FM Monitor 2018: Facility management becomes more IT-heavy
How much does the management of a square meter in the office cost? Answers to this question are provided by the FM Monitor, which was compiled this year for the 17th time by pom+ Consulting AG, a consulting company active in real estate, infrastructures and organizations.
The FM Monitor comprises two independent studies: the "FM Monitor Benchmark" with current key real estate figures and the "FM Monitor Trend Analysis" with the top trends in the FM market. More than 100 experts from the Swiss real estate industry were surveyed. Cooperation partners are ETH Zurich, EPF Lausanne and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences ZHAW. The key figures are based on over 15,000 properties with a total floor area of almost 72 million m2. According to the FM Monitor benchmark, the average management costs for office and administrative properties are CHF 29.90/m2 (owner and ancillary costs). At CHF 28.40/m2 , management costs for retail properties are similarly high to those for office and administrative buildings. Properties used for industrial and commercial purposes are less expensive to manage. The costs there average CHF 21.20/m2.
Space optimization loses importance
This year's FM Monitor found little change in the trends. "The top 10 trends remain stable this year and indicate the long-term orientation of the industry," says pom+. Only the increasing standardization of FM service offerings is new, while the topic of space optimization is losing importance. Once again this year, the top issue is data quality. After all, real estate and services can only be managed with reliable data; they are key factors for efficiency increases and optimization. The importance of GIS and navigation data is also steadily increasing. At the same time, topics such as big data for the evaluation of large databases are becoming increasingly important for the FM market, as the assessment of more and more respondents shows.
Energy Management
Another finding of the FM Monitor Benchmark: Despite the trend toward increasing energy efficiency, oil-fired heating systems are still very widespread in Switzerland. Per square meter of energy reference area, oil heating systems emit 28 kg of CO2 into the atmosphere. This is more than twice as much as district heating. This result is matched by the increase in energy efficiency identified in the trend analysis as an increasingly important task in facility management. For example, intelligent energy networks could measure, regulate, control and optimize energy consumption in buildings. This creates a win-win situation: the bottom line is an increase in cost efficiency and an improvement in the eco-balance. Despite the adoption of the Energy Strategy 2050 in May 2017, the trend toward the use of alternative energy sources is declining in the current survey.
Convergence of FM and IT
It is not only for energy management that new technologies play a role. Smart buildings will contribute to the environment in real estate management moving rapidly in the direction of digital real estate. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is also playing an increasing role in facility management. This is because IT infrastructures (sensors, smart devices) are increasingly being seen as part of the building infrastructure. The same applies to services such as help desks. The merging of facility management with IT is taking place at an ever faster pace, and a large majority of respondents accordingly believe that FM and IT will merge partially or even completely. The need for organizational adjustments is therefore an indispensable prerequisite with the increasing convergence of FM and IT, concludes the FM Monitor.
