Integrated Facility Management or Individual Service For Your Business?
MManaging and maintaining a facility, regardless of size, may seem daunting. In such instances, your organisation can outsource your facility management to an IFM service provider or individual facility service providers. However, you can choose the right service provider for your business by assessing the requirements of your facility. We provide a brief description of both services, which you can explore to make the right choice.
Individual facility services
Implementing individual services means employing specialised facility services to multiple independent vendors. This approach follows a more focused service model, which can be availed whenever any aspect of the property shows signs of issues. One prominent advantage that individual services provide is their affordability factor for micro and small-sized companies. Due to a single service under their belt, individual service providers charge significantly less than IFM service providers.
Individual services are performance-based and work on maintaining the standard of the specialised facility area. However, companies can also experience certain limitations in this. While an individual service fully focuses on one aspect of repair or maintenance, they are limited to just that. If a chain of repairs is triggered, the companies have to seek various individual services, which can prove to be a hassle. On the bright side, individual services can help companies gain more control over a single service and its contract, as each vendor is responsible for a single service.
Integrated facility management services
For medium-sized organisations and large enterprises, maintaining and troubleshooting every aspect of the property is certainly impossible with just a single or couple of individual services. IFM is a comprehensive solution that enables companies to assemble all property-related services under one umbrella to save them from the hassle of seeking out multiple individual services. An IFM service entails a customised management plan for your company following the evaluations of the size of the corporation, its requirements, issues and more. Companies can avail of a range of services for facility management that typically include technical, staffing, security, safety or finance services.
Where individual services fall short in holistically improving the performance of a company, IFM services bridge that gap. Due to several services under one platform, IFM can immediately dispatch other repair or maintenance services whenever necessary. Companies can also enjoy reduced administrative tasks such as procurement, contracts, payrolls and more. Depending on the organisation, integrated facility management service can also prove to be slightly more feasible due to its one-stop structure.
What’s best for your business?
Several factors determine the type of service you would want to incorporate into your facility management.
Size and budget of the company
If the size of your organisation falls under the micro and small-sized category, you won’t require a large set of services. It also works in your favour that individual services are more affordable than IFM services. Individual services may work best for your business. For businesses with medium and large facilities, having individual services is not feasible as there is a high possibility that multiple facility issues may need to be addressed in a short tenure.
Operational maturity
Some businesses such as the industrial sector, demand an uninterrupted workflow for companies to function. If the workflow is impeded by one or multiple malfunctioning aspects in the facility, it may result in a significant loss of downtime and revenue. If your company cannot afford such a risk and demands high operational maturity, then integrated facility management is the right choice.
Pain points
Every company has different facility pain points. For example, a facility located in a city with stable electricity will not face the same problems faced by facilities in towns or areas with fluctuating electricity. If your pain areas are may, you will need an IFM service that proactively responds to any shortcomings in the facility. Moreover, if your facility is an old one that requires constant maintenance, getting an IFM service is the best choice. As opposed to that, if you are a small-sized office that enjoys a good infrastructure and location, you can go for individual services.
Strategic intent
Strategic intent relies on the company’s decision about the amount of control and data it wants to keep in-house. People in real estate, contracting, or housing may have an in-house team to manage their facility and can hire individual services whenever required. If you are from the same domain or want to have control over your facility, then individual services are for your company. But organisations that want to focus on people and processes around their core business would rather delegate control to an IFM service provider.
Where specialised services offer experts from a particular field, it is a common misconception that integrated facility management lacks a high level of expertise. IFM providers seek out expert personnel to provide management solutions for the companies. Unify is an IFM service provider that employs skilled workers with years of expertise in the respective specialised field to provide you with end-to-end facility management services. Let us shoulder your facility management so that you can concentrate on what your business does best.