The numbers don't lie. Not having a facilities management strategy costs you money. The RICS estimates businesses would each save on average £120,000 a year. Their recent survey is a must-read for those who think it's too expensive to put a strategy in place. Nothing could be further than the truth especially in this day and age of ubiquitous apps to help you along. Sure, the big CAFM houses can be expensive and require training to get going but those aren't your only options. Just a quick search on Android and iOS stores show up many apps that might suit your needs. And even if you don't want an integrated tool, you can pick several to manage different needs.
If you're managing a team and dealing with in-house and external staff, things get complex quickly
You might be wondering, do I really need a software solution?
Maybe not. If your situation is simple enough, one person can manage it all . But if you're managing a team and dealing with in-house and external staff, things get complex quickly. Before you know it, you find that you are the single point of failure as well as the bottleneck. And that's where software comes in. It keeps records for you and can quickly tally the things you need to track. It can also share the right information with the right people. Time and again, it's shown that, while it's very hard to replace a person by a computer, a person with a computer can outperform either alone.
Some points to consider when choosing CAFM software are:
- tracking cost, time and usage: can you easily enter this when it happens and use it in the field? so you reduce the amount of paper pushing later?
- communication: can you distribute information easily so you can reduce one-on-one communication?
- access: can all the people see what they need so they don't have to go through you?
- asset management: do you know what you have and where and what condition it's in?
- issue tracking: is it simple and easy for people to tell you about issues so you can cut down on repair times? and can you automate schedules for maintenance so that you can see upcoming crunch times?
On the more strategic side, your FM strategy should keep in mind:
- What your business is all about. Few companies have their primary income from making PowerPoint decks. What is your primary income, and how can you make your workspace better support it?
- What you need to influence future company plans. While any good facilities staff can get an excellent feel for their space and the assets in it after working with it for a while, it's better to be able to prove it. You need to be tracking your essential data and using it to formulate your strategy.
- How to take advantage of the people in your space. Nobody knows a space better than the people who spend hours of their days in it. Don't just make them feel appreciated for their help in keeping the space fit, actually involve and appreciate them. Workplace crowdsourcing shows that, given the chance, over two-thirds will contribute, even when it's not their job to do so.
CAFM helps take the tedium of repetitive tasks and bookkeeping out of your hands and gives you answers at your fingertips. You can focus on looking ahead and planning for the future.
Having a computer partner also meant never having to worry about making a tactical blunder. The computer could project the consequences of each move... With that taken care of for us, we could concentrate on strategic planning instead of spending so much time on calculations.