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How FM Supports Strategic Goals

A group of people discuss business strategy with respect to facilities management

Facilities management has a huge amount of potential when it comes to supporting organisation’s mission statement and strategic plans. Whether your organisation has a goal of providing the best care possible, creating thriving communities, or achieving carbon neutrality, facilities mangagement plays a role.

If you are putting together a business case for procurement of facilities management software, it's important to think about how FM supports broader organisational goals. In this blog, we go through three of the most common strategic goals we see with our clients, and explain how their facilities management software supports these.

Reducing environmental impact

With the announcement of Australia’s commitment to net zero by 2050, environmental considerations are front of mind for many businesses. When it comes to building a business case for facilitie smanagement software, this works strongly in your favour.

Outdated processes come with a hefty environmental tax in the form of the processing, storage, and disposal of paper. Not only this, but the inefficiency of these processes, compared to leveraging facilities management software, makes the latter the obvious choice for organisations trying to reduce their carbon footprint.  

Beyond regulatory requirements, cultural shifts favour those businesses who seek out greener ways to operate.

Improved reporting

In light of commitments to achieve net-zero by 2050, reporting requirements are changing to achieve greater visibility over environmental impact. Keeping these asset histories, reducing wasted assets and space, and ensuring a lean operation is now business-critical.

By gaining a better understanding of what assets you have, their status, and how hard they are working, opportunities for waste reduction can be recognised.

Leveraging FM software can provide businesses with a clearer picture of their environmental impact. With a deadline on the horizon to achieve carbon-neutral certification, this is becoming increasingly important.

The perils of paper

Paper-based processes are rife with inefficiency and waste, which places them squarely in the crosshairs for environmentally-conscious organisations.

In Australia, 83.7% of waste is generated by businesses and government, equating to over 4 million tonnes of paper annually.

This waste carries an additional cost when we consider the resources that go into creating that paper in the first place.

The paper and pulp industry is the largest contributing industry to overall carbon emissions (2020), is responsible for 40% of all wood traded globally, and is the single largest commercial consumer of water.

Each ton of paper takes approximately 64,352 litres of water to produce (10L per A4 sheet). That 4 million ton of paper wasted in Australia each year, represents two hundred and fifty seven billion, four hundred eight million litres of water.

As cultural expectations shift, and filter up into boardrooms, wastage to this degree is something to be seriously considered when seeking further investment.

Creating customer-centric facilities

As facilities managers, we are always looking to improve the experience of facility users. Keeping employees safe and happy, and making good first impressions on candidates and potential customers.

Leveraging facilities management software allows you to holistically improve the experience of facility users.

Rather than working in a reactive fashion, you’re able to pre-plan, reduce friction, and find pro-active ways to improve the experience of users of your facilities.

You might be able to take steps to make your facility more disability friendly, or work with HR to find ways to improve employee happiness.

Build high-performing teams

Better people make better businesses, and as such, attracting the best talent is usually a key strategic objective. In many cases, your facilities are an important part of making a good first impression, convincing potential candidates this is a place they want to be.

Employers are increasingly focussed on how to attract and retain quality candidates. Attraction of said talent, requires meeting ever-increasing expectations for the working environment.

As companies around the world battle it out to hire the best people; ensuring those candidates feel like this is the workplace for them becomes even more important.

Improving employee happiness and retention

Employee wellbeing is increasingly becoming a strategic focus for top-level managers. With the work from home revolution and hyper-competitive candidate markets, employee happiness is more important than ever, as organisations fight to retain their top talent.

Policies of the past focussed on keeping employees safe while at work. Over the past few decades, workplaces have evolved from asking how to keep employees safe, to how to keep them happy.

An investment in facilities management software is necessary to keep up with these changing expectations and align the organisation with cultural shifts.

A better working environment

The space within which work is conducted has a lot to answer for when it comes to productivity. The right lighting, noise levels and amenities all play a part in how productive employees can potentially be.

Maintaining those standards with a high degree of consistency, allows for sustained improvements in productivity.

A better experience for customers

An investment in facilities management software is an investment in your customers experience with your brand. By improving the facilities within which work is conducted, the capacity of the business to deliver on their promise to customers is improved.  

Your facilities are also your opportunity to make a great first impression. By leveraging facilities management software to create efficiencies, you’re ensuring your brand is putting its best foot forward.

Supporting corporate social responsibility

The idea that businesses should have a net positive effect on the world, has become a focus for board members over the years. As such, corporate social responsibility initiatives are playing a larger role in the strategic goals of organisations.

Improving facility accessibility

In Australia, approximately one in five people live with a disability of some description. Whether you're negotiating physical disability, or supporting neurodiversity, ensuring your facilities are accessible to all is the responsible thing to do.

Improving facility accessibility is often a strategic goal of organisations wanting to create a more inclusive future. By removing barriers presented to those with a disability, organisations can ensure they are steering clear of discriminatory practices, and create opportunities for potential employees or customers to enjoy their facilities.

This concept of accessibility also supports the strategic intent of many organisations of community involvement. Rather than being seen as a fortress, your facility can be perceived as being an active part of the local community.

Reducing environmental footprint

While reducing paper use can help to reduce your environmental footprint in line with corporate social responsibility goals, it doesn’t end there. By improving your facilities management operations, you create the opportunity to create more environmentally-conscious facilities.

Reducing energy and water consumption, ensuring efficient waste management processes, and building green spaces all help to reduce your organisations environmental footprint. These physical improvements can only be made off the back of efficient facilities management.