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8 trends that will shape real estate and facility management by 2027
This white paper outlines how the real estate and facility management market is expected to develop towards 2027.
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Facility Management (FM) software has evolved from being a system merely for registering buildings and asset data, to one that aims at increasing efficiency in the planning and execution of facility processes.
Facility management software includes:
- Workflow management
- Extensive reporting
- Business analytics
- Web/cloud based mobility.
Integration with other IT systems including
- ERP software
- Building technology
- GIS solutions
- BIM models
- CAD software.
Some organizations move toward outsourcing FM services, modern facility management software has developed to include functionality for contracting services and monitoring agreed quality, budgets, and performances.
A successful Facility Management strategy
In addition to supporting space, maintenance and services management, the best facility management software also assists managers with valuable information and analytics that help them make the right decisions, implement the right measures, and track the results. But what do you really need to know before choosing your Facility Management software? OR What is most important to know about Facility Management software? OR What are the most important questions to ask about Facility Management software? OR What do you really need to know about Facility Management software?
1. Facility Management software costs and savings potential
It all starts with cost transparency. In many cases facility management software is connected with financial systems, which help to reduce manual data input and ensure data consistency. FM software can show costs in dashboards like costs per square foot per year, costs per workplace per month, costs per user, or any other relevant report. These reports allow you to identify potential savings based on trends, deviations, and internal or external benchmarking.
2. Flexibility to adapt to changing business and operational requirements
Facility management supports the business to ensure a safe and productive working environment for employees. Throughout changing business needs, facilities management software supports managers by forecasting future needs, creating multiple scenarios, and analyzing the impact of real estate and facility services. This allows facility managers to consistently contribute to the core business and ensure a timely alignment of services and facilities with changing needs.
3. Selecting the best sourcing strategy
Many organizations outsource operational facility or real estate services such as cleaning, catering, security, or maintenance to professional service providers. Large and international providers offer Integrated Facility Management Contracts, including support services and even management. Facility management software helps determine the best sourcing strategy for your organization by providing information about real estate, spaces, assets, services, processes, costs, and customer requirements. Once a strategy is determined, FM software helps to monitor the performance of providers and allows you to quickly implement changes or new contracts.
4. Demonstrating customer value
Due to its impact and business value facility management has evolved into a customer-oriented service. Facility management software contributes to this customer-centric process by providing customers with easy access to services through web based Self-Service technology, as well as automated customer survey tools, which validate the perceived quality and value of FM services. Facilities management software also integrates FM, IT, and HR services in one single software solution. These tools help facility managers constantly improve their services to increase customer satisfaction and value to the core business.
5. Aligning workplace concepts with increasing workforce mobility
Due to aspects like globalization, environmental sustainability, innovative technology, and corporate social responsibility, employees are getting more and more flexible in when, where, and how they work. The workforce is getting more mobile than ever before; people work from home, on the train, in public areas, or in flexible offices. Facility management software enables you to align your workplace and services offering with this new dynamic in workforce mobility.
Learn more about facility management software
Facilities management software requirements for professional Service Providers
Commercial providers of professional facility, maintenance, or real estate services have adopted facilities management software as a part of their core business to improve the planning, delivery, and quality of services. Due to the nature of their business, service providers have specific requirements for FM software, some of which are listed below.
From a functional perspective, service providers have extensive requirements in planning, dispatching, execution, and monitoring of any contracted work. Modern FM software offers mobile solutions to execute field- and maintenance services, ensures compliance with health and safety regulations, supports stock- and purchase management and allows operational controlling and monitoring.
For service providers, process standardization is business critical. It increases efficiency and flexibility, improves output and quality, and helps providers to work both profitably and competitively. Facility management software allows them to standardize business processes and workflows for multiple customer contracts in one centralized software solution.
Timely and accurate billing is a fundamental part of every service provider’s business model. In most cases billing is handled by a financial system or ERP software. As the FM software includes significant billing-related data - like time-spent, travel costs and materials used - a seamless and bi-directional integration with any financial system is a key requirement for a successful implementation.
As facility management is their core business, the availability of facility management software is of extremely high importance to service providers. Both operational users and managers need easy, web-based access to the FM system, anytime and anyplace. International support and swift response times, safe and secure installation of new software updates, and professional data and system backups are important factors in maintaining business continuity.
Planon has developed a specific solution with unique functionalities for these service providers. The Facility Services Business Solution is an integrated software platform that creates operating efficiency, increases customer value, and enables business innovation. Learn more about Facility Management for Service Providers in this video.
How technology disrupts Real Estate and Facility Management
The goal of the CSULB facilities team is to improve its level of service to the entire CSULB community. Equipped with Planon’s IWMS, the facilities team will improve key processes, data management, and keep all stakeholders better informed with the status of the work requested on campus.
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One of our main goals is to move away from reactive work, instead resolving issues before they affect our staff and students. Leveraging digital tools, we will monitor the condition of our campus plant and equipment proactively and get recommended actions, many of which we can automate for a smooth and seamless process. The additional aspects of course are the cost and energy savings we hope to benefit from.
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ETH Zürich has a decade of benefits from Planon software.
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