Consulting Organization Frost & Sullivan predicts that “By 2025 the Global outsourced market in FM Services will be worth around $ 1 trillion, with bundled and integrated services accounting for 35% of the global revenues “.
The top trends in facilities management are:

  1. The Outsourcing Evolution;
  2. Integrated Services;
  3. Workplace and the Multi-Generational Workplace.

The evolution of outsourcing
Outsourcing demands a level of maturity in the organization as well as a recognition that there will be far more supplier involvement in the business itself.
Outsourcing allows in-house teams to focus on what they are really good at while the appointed service provider delivers both critical services as well as other aspects such as health, safety management, and business services.
The Frost and Sullivan survey also revealed that the “Integrated Facilities Management Service Providers have a stronghold on building installations and maintenance as well as project management, and to some extent, cleaning, purification, and security.”
 Integrated Services
Progressive organizations are bringing advisors and transaction services, facilities management, and project services, under one supplier and point of control.
The impact of integrated services is two-phased:

  • greater compliance and consistency
  • simplifications of processes and decision making

Another aspect is the need for increased transparency, which ultimately leads to more effective risk management.
A further benefit of integrated services is the potential boost in value to organizations for integrated services up to 45%. It is a common thread that more forward-thinking organizations are taking it a step further by bringing services together under one supplier.
Decades of outsourcing in incremental functional and geographic silos have led to fragmentation in service providers and technology. Transparency risk allows the service providers to take on the full responsibility of certain expenses that the client has been totally transparent with them about and left for them to manage. Without complete transparency, this would not be possible.
The new multi-generational workplace
2020 marked the time when generation Y – those born in the 1980s and 1990s – accounted for half of the global workforce. For those unfamiliar with Gen Y, they are also referred to as the millennials.
Each generation places value on different things and now that people are choosing to work for longer, organizations are being forced to balance the needs of different generations in their employ. An interesting future FM trend is that the workplace will be accommodating baby boomers and Generation X millennials for some time to come. Rather than focus on generational preferences, however, organizations should consider life stages when developing workplace strategies. In addition, leadership and change management should be encouraged to implement new workplace strategies.
When it comes to developing and implementing a workplace strategy, a purely generational needs analysis is potentially misleading. Further, whatever the generation, when it comes to delivering a new workplace strategy, planning an office revamp, or churn management, facilities managers need to do it well if they want to succeed. 

*Article written by Johan Burger (MSAFMA | Accredited Facilities Professional; Director of SAFMA; (Vice Chairman of SAFMA)
 and adapted by Lynette Howe for publication.