Technology adoption is now a norm both in personal and professional lives. For individuals, it is the use of newer gadgets that are powered by newer technologies, while for businesses it is various applications of technology to help deliver better value in all spheres of business, at scale.
FM industry, thanks to its multidisciplinary nature, has many internal and external touch points and is witnessing various technologies knocking at its doorsteps. The ‘low touch – no touch’ future will only further force this accelerating trend.
The industry is certainly evolving beyond just the physical aspects of Janitorial and HVAC systems and moving into newer aspects of hygiene, transforming spaces, and building infrastructure. And, to this effect, harnessing technology must be the top agenda for business owners.
TECHNOLOGY & DATA – 2 SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
One cannot keep these 2 levers apart. Data on its own may mean nothing and technology that does not account for various sorts of data will fall short of delivering value.
Technology adoption and data analytics together, have created newer opportunities for financial savings and creating newer businesses. Ex: Cloud technology, Smart buildings, energy efficiency, IoT, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain have made significant strides into the industry to push the efficiencies of scale to a remarkably high level. The WAY OF WORK is also transforming with this rapid evolution.
WHAT DOES TOMORROW HOLD FOR THE INDUSTRY?
The FM industry will continue to be a people intensive industry, except that the way of working will continually be transforming with changes in service offering. The complexity of managing a large workforce, with tons of work orders coupled with compliance WILL continue to keep this industry a data heavy one.
What is considered ‘SMART’ today, will become the norm tomorrow. Today very few FM companies have adopted technologies that can enable a facility manager to avoid pedalling through less accurate or disorganized paper records, and to manage their building’s infrastructure from smartphone or tablet with a couple of clicks.
To ensure that efficiency is maintained in the new world order (in line with customer expectations), data must be made searchable, shareable to the last mile of the industry in manner that it aids faster actions. And this can only be achieved by using technology as a tool to deliver the data in the form of relevant actionable information.
WITH THIS AS A CONTEXT, THERE ARE 5 PROMINENT AREAS THAT AN FM COMPANY CAN USE TECHNOLOGY & DATA TO STAY RELEVANT TO THEIR CUSTOMERS WITH TREMENDOUS VALUE ADD
A. ENERGY EFFICIENCY
No doubt this has been a strong KPI for facility managers all along, however, with the advancement in technology and the prevailing sensibilities of customers in the new world, managing energy efficiency has become a more accountable action.
Like mentioned earlier, it is no more about just HVAC maintenance, but how efficiently are those machines being run. A major part of conserving energy would be to identify how and when they are being consumed.
This is where technology comes to the aid! IoT based sensors can precision track and pinpoint the movement of people within an office space. These can then trigger various systems to either turn off or be on. This may seem like a small act, but once considered at scale in terms of managing a large facility and over time, this can lead to huge savings in money and also reduce the carbon footprint.
Combination of the Internet of Things, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and workforce experience can use these data points to analyse later to know which system/machine is nearing a maintenance need.
By constantly garnering this data, facility managers can evolve a maintenance road-map to ensure high levels of up-time, with less energy being consumed. Most of the systems in the current set up may require retrofit to make them data and tech enabled. This too becomes a priority for the facility managers.
B. WORKFORCE PRODUCTIVITY
FOR A SEAMLESS INTER DEPARTMENTAL COLLABORATION, it’s important for FMs to partner to align with HR and IT to implement new technologies for WORKFLOW AUTOMATION and EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY
Workflow automation has been a priority for many industries as it can realize its return on investment much faster. Workflow automation is aimed at seamlessly automating many of the repetitive processes and structured workflows. As FM companies are poised to doing more with less, automating workflows can be a great point to start in pursuit of digital transformation
Both repetitive and structured workflows exist in all three stage of an FM work cycle – customer side, internal and supplier side. Successful workflow automation have resulted in significant cost savings and increased efficiency for manpower intensive businesses.
No two similar looking companies have identical workflows and hence a ready-made approach to automating them would prove more expensive than a tailor made approach. Moreover, Digital Transformation is a journey and must be pursued over a period of time.
For a labor-intensive industry such as FM, employee productivity is of paramount importance. Net profit shall be determined by the efficiency of operations. Here is why data assumes significant importance.
ERP implementations / upgrades and various technological applications (internal implementations and third party) have already inundated facility managers with vast amounts of data about real estate, equipment assets, customer, work orders, workforce usage and material resources. They can use this data to advise on strategic business opportunities and build efficiency. FMs are better positioned to offer business growth advice that is fuelled by reliable analysis of trends, costs, procedures, and more.
It is important to note that the Computer Aided Facilities Management Systems (CAFM) are good at managing data if recorded well. However, people are not good at recording data as it is not a natural human behavior and is often met with resistance. Particularly so with the FM industry where ‘urgency’ is the norm.
However, when data is weak, everything is weak. This makes it imperative for FM companies to look beyond CAFM systems and compliment it with appropriate data driven solutions.
If you are pursuing one or more of the following, then a 100% data driven approach can be quite handy.
a. Decrease cost and noise between vendor and locations
b. Reduce spend and the number of return calls for the same issue
c. Reduce spend by handling more work with less staff (preferably in house)
d. Maintain site up-time to augment sales
e. Keep attrition to minimum
f. Create programs and processes for increasing efficiency of operation
C. MEANINGFUL SUSTAINABILITY
While sustainability challenges will weigh on the performance of FM companies, it will largely depend on the respective country’s policy/guidelines, level of enforcement and most crucially, THE ECONOMIC APPROACH.
FM companies, no doubt are at the fore front of implementing the sustainability solutions such as energy usage, material usage, indoor ecology, water and waste management.
D. CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
FACILITIES MANAGEMENT UNDERPINS THE EFFECTIVENESS OF BOTH STAFF AND THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE. YOU CAN’T DELIVER AN EXCELLENT SERVICE IF YOU DON’T HAVE EXCELLENT FACILITIES TO DO IT IN – Susannah Howard, STP Programme Director, Suffolk and North East Essex NHS
There are layers to the definition of ‘Customers’ in the FM industry sense. The company contracting the service, and the actual users of the service.
One of the pivotal factors of Facilities Management is Customer Experience, and it has become a stronger pivot, thanks to the current scenario. How can Facility Managers ensure higher levels of experience whilst adhering to a ‘LOW TOUCH/NO TOUCH’ operation protocol? Hygiene is the current buzzword and will remain that way for some time into the future.
The answer interestingly lies in the way technology can be adopted.
“The advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don’t really even notice it, so it’s part of everyday life” – Bill Gates
There are different applications of AI, Robotics and IoT sensors that can help in enhancing Customer Experience.
For example, Computer Vision in security services that can help in understanding human behaviour better to make security process friction-less. The same can also be used in conjunction with IoT based sensors to create a seamless experience in food safety, food catering and also to make payments.
Drones and Robotics are great when it comes to sanitizing/cleaning premises and can be more efficient and less intrusive in the workspace.
Chatbots are another superlative example of harnessing technology to create a seamless experience for customers, pandemic times or otherwise. This enables customers to get resolutions to their queries even in inordinate times.
Leveraging the company’s knowledge base, Chatbots can offer first-level support to customers and seamlessly escalate to human touch points as well. Chatbots work 24×7 and gives the customers a much needed ease to access support, any time. While there are unlimited possibilities using AI, they can enable the super technicians to perform high end tasks.
All of these technologies can also act as data seeds to continually evolve and understand usage patterns to create great experiences for the customers.
MANPOWER AUGMENTATION
One of the underlying factors of the FM industry and how it creates value for customers is people. However, a lot of tasks that are being done in the FM activity are mechanical & repetitive.
“It’s not a faith in technology. It’s faith in people.” – Steve Jobs
Tasks like, cleaning, disinfecting, surveillance, stacking, movement of items within the premises are the tasks that can be managed more efficiently with the convergence of technologies. In order to deliver greater efficiency, Facility managers ought to look at how these tasks can be automated through technologies such as Robotics coupled with AI and IoT.
Customer experience is also deeply tied into the speed and level of efficiency these tasks are delivered at, hence, automating these will be an imperative action.
What does that leave people to do? The FM companies must now invest in creating knowledge-based workers who will in turn work in tandem with the machines (Robots, AI) to create a richer experience for the customer. FM managers MUST tap in to the available tacit knowledge of the workforce to shape the way in which machines will deliver these tasks, with a human touch
A fine illustration of this would be chat/voice bots, that are created to mimic human behaviour, and who are better to train them than knowledgeable human workforce!
Overall, the consequence of adopting technologies in the context of these 5 areas will help FM companies deliver greater value to their customers. This could very well be the distinguishing factor in creating a more inclusive integrated facilities services.
For over 13 years, Navo has led consulting practice for our clients and helped them adopt technology and a data first approach. This has led to success stories of streamlining processes, business units and finally in increased profits.
About the Author
Vasudevan Kidambi is a business (Digital) transformation Coach and leader in helping business recover, in these extraordinary times. He has spearheaded digital first, mobile first solution for global organizations. He has assisted business across multiple industries including facilities management to realign to the new business realities. He also has led transformation assignments for facility management companies towards improved profitability
Using 100% design thinking approach, he has combined data analytics and the art of storytelling into a compelling service – Business Health Check which is crucial for any organization trying to stay relevant in these testing times. He has continuously made himself relevant to key decision makers through powerful posts and articles that changed way leaders think. He is strongly motivated by ancient wisdom and uses that with innovation to solve today’s crises.