Ife Journal of Environmental Design and Management ...

Ife Journal of Environmental Design and Management, Vol 4, No 1, 93-102

2010

PERCEPTUAL EVALUATION OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF FACILITY MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES IN NIGERIA Oladokun, T .T.; Oyewole, M.O.; Odebode, A.A. Department of Estate Management, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. Corresponding Author: [email protected] ABSTRACT High rate of deterioration of building components and absence of maintenance culture are major threats to property investment in Nigeria. A major effort towards guaranteed sustainability of development in the built environment is effective facility management. This paper therefore examined the effectiveness of facility management strategies in Abuja, Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria. Primary data were collected with questionnaires administered on 200 respondents. 30 in-house facility and maintenance managers and 170 occupiers/tenants and other users of six purposely selected high rise commercial buildings in the study area. The study showed, in rank order, that of the 30 facility managers the adopted strategies are: Operation oriented (71%), Cost-oriented (24%) and Integrated –oriented (5%). The study also revealed that 94% of the 144 respondents noticed that the adopted FM approach created a conducive working environment for their business. In addition, the study revealed that 97% of the respondents viewed the adopted FM strategy’s support to profitability as significant, 80% perceived the adopted approach as being very effective while 20% perceived the strategy as being slightly effective. The study concluded that the operation oriented strategy is perceived to be effective and significantly supporting their core business as well as enhancing productivity in Abuja. The implication is that effective facility management strategy is very crucial in strategic policies on business productivity and sustainability of the built environment. Key Words: Facility management, Strategies, Effectiveness.

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buildings in many cases are poorly managed

INTRODUCTION Building projects are generally demanded and required for other uses. The perceived demand calls for much consciousness of the eventual use to which an intended building product will be used. To this end, it requires that at every stage (conception, acquisition

(Armold and Clieve, 2009). Hence, the evolution of a discipline comprising property management, financial management, as well health and safety in buildings, engineering services, maintenance, domestic services and utilities supplies (Atkin and Brooks, 2001).

and construction and even at the time of use),

Facility Management has been defined as the

buildings and its other components must be

management of the non-core company assets

seen to be ‘performing ‘. The need for this is

to support and increase the efficiency of the

to preserve the huge investment, be it

main business of the organisation (Nelson

financial or materials. Building is said to be

and Alexander, 2002). It is an integration of

the highest single investment of a household

the work space and the building into the core

(Nubi, 2003 )

operation of the business towards profit

In order to satisfy a building key functions and

preserve

the

investment,

effective

property management was traditionally the emphasis. Property Management has been defined as the application of specialized skill to care for investment, often of an individual, household or corporate body in buildings with a view to ensuring a maximum return. It is directed towards a purpose (Colorado State, 2008). Its concern, according to Scarrett (1995) is the optimization of the owner’s investment return. It is a conscious

maximisation (Becker, 1990; Nourse, 1990; Regterschot, 1993; Nutt, 2000; Nordic, 2003). As a growing area of specialisation in the area of real estate discipline, it combines people, property and process management expertise (Chin 2007). It is identified as a customer oriented, integral management service which deals with complex decision making basis for optimum planning (Armold and Clive, 2005). Hence the increased attention directed towards expected quality of performance of facility management.

process of guiding and tailoring an investor’s

In

investment in land into profitable ventures.

advantages of facility management, realisable

Studies

have

however,

shown

that

irrespective of property type -commercial, educational,

industrial,

recreational,

residential, retail and rural or transport infrastructure, audit, and bench making, these

spite

of

the

established

derivable

benefits are a function of the adopted strategy.

According

to

Lonsdale

and

Cox(1997), facilities management decisions such as outsourcing are rarely taken within a thoroughly strategic perspective, with many 2

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Ife Journal of Environmental Design and Management, Vol 4, No 1, 93-102 firms adopting a short-term perspective and being motivated primarily by the search for short- term cost reduction. Kwok (2007) added that most facilities in the private sector are not being managed properly with their predominant adoption of the least- cost approach in supporting their drive for the achievement of their organisations short term objectives rather than the best-practice approach . The author opined that the adoption of the least cost approach was due to the poor perception of the comparative long-term values that can be derived from the

If strategy is that significant in ensuring sustainable facility management activities, what therefore are available strategies in operation? What do users and residents perceive

of

the

effectiveness

of

the

strategies? What degree of importance do people/users of large commercial properties on

facility

management?

How

conducive do the view facility management has made their working environment?. The paper therefore seeks to evaluate the users perception of effectiveness of the various facility

Facility management is a ‘multi-faceted’ concept; an embodiment of many meanings depending on one’s approach and perception of it. As a multi-disciplinary discipline of allied professionals in the built environment, it is viewed as the process by which an organisation ensures that buildings, systems and services support core operations and processes as well as contribute to achieving its strategic objectives in changing conditions (Keith, 1996). Despite the divergent perspective as to what

facilities.

place

LITERATURE REVIEW

management

approaches

being

facility management is, literature establishes the consensus focus on the management of workplace. Documented works of Mowroe (1995); Varcoe (2000), Alexander(1996), Nourse (1990), Nuh (2000), Becker (1990) Tay and Ooi (2001),

Barrett (1995) and

Regterschot (1998) agreed that in addition to its focus on workplace, facility management plays a supporting role in enhancing the performance of the organisation. To this end, it is seen as the integrated management of the workplace to enhance the performance of the organisation (Tay and Ooi, 2001).

adopted in an emerging economy like

IFMA (2003b) described the work of a

Nigeria.

facility manager as potentially covering the following duties and functions: facility strategic and forecasting procurement,

tactical

and

planning;

budgeting; leasing

and

facility

Real

estate

disposal;

procurement of furnishings, equipment and 3

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Ife Journal of Environmental Design and Management, Vol 4, No 1, 93-102 outside facility services; facility construction,

A substantial number of studies have

renovation and relocation; health, safety and

analysed the size and composition of facility

security; and environmental issues. A facility

management and establish its relevance over

manager also functions on development of

and

corporate facility policies and procedures;

management (Regterschot, 1990; Nelson and

quality

bench

Alexander, 2002;Jerry Kokos, 2007). Other

marking and best practices, architecture and

studies in the US, and UK have concentrated

engineering planning and design, space

on determining the strategic role of FM in a

planning

building

business organisation. Examples can be

operations, maintenance and engineering;

found in Nutt(2000), Rezana Masha (2006),

supervision of business services such as

UCL (1993), Waardhuizen (1999)

reprographics, transportation and catering,

,1997; Russell (1997), Cash (1997) and

tele- communication and code compliance. It

McGeever (1997).These studies howener did

is an all encompassing, quasi-business

not address the effectiveness of the adopted

strategy to achieving high performance.

strategies.

A wide range of facility management

Campbell

strategy can be identified. These range from

challenges of facility management. The

the sophisticated ones to the apparently

author established the need to describe

mundane. Meanwhile, the various strategies

(specify), measure (assess performance) and

to facility management are divided into three.

quantify (price) facility management output

The first is the in house management of

(end product and service). The approaches of

facilities. The second is the outsourcing of

facility

management

established by Veronesi and Zambani (1998).

management

and

including

management;

and

individual

packages

/contract/services e.g catering and the third is the

Total

Facility

Management(TFM),

sometimes referred to as strategic facility management.

The

three

strategies

are

embodied in the internationally acceptable models of FM as operation-oriented approach (mono-service

model),

cost-oriented

approach (Multi-service model), and the integrated oriented approach (Global service model) respectively (Veronesi and Zamboni, 2004).

above

the

(2003)

traditional

also

Management

property

identified

have

also

Pratt

the

been

Others such as Barrett (1995), kleeman (1994), Embleton and Wright (1998), Atkin and Brooks (2000), Tuomela and Puhto (2001) considered the variants of outsourcing and operational facets of FM. IFMA (2007) explored the current trend and future outlook for facility management professionals linking FM to strategy and forecast future challenges for the profession. Most of these studies focused on the size, growth and estimation of 4

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Ife Journal of Environmental Design and Management, Vol 4, No 1, 93-102 the UK market overtime (Booty, 2003) with

national corporations that have adopted

a report of an increase of 35% between 1998

facility management in Nigeria. There are

and 2003.

also many modern commercial and multi-

A major limitation of the foregoing studies therefore, is the fact that they missed regarding the effectiveness of the strategies being adopted for FM. In other words, the studies have focused mainly on developing strategies

and

identifying

roles

challenges of facility management.

and Since

FM is a new discipline in developing countries like Nigeria multi nationals that have embraced the practice have been left to accepting

whatever

service(s)

that

are

tenanted high rise buildings, most of which are under the management of registered facility managers. The study utilised the self administered questionnaires and interview survey

for

data

collection.

The

self

administered questionnaires ensure prompt response and guarantees high rate of return. Nevertheless, the structured questionnaires were supplemented with guided interview as a means to make the data and information obtained from respondents reliable.

offered. Therefore, the question likely to

The target population of the study was

agitate the minds of potential users of FM

limited to facility managers, maintenance

service who are confronted with the decision

managers

of the choice of facility management

executive officers of the various companies

strategies will relate to the effectiveness of

in the of six purposively selected notable

available options. The question of what

high rise buildings in the study area. The

benefits or disadvantages

selected high rise buildings were stratified

come with

and

business

multi-tenanted

and

managers

and

different strategies in an emerging real estate

into

single-tenanted

market is still to be answered. This paper,

properties. The four purposively selected

with a focus on the Nigerian market, will

multi –tenanted properties are Cedi-plaza,

provide answers to this question.

UAC building, Total House and Willands plaza, while Stock Exchange building and

METHODOLOGY AND DATA

NNPC Towers are owner occupied, each

The study of the perceptual evaluation of the

accommodating

effectiveness

corporate bodies who own them.

of

facility

management

strategies is measured in Abuja, Federal capital Territory of Nigeria. The focus on Abuja

is

justifiable

because

of

the

affordability of data collection. Abuja now houses the headquarters of many multi

staff

members

of

the

A sample size of 200 in the two categories(130)

in

the

buildings and

multi-tenanted

high

rise

(70) in owner-occupied

commercial buildings. Having selected the 5

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Ife Journal of Environmental Design and Management, Vol 4, No 1, 93-102 six buildings, thirty (30) in -house facility

The data collected were analysed with the

and maintenance managers and one hundred

use of frequency counts and mean. The

and seventy (170) workers and occupiers,

survey archived a total response rate of 72%

often the head of the corporate companies

(144 respondents).

that occupy the buildings as tenants were surveyed and subsequently interviewed. It must be emphasized that the sample size was drawn conveniently and on the basis of those willing

to

give

information.

Data

on

respondents’ social economic profile and how they perceived the effectiveness of strategies adopted for facility management as well as factors influencing their performance were collected with the use of questionnaires backed up with interview where necessary.

Table 1:

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS In presenting results of the questionnaire survey, the paper examined, at the first instance,

the

qualifications

of

the

respondents. The result of this first part of the analysis is presented in Table 1 The second part relates to analysis of respondents perception of the effectiveness of facility management strategies in the study area and the results are presented in Table 2-6.

Qualifications of the respondents

Cedi UAC Plaza Bldg OND 2 7 HND 5 7 B.SC 7 16 Others 3 3 17 33 Source: Field Survey, 2008

Total house 2 5 5 4 16

Willands plaza 4 2 25 31

SEC Complex 4 2 18 4 28

NNPC

Total

Percentage

1 6 12 19

20 27 83 14 144

14 18 58 10 100

Table 1. Shows distribution of respondent’s

that graduates with either HND or B.Sc

qualification.

B.SC

certificate constituted 76% of the total group.

certificate constituted 58% and those holding

This suggests that greater percentage of the

H.N.D. certificate constituted 18%. Those

working class in the area are graduates who

holding OND certificate constituted 14%

are expected to be familiar with facility

while those having other non classified

management activities.

Respondents

with

certificates constituted 10%. It further shows 6

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Table 2:

Types of facility management Strategies being adopted by facility managers

Operations Oriented Cost Oriented

Total

Percentage

22

71

07

24

Integrated Oriented

1 05 30 100 Source: Field Survey, 2008 Table 2 records the respondents perception

as integration oriented. The trend for

about the type of facility management

adopting operations oriented strategy in the

approach commonly adopted

study area could be explained by virtue of the

by facility

managers and maintenance officers in the

target

study area. Majority

commercial

(71%) of the

respondents viewed it as operation-oriented

residents

for

the

property

purpose

whose

built

continuous

occupation is a function of their productivity.

while (24%) viewed the adopted approach as cost oriented. The remaining (5%) viewed it

Table 3: Conduciveness of the working environment in achieving the company’s objectives Cedi Plaza Very conducive Quite conducive Not conducive

UAC Bldg

Total house

NNPC Willands SEC plaza Complex

Total

Percentage

1

4

1

25

9

12

52

36

16

22

15

6

17

7

83

58

16

31

19

9 144

06 100

7 17 33 Source: Field Survey, 2008

2 28

Table 3 contains the result of respondent’s

objectives. The responses showed that the

perception about the effect of the adopted

majority

strategy in creating conducive working

environment

environment in achieving the company’s

towards achieving their company’s business

(58%) as

viewed being

their quite

working conducive

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Ife Journal of Environmental Design and Management, Vol 4, No 1, 93-102 objectives. 36% viewed it as being very

into productivity. This might be due to the

conducive while the remaining 6% viewed it

efforts of the facility managers at providing

as not being conducive. It shows further that

the necessary support functions for the

94% are convinced that the strategy adopted

organisations businesses.

contributes to making the environment where they work conducive enough to spur them Table 4:

Degree to which FM strategies supports the occupiers core-operations

Significantly

Cedi Plaza 12

Considerably 2

UAC Bldg 15

Total house 13

Willands SEC NNPC plaza Complex 21 15 5

Total

Percentage

81

56

18

2

8

13

14

57

40

1 16

2 31

28

19

6 144

04 100

A little

3 17 33 Source: Field Survey, 2008

Table 4 gives the response on degree to which the adopted FM approach supports core-operations of the various organisations occupying the buildings. (56%) rated the strategies’ support as being significant while 40% rated it as considerable. The remaining (4%) rated the degree of support for core-operations as very little. It shows further that 96% rated FM approach support for coreoperations as significantly high. This might be due to the efforts of facility mangers to demonstrate better performance than traditional property managers.

Table 5:

Degree to which FM Strategy supports business profitability of occupiers

Significantly

Cedi Plaza 11

UAC Bldg 21

Total house 10


Total

Percentage

77

53

Considerably 6

12

6

9

19

11

63

44

A little

-

-

3

-

1

4

03

16

31

28

19

144

100

-

17 33 Source: Field Survey, 2008 Table 5

records resident response on the

aiding profitability. (44%) viewed its support

degree to which the adopted approach

for profitability as considerable while the

support and contribute to profitability. (53%)

remaining (3%) viewed the support for

viewed the adopted approach as significantly

profitability as a little. It reveals further that 8

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Ife Journal of Environmental Design and Management, Vol 4, No 1, 93-102 (97%) attested to the fact of a high

literature. Atkin (2003A) has submitted that

significant relationship between effective

facility management creates competitive

facility management and profitability. These

advantage

results from the analysis therefore go to

business.

for

the

organisations

core

validate what have been known from

Table 6:

Very effective

Indication of perception on effectiveness of Facility Management strategies Cedi Plaza 15

UAC Bldg 25

Slightly effective

2 8 17 33 Source: Field Survey, 2008

Total house 14


Total

Percentage

115

80

2 16

8 31

29 144

20 100

3 28

6 19

Table 6 gives respondents perception of

adduced to the high degree of integration

effectiveness

between the adopted strategy and the

strategies.

The

of

facility responses

management indicate

that

business concern that are being carried out in

majority (80%) of the respondents viewed

the buildings. The strategy offers sustained

the adopted approach as being very effective

conducive

working

while 20% viewed it as being slightly

functional

facility

effective. None of respondents viewed the

performance.

environment for

and

productive

strategy as un-important. This could be CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION The paper has drawn attention to the

enhancing productivity. This conclusion

perception of Nigerians to the effectiveness

validates what the literature has led us to

of facility management strategies as an

know earlier. The implication of this

emerging discipline.

conclusion

A major conclusion from this study is that effective facility management has been perceived by occupiers/users as significantly supporting their core business as well as

is

that

effective

facility

management must be seen as being very crucial in strategic policies on productivity. This calls for the development of the FM strategy that have been found to be reflective 9


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our local environment. It also calls for the

management. This will involve into a holistic

need to institutionalise facility management

approach

in order to make its relevance felt in all

environment This will be easily imbibed by

sectors of the economy. In addition, there is

available local resources and develop into

the need to integrate the activities of

fuller institutions for beneficial use.

adaptable

towards

our

local

traditional propertyβ managers into facility

References Alexander(1996), Facilities Management-Theory and Practice, edited by Alexander, Keitk. E & FN Spon, London, UK,173P Arnold, W.L. Kwok, Clive, M.J (2004), Optimisation of Performance in Facilioties Management, The University of Queensland Brisbane QLD 4072 Austsralia. Atkin, Brain and Brooks, Andrian(2000), Total Facilities Management. Oxford: Blackwell Science. Atkin, Brain (2003a), Scope and Definitions of Facility Management, HUT/NOCS course in Facility Management Atkin, Brain( 2003b), Contacting Out or Managing Services In-House. Nordic Journal of Surveying and Real Estate Research, Special Series, Vol. 1, 2003, Pp. 18-33 Barrett (1995), Facilities Management-Towards Best Practices, Blackwell Science Ltd, London, UK, 1995. 256p. IFMA ( 2003a), Definition of Facility Management, International Facility Management association, URL: http//www.bifm.org.uk IFMA(2003b), in Atkin, Brian.Scope and Definitions of Facility Management, HUT/NOCS course in Facility Management Nourse,m H.O. (1990) Managerial Real Estate: Corporate Real Estate Asset Management, prentice-hall, Englewood Cliffs Park, Alan(1994), Facilities Management- An explanation. The Macmillan press Ltd, London, 144p. Scarret, Douglas (1995) Property Asset Management, E & FN SPON, London State of Colorado (2008): Real Estate Manual: www.dora.co.us/realstate/manual/manual_2008/ch 21_propert_management_leases

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Tay , Linda& Ooi, Joseph (2001),Facility Management: a ‘jack of All Trade’ Journal of Facilities. MCB University Press, Vol. 19 No 10, Pp 357-362 Varcoe, Barry (1997), The Five Dimensions of Facility Management, Journal of Facility Management, Nov./Dec. Pp19-27 Varcoe, Barry (2000), Implications for Facility Management of the Changing Business Climate, Facilities, Vol. 18 No 10/11/12 Pp 383-391

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