Workplace Futures 2019 - Surviving FM

Service providers, consultants and buyers joined together to share opinions on surviving and thriving in FM with tough economic climate as a backdrop, as for most industries.  

The 7th conference of it’s kind was led by Martin Pickard, FM Guru; common themes from the day included collaboration, trust and focus, innovation and technology and social value. Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith CBE started the day talking of the latter, highlighting the increased importance of the Social Value pledge and how this must rise-up in terms of buyer focus.   

Coleen Andrews from the Cabinet Office gave excellent insight into the Carillion collapse in January 2018, recognising that key to the collapse were three major construction projects – the FM service provision was working well and sustainably. Since the collapse, the Cabinet Office has been going through a complete Procurement overhaul, working with industry to ensure that the £17bn spend can be managed in a sustainable way. Parts of this have already become visible to the marketplace in terms of the Living Wills requirement and the transparency around KPIs, but the strategic direction will be fully published later this month in a review, focusing on the ‘4R’s’ – Right from the start, Resilience, Resolution and Reform.

Matthew Brabin, CEO of ISS UK & Ireland was then invited to the stage to talk about strategic focus in ISS and how a focus on customer segments, key accounts and key geographies has enabled ISS to stay strong and consistent in today’s climate. Matthew also said that staying true to your expertise and delivering your core business whilst continuing to develop capabilities that complement your core, like Workplace Productivity, can further add value for customers. 

Further talks followed with several presenters talking about the different roles in FM including Sodexo and Norse, Vinci, Arabus and Mace.  



A wider industry snapshot was given by Ian Marson from EY. Ian began by echoing Matt’s sentiments that Outsourcing is not an attractive sector for investors in the current market. He went further by stating that EBITDA has remained stagnant for the sector at around 5-6%, yet organic growth has increased 14% – so someone is taking a hit somewhere – it’s not the client, it’s not the suppliers therefore it is the investors! After seeing the highest number of insolvencies for this sector in 2017, Ian talked about the turbulence being caused by Brexit and scenarios for the future. 

Congratulations to the winner of the iFM Technology awards: 

• Altuity won Technology in FM award for their data visualisation application – using VR and AR for greater efficiency especially for M&E engineers at sites
• Cati – for their compliance model and ease of interpretation

Industry Body Panel Review – RICS; IWFM; IFMA

The industry body debate resurfaced, at a time when BIFM have rebranded to IWFM and the single industry voice is still under discussion with RICS, IFMA and IWFM were all pitching for the lead. 

Many FM companies have been focusing on their target segments and avoiding over-extending themselves which has been proving successful.

The Social Value pledge may have some currency and impact when it is released – the construction SV pledge has been released; the FM version is under construction and ISS Head of CR, Martin Wayman is on the steering committee.

An informed conference reflecting on a year of disruption. Much of the conversation was around rebuilding trust and how this should be achieved – primarily by raising integrity through transparency and social value. That was the consensus. 

Thank you to iFM for facilitating an interesting conversation.