Enhancing real estate assets value through facilities management outsourcing

The growing sophistication of real estate assets coupled with the complexity of modern infrastructure construction are, increasingly, necessitating the involvement of professionals with requisite knowledge and skill sets in the management and maintenance of those assets  not only to enhance, but also to maximize their intrinsic value.

In quite an interesting manner, the facilities management (FM) industry in Nigeria is gaining ground with many of the industry operators now offering management and maintenance services that compare favourably with what obtains in the advanced countries of the world.

This increasing capacity of Nigeria’s FM industry to meet the modern day demands of real estate and infrastructure owners has continued to raise awareness in favour of FM outsourcing in the country. FM outsourcing is the integration of all facilities management services in a business or corporation, and contracting them out to a service provider, who now serves as the point of accountability to the client.

In the face of different challenges confronting the real estate and infrastructure market in Nigeria, FM outsourcing has been identified by industry operators as one of the means to help organizations maximize the value of their assets at the lowest possible cost; a function described by Ayodeji Oluleye, a professor at the Faculty of Technology, University of Ibadan, as dealing with the next rung in the ladder for running the economy for competiveness.

In view of this, awareness is growing alongside consciousness by individuals and institutions to maintain and add value to their assets portfolio by contracting out or outsourcing that aspect of their business while focusing on their core business in order to achieve the desired returns on their investment.

Before now, discussions on facilities management outsourcing centred around what happened outside Nigeria, but today, many businesses are catching on with the trend which began with multi-national corporations especially those in the oil and gas sector, including Shell, Total, NLNG, etc.

“What is happening is a product of growing consciousness among businesses that the only way to save, preserve and add value to their assets is simply to manage and maintain those assets well using professional facilities managers”, notes Tunde Obileye,  a UK-based FM expert and practitioner.

A lot more people and organizations are beginning to see the benefits of having any task, operation, job or process which are not part of their core competence or business contracted out to a third party and these benefits come in form of cost-saving and profitability as assets are now well managed by using required technologies available to FM companies, avoiding frequent disruptions in business operation, and maximizing the life-cycle of their assets.

Obileye recalls that before now, most organizations contracted various aspects of their FM piecemeal, pointing out that the trend presently is for organizations to consolidate their FM requirement into Total Facilities Management and it is becoming common to find tenders calling for total FM services.

Growing customer-base leading to increased assets portfolio has seen the telecoms sector in Nigeria also following this trend in order to cope with their facilities in various parts of Nigeria and beyond.

MTN, the South African telecommunications giant, is leading the pack and, only recently, the company outsourced the facilities management of its over 50 branches in Lagos, West and Northern Nigeria to Alpha Mead Facilities Management and Services Limited (AMFacilities).

AMFacilities is the leading light in Nigeria’s FM industry and, according to close industry watchers, MTN couldn’t have got it better elsewhere given AMFacilities’ unassaible pedigree and its wide spread portfolio across many sectors.

The company’s passion for global best practice and professionalism in the industry was reason for its partnership with Cluttons LLP of UK which gave birth to an AMFacilities-Cluttons Joint Venture firm now offering premium real estate services to Nigerians.

“Coming into Nigerian real estate market is a major step we have been considering for three years now; we see Nigeria as a major emerging market in terms of key drivers going forward. Alpha Mead is a reputable company; it is a successful business with a fantastic understanding of the market and is of good practice”, said Ian Gladwin, Clutton’s Head of International, at the partnership launch in Lagos.

It is this reputation, inclination to professionalism and passion for global best practice that AMFacilities will be bringing to bear on this assignment from MTN which, as a corporate entity, would demand nothing less than the best-in-class services.

As organizations search for more cost-cutting windows and competition to satisfy telecoms subscribers in the country intensifies, this move is expected to give MTN a competitive edge in the market as its numerous infrastructure assets are now being managed by a certified FM industry company. This will give the leadership of the telecoms giant opportunity to focus its attention on how to improve customers’ experience.

While the outsourcing trend is now taking root in the telecoms sector, it is pertinent to note that the financial services sector is also catching the outsourcing bug and the last four to five years have seen some of them, including Standard Chartered Bank, FCMB and Access Bank, latch on to the benefits of outsourcing.

Unlike the Federal Government which has many assets but cares very little about them, the Lagos State government has, as usual, set the pace with the setting up of a Facilities Management Office which takes care of its huge assets portfolio. This underscores the importance the state attaches to its assets value.

CHUKA UROKO