The Role of Technology in Facilities Management

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Table of Contents

Background
Content
Conclusion
References

Facilities Management, as related to hospitality segment, can be defined as the practical management of organizational assets and built facilities and to enhance their competence and increase value to their services and performance (Hamer, 2011).

Also, Burgess (2009) defines facilities management as the procedure by which a business delivers and maintains support services in a superior atmosphere to meet strategic requirements.

This uses these two definitions and suggests that facilities management, in the hotel business, is the hands-on management of organizational assets, support services, and facilities to enhance their competence and add value to their performance.

Enhancing the provision of facilities management services via utilization of information technology has been an intermittent topic for several years. Lately, attention gets centered on web-enabled systems that can utilize current infrastructure. Tracking and real-time job reporting are, at the moment, feasible, resulting to high effectiveness and efficiency in the provision of services.

Utilization of IT boosts strategic management. According to Barrett & Baldry (2009), thriving corporations employ digital tools to re-formulate how they operate.

These corporations make decisions swiftly, act competently, and reach their customers in constructive manners. Corporations that employ information technology (IT), successfully, offer enhanced customer services. They, also, develop the efficiency of workers, together with, the contribution of stakeholders.

Barrett (2010) specified that these benefits become mostly experienced by lodging industries, in the United States of America, who became voted by managers and peer institutions for their endeavors in information technology. This implies that strategic management, in hotel institutions, should be IT driven, so as to develop competence in facilities management.

In Nigeria, several incidents and facts support and back the expansion of hotels. First, global events and necessities may demand the founding of hotels. Second, the public sector participation remained significant until the late nineties.

Many studies, in Nigeria, only distinguish FM from the traditionally practiced maintenance management and property management, and explain what facilities management entails. This study will fill this gap through discussing the role of technology in facilities management of a key economic subdivision; the hotel industry in Nigeria.

The apparent existence of privately held hotel in Nigeria may be because of so many reasons including applications of facilities management standards. Hence, in spite of the challenges infusing the structure of the hotel industry in Nigeria, a number are still operating successfully.

Amid the main players are Lagos Airport Hotel, Sheraton Hotels and Trascorp Hilton, Abuja. In the small and intermediate hotel classes, there, also, exist competent hotels. Sustaining these hotels is possible due to efficient facilities management, as well as, strategic estate management. The hotel industry is permeable, and the deal of possessing hotels is an all comers’ issue.

The 2007 IFMA forecasting withdraws highlighted the various challenges that lie ahead of the facility management expert in the impending years. The escalating rate of business and the persistent manifestation of the global market place ensure that the general dimension of the playing ground that facility management expert oversee is increasing.

A good number of the main topics became recognized in earlier forecasts although keep on to be pertinent and noteworthy. This incorporates: swift pace of alteration, changing expertise, building computerization, safety issues and sustainability.

Extra issues became conversed prior to but the prominence may have altered, such as the value of relating amenities with business tactics, developing approaches to compact with aging building reserve and the significance of advance scheduling for catastrophe preparation and revitalization.

Whilst these are not fresh thoughts, they have a better reputation in the globe that facility management expert’s visage. Though this large assortment of issues may emerge vast at first look, facility management professionals have the prospect to impact user prospect and influence the paraphernalia they presently use to better supply clientele the broad array of services they have come to anticipate.

Ecological factors, like swift populace escalation and persistent inadequacy of power resources, point out those facility management experts will persist to be challenged, in the imminent years.

The world’s populace continues to grow up at a dizzying pace, having doubled since 1960 and more than tripled since 1927. The populace can be estimated to get to 9.2 billion by 2050.

Almost all of this escalation can be expected in less-developed states, which by now fight to apportion wealth, whilst the populace in developed countries may be anticipated to remain comparatively steady. Such populace escalation will produce an unparalleled demand for resources, particularly in India and Asia.

Including sustainable construction technologies that make use of obtainable resources more proficiently and are strong sufficiently to the purpose in demanding environments (e.g., irregular power sources and often a partial pool of a skilled operator) will be vital to sustaining the fast expansion projected in many rising countries.

These tests will be of prime apprehension for facility management experts in developing states, while facility management expert s in North America are prone to incident augmented rivalry for building resources and find superior demand for their services in abroad markets.

A different challenge facility management expert will visage stems from the larger quantity of notice demanded by the aging building stock they administer. Considerable issues of reinstate must be addressed, as facilities and motorized systems attain and surpass their projected working lives.

Facility management expert will need to exploit newer, more proficient technologies and merge these with obtainable systems by now there in their facilities’ collection.

As additional multifaceted construction systems, predestined to computerize construction operation systems, increase impetus in the market, more technically know-how construction machinist become wanted.

An important challenge to facility management experts is to administer the numerous systems in the process and exploit these systems to their fullest latent. Appropriate first commissioning, followed by episodic tunings, will turn out to be gradually more ordinary.

More and more constructions get designed to use BIM software, which links model-based outline expertise with a catalog of scheme information, creating an essential information replica that can be approved, from plan team, to service provider to construction owner.

Facility management experts might be anticipated to manage facilities based on, and extending, this sculpt. Expansion of ordinary policy software that directs assorted information sources through a universal Integrated Workplace Management Systems, or IWMS is a potentially efficient tool for the facility management expert (Adewunmi & Ogunba, 2010).

Thus, facility management expert: might be anticipated to do numerous stuffs. First, they ought to in general keep abreast of altering technology—infrastructure, BIM, IWMS. Subsequently, they must toil directly with users to predict changes.

Third, they must assemble the technical skills proficiency of construction operations human resources, and use the expertise as a clip to draw young experts to the facility management expert function as well as to facilitate data and information allotment.

Background

The hospitality business must change itself to keep up with demands put on the liaison between guest and services, which are becoming more intricate with client familiarity and increasing prospect, causing partiality to revolutionize.

Changes in the past decade are creating a new setting in which hospitality services need to do more to lock augmentation and spirited delineation in today’s economy, to handle the challenges of the coming decade.

The current client has turn out to be more vibrant than ever by increasing prospect built around individual needs, obtained from performing large amounts of exploration proceeding to take a trip. Supplementary, globalization is creating escalation markets in the hospitality map and is the latest progress that will need capitalization.

Experts must be able to, efficiently, adjust to these changes by strictly monitoring customer activities to uphold efficiency in guest services as new segments of clientele from reverse parts of the globe with signiﬁcant ﬁnancial influence and exceptional discrepancies of needs will inflate the quantity of the universal marketplace, for this reason, the need for expertise in facilities management.

Undoubtedly, if IT venture in facilities management were well thought-out 10 years ago the facilities role may have had some room allocated on one of the company’s vital systems such as the IT helpdesk, although most likely little else.

Further open-minded organizations may at that instance have adopted some computer-aided FM (CAFM) structure, although the spectre of operating a computer-aided design (CAD) based appliance across a system might be alleged as a high peril development (Atkin & Brooks, 2009).

Perpetually, such novelty tended to be downgraded to the place of the facilities manager’s office on a detached PC. Appliance usually fell into two main groups: the initial got assembled around a catalog engine allied towards preservation administration applications and the next around a CAD engine allied towards space management applications.

This habitually anticipated that users wanting the functionality of both would mainly have no choice but to pick for diverse applications.

There have been lots of changes over, the superseding era, and the surfacing of web-based appliances have made the employment of function-rich appliances across the facilities management venture realism.

In practice, these are prone to symbolize extensions to the present IT service prerequisite relatively than a basis for new application locale. The days of promulgating detached applications and services, as illustrated by the above orientation to CAFM/CAD, have vanished.

The exploit of a web ‘front end’ allow s entrance to parts of these applications by the addressee of services irrespective of their physical locality. Furthermore, there it gets reported being recognition by facilities managers that web-based applications and services are the technique ahead (McAndrew, 2005).

The emergence of technology has, as well, brought down the price of these applications. Wireless technology is turning out to be common in its application, amid facilities managers.

Lately, the utilization of 3G technology has enabled the deployment of several facility management applications across current mobile telephone systems.

These schemes have aided the facilities management segment in relocating from the darkness into the light where the facilities manager can offer knowledgeable contribution into the decision- making of the activity, and, also, where administering change gets concerned.

The significance of managing persons via change, and promoting decision-making became emphasized by Barrett and Baldry (2009), who create chief links with the utilization of IT and data management..

The span of this study gets restricted to the hotel industry in Nigeria’s South-western geo-political region. It must have been perfect to examine all the regions in Nigeria.

Nevertheless, the study chose to limit the scope to South-western geo-political area, since a study of the whole nation would make the final results broad needlessly and inept of lucid interpretations as there are no many such studies.

Therefore, a study limited to South-western geo-political area of Nigeria would let the researcher make clear conclusions, which are amenable to lucid interpretations. Also, this would make a plinth for additional research, which may be expanded to other regions of the state.

Content

E-Hospitality

Facilities managers, in Nigeria’s South-western geo-political region, utilize E-commerce (Opaluwah, 2009). E-commerce has emerged a multi-billion-dollar industry for international business. Many distribution channels get employed via direct web sites, telephone reservation systems and third party networks like social media advertisements.

E-commerce has a number of features, including collection and handling of demographic statistics, virtual storefronts with website catalogs, e-mail, instant messaging and social networking, protection of business dealings and business-to-business exchange of information (McAndrew et al., 2010).

E-commerce enables the hospitality industry to make and expand its electronic business.

E-hospitality is an inventive service, which can be described as “total solutions,” deals with dispensing, servicing, and sustaining hospitality commodities to all volumes of organizations in the business, in order to present further support services and facilities to prospective guests.

Hotels, in Nigeria’s South-western geo-political region, are currently using this resource to enhance availability to provide for the needs of visitors, continuously (Opaluwah, 2009).

So as, to be skilled in the ever-shifting business technology, official training, on the job, should be carried out. At present, there are video blogs, which discuss significant subjects like e-commerce, online marketing, and sales and marketing, through concise interviews with industry professionals.

Some of the main gains of using technology, in facilities management are boosts in productivity and revenue, decrease in labor costs, customer service expediency, as well as, market competitive advantage.

Social Networking

At present, social networking is a key technology used in facilities management. Social we sites have become created, where experts, l in the hospitality industry, can promote events, share in forum discussions and facilitate business relations.

Nowadays, since online social network has turned out to be reputable means of communication for many customers, online contact is more prone to emerge through social media than through e-mail.

Social media are an advertising method that has gained impetus over the past several years with hopeful projections for future achievement. Although Web sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube are the main, well-known sites, there are presently about 250 networks/social media sites up and running (Kaplan & Norton, 2009).

Companies, in the hotel industry, do not to put all their reserve into a single resource but rather vary their links with numerous networking outlets, as clients from a wide range of demographics are now habitual users of different social media sites.

Social networking gives the hotel industry, in Nigeria’s South-western geo-political region, liberty to manage facilities online at a comparatively low cost (Opaluwah, 2009).

At present, facility managers improve their online presence by utilizing YouTube for virtual tours of facilities, amenities and services at resorts, golf courses, casinos and hotels, reacting swiftly to the changing needs of guests who rarely travel;

Structuring and executing a social media strategy, making certain that media and Web site content is optimized and up-to-date, monitoring consumer behavior on the internet, in addition to, showingthe hotel unique promotions and occasions on Face book (Bode-Thomas, 2010, September 12).

Conclusion

The industry of hospitality is shifting at a swift rate because of technological development that will necessitate future practitioners to be equipped, in technology, while preserving natural resources to uphold the environment. Leisure practitioners will need to surpass guest expectations from increasing clients and contain their evolving needs to remain relevant.

The surfacing of web-based appliances, in the hospitality industry, has made the employment of function-rich appliances across the facilities management venture realism. In practice, these are prone to symbolize extensions to the present IT service prerequisite relatively than a basis for new application locale.

The days of promulgating detached applications and services, as illustrated by the above orientation to CAFM/CAD, have vanished. The exploit of a web ‘front end’ allow s entrance to parts of these applications by the addressee of services irrespective of their physical locality. Furthermore, there is a report by facilities managers that web-based applications and services are the technique ahead.

The emergence of technology has, as well, brought down the price of these applications. Wireless technology is turning out to be common in its application, amid facilities managers. Lately, the utilization of 3G technology has enabled the deployment of several facility management applications across current mobile telephone systems.

Hotels, in Nigeria, are currently using e-commerce to enhance availability to provide for the needs of visitors, continuously. So as, to be skilled in the ever-shifting business technology, official training, on the job, should be carried out.

At present, there are video blogs, which discuss significant subjects like e-commerce, online marketing, and sales and marketing, through concise interviews with industry professionals.

Social networking gives the hotel industry, in Nigeria’s South-western geo-political region, liberty to manage facilities online at a comparatively low cost.

At present, facility managers improve their online presence by Utilizing YouTube for virtual tours of facilities, amenities and services at resorts, golf courses, casinos and hotels, reacting swiftly to the changing needs of guests who rarely travel;

Structuring and executing a social media strategy, making certain that media and Web site content is optimized and up-to-date, monitoring consumer behavior on the internet, in addition to, showing the hotel unique promotions and occasions on Face book.

Leaders, in prospect, should identify and analyze existing trends, in order to realize future consumer behavior, through performing research, while upholding ethical conduct with the aim of maintaining the integrity in the industry. Leaders, should, also, use technology in facilities management, in order to boost productivity and revenue and decrease labor costs.

References

Adewunmi, Y. & Ogunba, O. (2010). Shaping a sustainable role for estate surveyors and valuers in the evolution of facilities management in Nigeria. Abuja: Still Waters Publications.

Atkin, B.L. & Brooks, A. (2009). Total facilities management. 2^nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.

Barrett, P. (2010). Achieving strategic facilities management through strong Relationships. Facilities, 18, 421 – 426.

Barrett, P.S. & Baldry, D. (2009). Facilities management: towards best practice. 3^rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.

Bode-Thomas, A. I. (2010, September 12). Nigerian hotels have improved. The Guardian, 20 (9,061), 51.

Burgess, B. (2009). Facilities management market audit. 3^rd ed. London: Workplace Law Network.

Kaplan, R.S. & Norton, D.P. (2009). The balanced scorecard: translating strategy into action.2^nd ed. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Hamer, J.M. (2011). Facility management system. 2^nd ed. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Inc.

McAndrew, S.T., Anumba, C.J., Hassan, T.M. & Duke, A.K. (2010). Potential use of real-time data capture and job-tracking technology in the field. Facilities, 23(1/2), 31-46.

Opaluwah, S. A (2009). Principles and practice of facilities management in Nigeria. Abuja: Still Waters Publications.

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