Total facilities management and integrated facilities management are two of the most popular ways to smoothly keep your organisation’s physical location functioning.
The difference between the two is subtle, but understanding that difference will be crucial when deciding which FM service to hire in order to keep your company running smoothly.
You need to know about the differences between total and integrated facilities management services.
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Facilities Management (FM):
When talking about facility management (FM) Then, we are talking about all the done maintenance work to guarantee that the business is running effectively with full available services, moreover, ensure that all the different soft and hard facilities management like cleaning, workplace design, energy quality, information, and engineering, are taken care of with the latest technology.
This must improve and conduct the buildings’ structure, ground space, and real estate. More importantly, all requirements for employee’s wellbeing and support.
Whether you are providing global or local ecommerce software, medical-related technologies, marketing solutions, or any other services, having professional facility management (FM) is required to create a full strategic organisation process.
However, it is up to you to take the best program between total and integrated facilities management for your business.
Total Facilities Management (TFM):
Outsourcing is the term that represents handling your business services to a team, company or even a freelancer outside your company. Although it involves an official agreement. It will be cancelled once the operation is done.
Total facilities management refers to outsourcing all of your business facility management services to one contractor, responsible for all the ongoing facility services and supplies, including soft and hard ones.
That is why the total facilities management model sounds popular within big companies and in the building industries with all the improvements that this facility management (FM) method offers when operating on a large scale.
However, to help you know more about TFM and whether it is the right call or not for your organisation, we present to you its benefits and drawbacks:
Benefits of TFM:
- Full services with one supplier, as this experienced contractor will be responsible for all the details and supplies’ delivery in your facilities.
- Direct communication with one person for better full facility services.
- Reducing cost and time losing with one contract and resources to save.
- Save your team working time since finding one well contractor for the complete function needs a lower research level, administration work, contract preparation and communication time.
- Smoother facilities operations as one person will run the show, facilitate across his/her working teams, reduce the working load on your employees and lower error possibilities.
Drawbacks of TFM:
- Your whole business facility management program will be counting on one person, and any delay or personal situation will affect your overall firm services.
- Contractors use subcontractors, and those you could not know and approve even if they exist in your facilities, when outsourcing to one supplier.
- A concession may be required as you cannot set all the ongoing details exactly as you like with this type of facilities management (FM).
Integrated Facilities Management (IFM):
Integrated facilities management also describes an outsourcing facility management (FM) because integrated services depend on running the full facility services by one team from your organisation. However, this team supervises many integrated facility management suppliers that provide all the essential business requirements and services.
As all facilities management training courses in London tell you that when comparing total and integrated facilities management (IFM) the main difference would be the number of providers. As in TFM, you will have one provider for the whole facility management service that will take the lead on the full process and you only need to oversee the work. On the other hand, you will need a provider for each single management service in integrated facilities management (IFM) and a specific team from your company to manage and facilitate each service’s process.
Benefits of IFM:
- Active partners, as in integrated facility management, each supplier considers himself your business partner and cares about your work success, not only a supply provider.
- Positive competitive environment as all the teams within the integrated facilities management will do their best to be the most effective supplier among others.
- With all these teams and operators trying to explore unique solutions that save costs and require low property maintenance, Innovative solutions greatly impact on unified, integrated facility management.
- Wide possibilities, although in both total and integrated facilities management, you can hire whoever you like. Integrated facilities management allows you to be more specific with more options for each service.
Drawbacks of IFM:
- Too many hands, in both total and integrated facilities management you will be outsourcing, yet in IFM you could have multiple contractors that could turn from an integrated group to a full disaster team without your full concentration and facilitation.
- Admin responsibilities, as your existence is a must to facilitate and manage the whole integrated facility management jobs.
- Need time and work, total and integrated facilities management are both outsourced processes. IFM requires your time and working force to be effective on every step.
Eventually,
The total and integrated facilities management could work perfectly for any business, yet, choosing is all on you according to your criteria and requirements to make your work’s facility management as perfect as possible.
