transparency in FX dealings.

Release Pension Guidelines for Homeownership

There’s an urgent need for the immediate release of the required guidelines for pension fund investment in Real Estate assets, which will dovetail to the mortgage sector.

Equity finance has been one of the major constraints of home buyers and this a strategic policy guideline would immediately unlock access to N5trn, which is sufficient to provide equity down payment for 300,000 to 500,000 houses.

By extension, this is capable of generating between 15 – 20 million jobs and positively affect job creation along the construction value chain. It will also create a mortgage industry estimated at $35bn. This simple action would attract capital investment, drive growth for mortgage-backed securities and deepen the capital markets. I believe if 7.3 million Nigerians contribute to the pension scheme program, they should also have a say on how it’s spent; it should at least be spent to their direct benefit instead of letting some of them retire in rented apartments with nothing to show for their years of meritorious service.

Privatization/Securitization of Federal Government Assets

A close look at the 2017 budget shows the Federal Government will be investing almost N100bn of tax payers’ money in building Office towers for MDA’s. Rather, Office development for MDA’s should be advertised to the general public for purchase, to stimulate the Real estate sector,

Alternatively, these assets can be listed through a REITs product to attract foreign investments. The immediate benefits include: more money for the Federal Government to execute social projects and focus on infrastructure, long term preservation of these assets, growth of new service sectors such as Facility Management (which is currently one of the largest employer in the UK and constitute 5 percent of the United Kingdom’s GDP), better efficiency in space use and so on. I am not ignorant of the legal constraints to get this done, nevertheless, I am convinced that; where there is a will, there is a way.

Utilize the Nigeria Sovereign Wealth Fund on Infrastructure Development

The Nigeria Sovereign Wealth Fund is currently about $1bn (N500 billion) in various investments. This is more than the total budget of the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing and also enough to act as counterpart funding for crucial and critical infrastructure development.

In addition, I will advise viable projects within the country should be concessioned to facilitate interstate trade especially in the area of transportation to support laudable initiatives such as LAKE Rice project and the proposed LAKAJI project. There are many more like that, and this intervention would improve our general infrastructure and ease of doing business within the country. This needs to be given urgent attention because buying bonds and other financial instrument are good for the long term but may not be able to provide the short term wins we desperately need to get our economy out of the woods.

 Effect a Title Regularization / Title Insurance system

While most people believe that the land use act is a major problem, and a repeal will set the real estate industry free, I think the major issue here is efficiency. In a country where trust is a major issue, an abolition of the land use act may not be a magic wand as it’s be taunted. What is key in this process is for state government to set up an efficient one-stop-shop for title registration and planning approval – which may even become a viable Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) channel for them. Taxes are major revenue drivers for State Government for example Lagos State has demonstrated this  improving its IGR on land transactions from N11bn in 2011 to 27bn in 2013 and currently in excess of N50bn through efficiency, more can be done in this regard if the state government can aim to regularize title within 30 days and adopting title insurance to provide the necessary comfort within this period, this will increase the volume of transactions and deepen the insurance industry and its contribution to Nigeria’s GDP and job creation.

Damola Akindolire is the Executive Director, Real Estate Development, AMFacilities.

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.

What most people ignore however is that the electrical systems responsible for generation, transmission, distribution and utilization have their processes, which are often designed to certain specifications for: installation and commissioning, operation, maintenance and upgrades.

To get the best out of your electricity supply in your home or workplace, these processes must be inspected, analyzed and surveyed to reaffirm that your electrical system is still in consonance with necessary requirements and best practices. This process of reaffirmation is what is technically called Electrical Audit (EA) or Electrical System Audit (ESA).

What this helps you do is detect and help you carry out predictive maintenance, to determine the actual state of your electrical system.

Unfortunately a lot of people ignore or are altogether unaware of the importance of this process, so our concern this week is to discuss the importance of this process as follow:

1. Safety: A faulty electrical system pose a great threat to safety of lives and property of the user in form of shocks, burns, injury, death, fire and explosion. It is common place that most fire outbreaks escalate from mere electrical surges. And when it unfortunately happens close to inflammable materials, the resultant effects have been loss of lives, properties and data.

However, a timely audit can help prevent such scenario by identifying possible electrical hazards and guiding you through correcting the defects.

2. Prevention is Always Better than Cure: Yes! It is always cheaper to prevent the possible outcome of faulty electrical installations than correcting, repairing and procuring new equipment. It’s a myth that electrical audits are expensive and can erode profit. As a matter of fact, it’s a value-driven profit. What is the value of conducting an electrical audit versus losing lives or having to lose all your data in one swoop?

Electrical audits maximize cost savings and guarantees value for money on assets by ensuring functionality through-out its life-span.

3. Compliance Checks: Electrical audit evaluates the statutory and professional compliance level of electrical systems. It gives room to effectively evaluate and improve effectiveness of the entire electrical system and/or processes in place. In addition, it provides a third party assurance to any stakeholder that all stipulated processes are adhered to.

4. Reliability: When periodic and regular audits are carried out of on your electrical systems, they will not just be reliable; they can also put your corporate or domestic spending in view. That is, you know when you need to replace certain systems and can plan for such replacement and the disposal of the old one ahead.

An Electrical audit will expose how reliable any electrical system is, whether their functionality still aligns with the design, installation and commissioning information, as many alterations can happen during operation and maintenance phase. Electrical Audit addresses operational and maintenance error carry-out in the course of day to day activities.

Though relatively new, the facilities management (FM) industry in Nigeria is, increasingly, gaining traction with an outlook that speaks of an industry that is poised not only for growth and development, but also to add value and improve asset quality for individuals and institutions.

 The reason for this is not far-fetched and could be gleaned from three main planks including rising professionalism among the operators, adoption of international best practices and, above all, the growing interest in assets management outsourcing, especially from corporate entities.

Additionally, the challenges posed by the ravaging economic recession in the country has schooled many organizations on creativity, innovativeness and prudence, and the lessons are such that  the need to be cost effective, to increase productivity and remain profitable is redefining most business operations in different sectors of the economy.

The thinking among many organizations is that with their real estate assets, which constitute about 30 minimized and efficiency  improved to better impact productivity and the bottom line.

Quite significantly, FM outsourcing has gained ground in sectors like oil & gas, retail, commercial and residential real estate. The telecoms and ICT sector is now witnessing an impressive growth and are also catching up with the trend. The financial services industry is also catching on and few of them including Standard Chartered Bank, FCMB, Access Bank, etc have latched on the benefits of the trend.

Largely a private sector concern, some public sector institutions notably federal universities have outsourced their facilities management to FM operators. The Lagos State government has gone a step higher and has, in its pace-setting tradition, set up a facilities management department as an agency of government responsible for the management of its large stock of facilities.

Some residential estates which used to handle their FM internally now outsource them to facilities management companies.  An example is the 750 housing unit Golf Estate in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, where the developers have decided to outsource the management of the estate to an FM firm which will deal directly with the estate residents so they could concentrate on their construction business.

These are positive and encouraging developments because, before now, discussions on facilities management outsourcing centred around what happened outside Nigeria, but today, many businesses are catching on with the trend. What is happening,  according to Tunde Obileye, CEO, Great Heights Limited, “is a product of growing consciousness among businesses that the only way to save, preserve and add value to their assets is simply to manage and maintain those assets well using professional facilities managers”.

Obileye recalls that before now, many organizations contracted various aspects of their FM piecemeal, pointing out that the trend presently is for organizations to consolidate their FM requirement into Total Facilities Management and it is becoming common to find tenders calling for total FM services.

Growing customer-base leading to increased assets portfolio has seen the telecoms sector in Nigeria also following this trend in order to cope with their facilities in various parts of Nigeria which explains the decision by MTN Nigeria and Ericsson to outsource their FM services to Alpha Mead Facilities in 2015. Currently, Alpha Mead Facilities Manages over 50 locations for MTN Nigeria across Lagos, West and Northern Nigeria; and manages major Erricson potfolio in Nigeria, Ghana and some African countries.

Recently, another leading global telecommunications and ICT company, Huawei, outsourced over 10 thousand square meters of its office space and more than 100 flats in its residential scheme to this leading light in facilities management and services in Nigeria.

The company is not particularly surprised with the opportunities that come its way because it prepared for them. “A well known business principle says you have to devise your strategy to move against traffic. This principle derives from the Blue Ocean strategy where we have looked at the general trend and direction of the environment and prepared ourselves for these challenges”, says Femi Akintunde, the company’s MD/CEO.

“We went back to the drawing board to reflect on how we can position ourselves in the midst of the challenges we don’t have control over; but we have control over how we respond to them. So, we analysed the market and took a view that waiting time is preparation time.

“Opportunity will meet you at the point where you keep yourself. You don’t work for opportunity, you create the opportunity. In the midst of all those difficult times, we decided to continue to invest in capacity. “Opportunity will meet you at the point where you keep yourself. You don’t work for opportunity, you create the opportunity. In the midst of all those difficult times, we decided to continue to invest in capacity. We were building capacity and shopping for talents round the year; we leverage technology and process automation to ensure standardization and repeatability of our best practices, we trained over 200 facility managers last year alone. All these have adequately prepared and enabled us to be able to handle the most complex and biggest FM projects being outsourced by the corporate multi-nationals”, he disclosed in an interview.

He also hinted on the next strategic move being planned by the company “ currently our focus is building capacity to be able to manage large scale public infrastructure maintenance projects like the airports, the stadia, government hospitals, government real estate assets etc. All these have suffered major degradation over the years due to deferred maintenance and as a result have contributed to significant drain in the finances of government due to under performance and over expenditure. Now, we are in a new era where the present government has demonstrated very good understanding on the critical importance of infrastructure provision and maintenance in driving the growth of the economy and improving the living standard of the people. By embracing the Public Private Partnership approach, performance standard will be higher and this will significantly reduce the menace of corruption which has being a key reason why many companies have decided to keep away from government project over the years. Through this approach, we believe there will be increased investment in infrastructure provision and the quality of service is expected to generally improve as a result. We therefore, believe that as a leading Facilities Management company in Nigeria, we must prepare adequately to be able to participate actively and demonstrate our readiness to support this government initiative.”

This, perhaps, explains why Alpha Mead is always the first and only consideration by these corporate organizations for their FM services. The company has also demonstrated strong passion for global best practice and professionalism and, to deepen this passion, it went into partnership with Cluttons LLP of UK which gave birth to what is today the AMFacilities-Cluttons Joint Venture firm, offering premium services in the Nigerian real estate space.

“Coming into Nigerian real estate market is a major step we have been considering for three years now; we see Nigeria as a major emerging market in terms of key drivers going forward. Alpha Mead is a reputable company; it is a successful business with a fantastic understanding of the market and is of good practice”, said Ian Gladwin, Clutton’s Head of International, at the partnership launch in Lagos.

The capacity Alpha Mead has built is such that no matter the level of asset sophistication and quality of FM services required by the multinationals – most of which have complex assets across multiple locations, it can easily mobilize and stabilize operations in multiple locations and this remains a huge strength largely unmatched in the industry.

Its processes, systems, people, technology and operational network have been designed to be implementable in different situations and report on key business metrics that multi-national organisations value strongly.

The company’s processes are not just documented, they have also been consistently vetted and approved by international quality organisations that the multinationals are used to. These give the multi-nationals a lot of confidence in the technical competence and operational capacity of Alpha Mead.

Again, the company’s ISO 9001:2008 certification has been continuously accredited by relevant international organisations for five uninterrupted years, and its operations have gone on for almost 10 years without any major fatality which speaks to how much attention it pays to the things that matter to it and its reputation.

As a growing trend, outsourcing has shown huge benefits for businesses in terms of cost-saving and profitability as assets are now well managed because of the availability of the required technologies by FM companies; frequent business operation breakdown is avoided while the life-cycle of business assets is now maximized.

Many organisations are beginning to realize the fact that they can now outsource a daunting task like FM and focus their limited resources on their core business, in the face of increasing sophistication of real estate assets across key sectors.  The technologies, expertise and technical know-how required to manage these sophisticated facilities are too capital-intensive for non-FM companies to acquire.

It’s also a known fact that many of the facilities in which healthcare is provided in both public and private sectors are steadily suffering from wear and tear.

Experts attribute this trend to inadequate planning of the Integrated Healthcare Facilities Management Model (IHFMM) of most healthcare institutions before construction, adding that a realistic way of guaranteeing the sustainability of any asset is by inputting Facility Management (FM) right from the planning through to the design and eventually through the construction phase.

FM experts say FM can play a major role in ensuring a building delivers tangible benefits to its users, functions to optimum capacity and by extension fulfils its lifecycle.

This week, we highlight indicative signs of a facility that is properly managed.

Availability of modern and functional equipment:

The lack of modern and functional equipment remains one of the biggest threats to the existence of any hospital. In Nigeria, this has been responsible for the constant medical trips by affluent Nigerians or patients in dire need of the right diagnosis.

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 in properly managed hospitals 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.

Indoor Air Quality:

Anyone who has visited healthcare facilities in the country will admit that indoor air quality is a major challenge. Very often the air 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 in properly managed facilities, indoor air quality is properly controlled through standard processes and well maintained air cleaning and ventilation systems including the HVAC system, which often ensures internal climate controls (temperature, humidity, air flow, and air filtering) is expected to be functional at all time considering it helps check fungal and allergens growth that could easily lead to asthma and other health challenges.

Effective Waste Management system:

A common observation in most healthcare institutions is the uncoordinated approach to waste management. Only few properly managed medical institutions can boast of an effective system than manages its solid and liquid wastes.

A well managed Hospital also goes the extra mile in ensuring its medical waste management process which encompasses regular collection; handling, storage, transportation and processing are always implemented.

This, in addition to creating conducive environment, can significantly reduce the transmission and spread of microorganism infections in healthcare facilities.

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.