FM & Operations: Running the Estate for Everyone

"Bad companies are destroyed by crisis, Good companies survive them, Great companies are improved by them." Interested to learn ideas and building on each other’s achievements to set and meet ever more ambitious sustainability goals. Have you had success with decentralised electricity generation ? … renewable technologies such as rooftop PV systems ? … computerised maintenance management systems ? … deployment of heat pumps ? … and other initiatives aimed at reducing energy demand and ultimately a shift away from fossil fuels.

Research in the Corporate Real Estate Journal (https://doi.org/10.69554/XFPQ4569 - summary below)traces EY's outsourcing journey from first-generation (single-service contracts) through to fifth-generation (integrated, collaborative, outcomes-based relationships). The finding is that each evolution required the client organisation to change as much as the provider, governance models, internal capability, data sharing and risk appetite all had to shift. Many occupiers describe their FM outsourcing as "strategic" while operating it as a cost-reduction exercise with annual benchmarking pressure and no genuine risk-reward sharing. The contract says partnership; the behaviours…

IFMA's 2026 Global FM Trends research (2026 Global Facility Management Trends & Insights | IFMA) highlights circularity and data-driven decision-making as the defining themes of the next era for FM. The common themes is this: organisations embedding AI in FM are seeing real gains ... but only those that have first addressed data quality, legacy system integration and governance frameworks. The risk is deploying AI on top of poor data. A predictive maintenance algorithm trained on incomplete asset records, or an energy optimisation tool fed by uncalibrated sensor data, can create false confidence and worse outcomes than manual management. How mature is your FM data inf…