This week saw the return of the international Facilities Show to the ExCel conference centre in London, and Cloudfm CEO Jeff Dewing took part in a headline panel discussion, looking at the collapse of Carillion, and the challenge of sustainable procurement.
Jeff Dewing was joined on stage by Sunil Shah, Director at Acclaro Advisory, along with Global Property Standards Director at RICS, Paul Bagurst. The speakers discussed how the collapse of Carillion and financial struggles of some of the largest outsourcing providers is a result of cultural frailty, and how that, for the industry to be sustainable, procurement practices and behaviour have to change.
Amongst other key topics, Jeff himself focused on how the debate around margin in the industry is misleading, and obscures the more fundamental need for efficiency:
“I think (FM service provider) margins are very healthy. Where people get it wrong is that margin is being eaten up by inefficiencies,”
“If you solve inefficiencies within the processes you are delivering, your margin appears. Why should a client pay for a company or organisation’s inefficiencies? Everyone is OK to feel sorry for themselves because there’s no margin instead of focusing on what could be done better – rather than what service could be switched off – to generate that margin.”