Facilities Management, What Is It?

In conventional business application, facilities management is a term used for management of large commercial buildings. Facilities management now includes the wider areas such as process and technology. Actually it has a very vast role in managing some large commercial aspects, as a facility manager has to ensure that the facilities operate smoothly and as and when required the facilities are ready for use.

Large commercial organizations outsource these services of managing their buildings and the conventional facilities management includes the maintenance of the building, cleaning of the floors and gardening etc. The outsourcing of such services is beneficial cost-wise as well as reducing the overall maintenance cost of the assets. A well managed facilities management team ensures proper energy management, fire and safety management, regulatory and environmental management, preventive maintenance and critical operation management. The facilities management provides a safe and healthy environment and that results in improved productivity.

If we see a wider spectrum of facilities management, it can be divided into many application based facilities management such as ground management, lease management, laundry management, property management, safety management, maintenance and repairs of residential or commercial buildings, office management, mail processing, security, vendor management, surveillance and many more. The whole task is divided into a number of groups and as each group has different task and therefore the whole facilities management is easy to monitor through these groups. The number of groups can either be increased or decreased and it all depends on the type of facilities management.

Although in general, facilities management is used for building management systems, today however, it is the term also used for managing IT assets. Actually facilities management in IT services is an excellent idea and it not only ensures that all your hardware is always functioning but it also reduces downtime especially if there is troubleshooting. In many sectors where your production or other output is directly related to IT operation, downtime can have great impact on your profitability and under those situations, facilities management of the entire IT is the best option.

Large commercial organizations are spending billions of pounds on their soft costs such as administration, recruitment of IT staff, installing and managing IT solutions and all these costs can be minimized by outsourcing the entire operations. Actually the facilities management in IT sector is very cost effective and large organizations can save huge money being spent on soft costs. In recent years, outsourcing in the IT sector has grown substantially.

So, in reality, facilities management is generally outsourcing, so that the various tasks are managed by other relevant and experienced professionals and at the same time these tasks are cost effective to the large commercial organisations. The facilities management, if carried out efficiently, can improve the working conditions and therefore have direct impact on profitability. A better working environment will boost the output and therefore profitability. In the IT sector, facilities management can tremendously reduce the downtime and therefore is most beneficial for increasing productivity of the commercial organization.