Frank and Brown

Barry Varcoe is a man to take seriously.  He knows his stuff; he’s done the research and has an outstanding track record in facilities management. So, when he suggests that FM is at a crisis point the industry (that’s the FM supply chain, from clients to subbies and product providers) plus the professionals need to take notice. (more…)

Can Johan Cruyff help FM embrace total football ideals?

One reaction to the pressure to save money in the UK business services sector is to bundle services together. For the facilities management industry this is translated as Total Facilities Management. In reality TFM means not a true totality, but an attempt by the bigger players (as smaller organisation just don’t have the scale) to take control of the services normally sub-contracted and self deliver them as much as possible. As with the whole of FM the definition of ‘total’ is easily stretched and manipulated to suit the requirements of the customer. To work properly it has to be done with an open, honest partnership approach – i.e. not hiding what the supplier is unable to self-deliver.

But the key here is that it is not Total FM. Not really. (more…)

There is a fascinating discussion going on at the i-FM.net Linked in forum about whether FM does get the recognition it deserves. I think it does. Basically, the problem is that as an industry and as a profession it does not sell itself well. This is partly due to reticence on the part of the people driving the sector, but probably more to do with the fact that people are focused on doing their day jobs – delivering services, making sure things work effectively and hopefully making some money into the bargain. Log onto the discussion if you can, but consider some of the reasons for the discussion in the first place. (more…)

Last week at the BIFM conference, Will Hutton switched on a light bulb in my head. Outlining a Work Foundation presentation that he has already made to Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Vince Cable, he claimed that the UK has the potential to be a world economic force; that it can grow and will be led to that growth by the ‘knowledge economy’. More importantly for the audience, a key part of that knowledge economy – which has led Britain out of every recession by the way – is comprised of the facilities management industry and its people. (more…)

Today I wearing an FM hat, not a PR one, and talking about IT and sustainability. IT is a much maligned discipline. It gets flak, but we need it if we’re going to address climate change and have dynamic carbon neutral work spaces, but in the past two weeks I have been exposed to two different opinions about IT. 

I put together an article for one client about the change in the work place as a result of the economic pressures of the past eighteen months. Far from being a driver of innovative design and creating dynamic workspace, IT was picked out as an inhibitor of change, not an ‘enabler’ in the FM jargon. (more…)