Understanding the relevance of facilities managers in real estate development

Real estate is one of the biggest spend for the public and private sectors, and one that will likely cause a big challenge – the balancing between getting value and implementing cost effective ways to manage the built environment.

Before acquisition or development of real estate is undertaken for whatever purpose, there are important details, in terms of physical property operations, finances and personnel to consider.

These are factors that may determine whether the real estate development and management will be successful in the long term. What, for example, will be the short, medium and long-term value of the property in the market and how can this be aligned to business objectives and expectations?

The facilities manager is vital to this plan, and to be relevant, must demonstrate the requisite skills and competencies. The facilities manager, as the ultimate organizer of buildings and property, must make sure all the needs of the end users are generally met.

This involves combining strategic planning with day-to-day operations. FM practitioners are ultimately responsible for ensuring cost effective ways of managing and delivering real benefits. Therefore, they cannot be one dimensional.

For instance, facilities managers must understand legislation and basic legal issues regarding maintenance and management of facilities in their areas of operation including disability legislation, health and safety issues and development of assets management plans.

Analytical skills for environmental scanning are important for the cutting-edge facilities manager – to be able to think ahead in the planning for future development. This includes reading and understanding new trends, customers’ needs, financial status and forecast.

From these, they should be able to provide the right framework that may impact the real estate value in the future. The ability to drive and manage change using maintenance tools and performance management techniques also ensure there are minimum disruptions to the core business of the clients.

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Coordinating different teams within the built environment is probably one of the most important skills to have. Real estate development and management requires different specialized personnel such as architects, lawyers, engineers, quantity surveyors etc.

Integrating all these professionals to ensure their input come together for long term value to the property needs an adept facilities manager. Identifying the best contractors available and coordinating their work is another area a facilities manager must excel in – bad contractors and inadequate coordination and supervision can cost money and time.

Financial management is another way a facilities manager can demonstrate relevance. The ability to have superior knowledge of products required, the cost from different suppliers, including quality assessment will be invaluable. Planning how to allocate space and resources for new property or reallocate space for current premises is another key way to showrelevance.

Underpinning all of these is staff development. An investment in facilities managers through professional certification, job related short courses and on the job training will improve their skills, knowledge and expertise.

As a result, they will become even empowered to create an environment where facilities management continues to show results that provide compelling reasons for its continued relevance.