How To Choose Best Facility Maintenance Company For Your Business

A company's physical environment says a lot about how the company is and how it operates. Therefore, business owners or facility managers of any business, whether it is a retail space, manufacturing & industrial buildings, hospitals, hotels & restaurant, or office building, need to have a well-maintained facility to ensure proper operating & safe conditions and efficient energy consumptions through routine and scheduled maintenance.

However, if a business or facility is on a large site, managing it can be a little overwhelming at times. At this point, considering seeking help from a facility management company becomes important for the business.

If you are not familiar with these services, keep reading to find out all you need to know. In this blog, we will deconstruct what facility management companies are, what they do, why they are important, and how to identify the best facility management company for your business.

What Are Facility Management Companies?

The broad scope of facility management companies makes it hard to define what they are. To truly understand that, let's break down their scope of work:

Supporting People

One of the major objectives of these companies is to create an accommodating environment for both employees and customers. This helps companies with many broader goals, including attracting top talent and customers, improving productivity & efficiency, and creating a positive, welcoming space for everyone.

There is more to this. Facility management companies are responsible for taking care of all the accommodation, safety, or comfort-related issues too. They also provide vital planning data to the management and determine the long-term approach for workplace optimization.

Facility’s Upkeep And Improvement

As the name suggests, one of the core jobs of facility management companies is to upkeep and improve the physical building itself.

This encompasses several tasks, and a few examples of this broad range of responsibilities include:

• Finding and maintaining vendor contracts
• Repair, maintenance, and building improvement
• Workplace cleaning and decor
• On-site and off-site property management

Anything related to the physical building falls within the facility management company's realm. The company has to ensure that the business's facility is a competitive advantage instead of a cost center.

Technology Integration

To fully optimize a facility space, improve overall productivity & efficiency, and ensure the best working and living conditions, facility management companies are responsible for understanding and integrating the right technology to meet the individualized needs of businesses.

They use facility management solutions to aggregate data to make informed decisions about running the business and shaping the workplace. The technology selection is determined by thoroughly studying everyday facility processes, the cost, ROI, and advantage of smart technologies.

Why Is Having A Facility Management Company Important?

The importance of having a facility management company for your business comes down to all the benefits it offers that make your business more successful in the long run. Here are some of the benefits:

Cost Saving: Let's face it, cost – both short and long term – will always be the most prominent factor in any company's decision-making process; it has to be. But what do you think is one of the highest costs to a company? Apart from salaries, facility maintenance costs are the second-highest in most cases. Therefore, it is always good to let the professionals manage those costs. If done correctly, delegating these responsibilities to professionals works out better value for money in the long run. For instance, knowing what technology should be integrated, optimizing different appliances like HVAC systems and dehumidifiers, managing contracts with vendors that offer good supplies for reasonable prices, and managing energy consumption in your facility can significantly lower your overall costs.

Core Business: If you are a business owner, your objective should be to prioritize your business's core activities throughout to ensure a competitive edge over others. For instance, your resources shouldn't focus on facility management since you can hire professionals for the job. Their focus should rather be on your customers, services, and values. This would help your business grow and drive it forward towards reaching those long-term goals.

Personnel Retention: To have a productive workforce, it is crucial to ensure a safe, comfortable, and happy working environment. This can be an invaluable asset for your business and help you see your workforce's true potential. Facility management companies play a vital role in designing and maintaining your space that is both - productive and safe.

Safety: Safety in the workplace is a must nowadays – standards are ever-increasing, and employees expect them to be met. As a business owner, you really can't afford to neglect safety concerns, and therefore outsourcing this responsibility to a facility management company can ensure that safety is not compromised. These companies have to stay competitive and steer clear from legal claims, therefore deliver as per the industry standards. Their services can bring higher performance levels, and your company would not need to bear heavy investment costs to stay up to date with legislation and guidance.

How To Identify The Best Facility Management Company?

Service-Level Expectation: Your end goal is to provide the best working and living space to your employees and customers, and therefore considering their service-level expectations is very important. This serves as a guiding line while choosing a facility management company for your business.

The company should have the required skills, time, and resources to maintain your space at high standards. It is always advisable to conduct an audit of your current facility issues, needs and challenges and then, using the analysis, weigh your options.

Reputation of Quality: The company you wish to partner with must have a good reputation among the other businesses in the market. Do your due diligence in checking out its track record and find out what types of clients it has worked with, whether those clients were happy with the services provided, and ask for references. It is imperative to ensure that you get into a contract with a dependable company because these companies can significantly impact your business - be it good or bad.

Relevant Experience: To ensure that the facility maintenance company would be a good fit for your business, find out if it has worked with a similar business in the past, preferably the same niche. This will give you a good idea about if it has the bandwidth to meet your needs. You can also refer to the issues highlighted through your internal audit and check if the company has dealt with such obstacles in the past.

Services Offered: Every facility has unique requirements and needs personalized solutions. Some need a full-time dedicated staff person for their space, while others prefer someone who shows up when there is a specific need on the site. Check if the management firm offers the staff to support your specific needs.

Avoid companies that believe 'a one-size-fits-all' because this can be a terrible decision in the long run as a blanket approach can not suffice the needs of every facility.

Availability of Supplies: If you are running a business in a service industry such as a hospital, a hotel, or a restaurant, you would understand the complexities of these industries.

Most services happen in real-time and cannot be delayed or put off. For instance, if an HVAC system is not operating because it needs new filters, a guest wanting to check-in may not be willing to wait for 2 hours if the HVAC parts are not readily available. Therefore, you should partner with a facility management company that either offers supplies or has manufacturing companies from different industry verticals on its panel. This will ensure that you always have authentic and quality supplies at reasonable rates readily available so that your business's services are never compromised.

Consultation: Along with providing dictated services, your facility management partner should also have industry experts on their team to offer individualized solutions for your property. The company should guide you through implementing, optimizing, and administration of facility management procedures. This may include planning and building support after analyzing your business's goals and requirements through providing independent and ethical advice on the best solutions for your Facility Management needs.

We hope this blog has helped, provided value, and enabled you to be in a much better position to choose the best facility management company for your business.

Contact Facility Management Experts

If you are looking for a facility management company to partner with, check ProServices Supply against the criteria outlined in this blog. With extensive experience in delivering maintenance and repair services along with operational equipment and supplies, we are a leading MRO supplier providing exceptional experiences to businesses from different industry verticals. We enable our clients to serve their customers in a better way by delivering efficient and cost-effective services that precisely meet their functional, aesthetic, and conservational objectives. Relying on a perfect blend of a highly skilled team, industry’s best practices, and innovative technologies, we checkmark each platform against the criteria shared. Contact us today to discuss your needs with one of our representatives!