Technology can transform facilities management (FM), helping you save on costs and drive efficiencies.
For many businesses and organisations, their three main expenses are:
However, in the rush to recruit talent and keep up with new technology, organisations can end up overlooking their facilities.
But embracing technology through digital transformation should extend beyond organisational and customer-facing functions. It should also include the vital, physical infrastructure that keeps a company running.
What Makes Facilities Matter?
The facilities of a building represent its engine room. Facilities ensure a safe and efficient working environment.
They support productivity and business objectives. They help to embody the brand values of an organisation. Facilities are a crucial means of attracting and retaining top talent.
In fact, with the growth of hybrid working, post-pandemic, facilities are taking on an even greater significance.
Not only must they be safe, secure and suitable but also adaptable. But to maximise your facilities, you need constant and clear visibility of them. Data provides this visibility.
The Importance of Data in FM
One of the most crucial ways in which organisations can use facilities to support change and provide a more flexible working environment is through data.
Having reliable, up-to-date information enables organisations to take a constructive and proactive approach to facilities management.
Buildings require regular maintenance as well as being readily adaptable for alternative uses and ways of working. Data provides clear visibility about the conditions of the fabric and accommodation of a building.
It helps to identify weaknesses or problems and assess things like energy consumption and population concentration.
The more accurate and immediately up to date this data is, the more facilities managers can rely on it for decision making.
What Do Facilities Managers Need?
Buildings grow old. This puts pressure on systems such as heating, air conditioning and ventilation.
The key to ensuring these systems are fit for purpose is in planning properly for when their lifespans come to an end. Knowing which systems can be adapted or will need modernising or replacing is vital for sound facilities management.
The only reliable way of knowing these things is by collecting the necessary data and assessing it.
This puts inspection at the heart of good building maintenance and overall facilities management and planning.
Along with monitoring and managing these systems, facilities managers must ensure buildings can readily adapt to new systems, such as computer networks.
Again, inspection and assessment are essential for this.
How Tech Supports FM
You could see technology as something that throws up barriers or obstacles to overcome in facilities management.
But just as technology places demands on workplace management, it can also provide significant support for facilities managers.
The Inspection Manager is a mobile device app for property and facilities management, that streamlines the inspection processes and eliminates the need for paperwork. With excellent cloud base connectivity, it lets FMs record and report crucial evidence. They can then act decisively on this data.
Try it out for yourself with our FREE 30-day trial. Discover how technology can become your new best friend.
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Today’s facility managers find themselves in the midst of many challenges, including regulatory and compliance hurdles, resource scarcity, and burnout. Resource constraints, for example, which affect time management, materials delivery, and budget planning, pose major obstacles, all the while demanding highly prudent allocation without operational efficiency taking a hit.
Technology is rapidly expanding into all spheres of life, and this is especially true of industries. In the property management sector, for instance, one is surrounded by disruptive technology which is improving ‘quality of life’ for not only property and facility managers but also tenants.
The property and real estate sector has traditionally been associated with stacks of paperwork, manual documentation, and physical blueprints. However, all that is changing quickly as the idea of paperless building operations is steadily gaining momentum.
If we go back a few years, the property management sector was a bit slow to adopt new changes, especially those revolving around technology and automation. But in the present day, it has taken a dramatic step forward.
In a 2021 survey where 2,000 UK adults were surveyed who had rented a home over the last 5 years – 66% of them had experienced some kind of disrepair issue, while 26% of Housing Association Properties tenants were not happy with the quality of repair and maintenance during their stay.
Everyone wants nothing more than to have secure, safe, and decent housing. Unfortunately, the housing supply in the UK has been unable to keep up with the surge in demand over the last couple of years. This has made accessing housing of any kind rather difficult for individuals and families alike, especially those from low-income households.
Tenant experience is an important metric to understand when it comes to property and facilities management – it describes how your tenants interact with the properties they live in. The quality of these interactions along with the amenities you offer can have a major impact on your ROI.
If you recall the government’s 2019 election manifestos, all the main parties committed to boost housing supply in England. The Conservative manifesto, in fact, pledged that the number of homes being built will continue to increase, targeting at least 300,000 affordable homes by the middle of 2020.
The property management industry has been traditionally shy and somewhat hesitant to embrace new technological trends. The word “automation” would make everyone from real estate agents to property managers cringe with disapproval – as if impending doom and job insecurity was right around the corner.
Data standardisation refers to using consistent methods for collecting data, although this is a very basic and somewhat generic description of what it truly is. If we delve in deeper, data standardisation is the process used for transforming data to fit a constrained and predefined set of values – ultimately, relying on uniformity to improve efficiencies.
