Become a Socialist - Avoid Extinction

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19 September 2014 | Updated 01 January 1970

The BBC MediaCity in Salford, that prides itself as one of the most forward thinking workplaces in the UK, was the venue for the recent BIFM North Region meeting.

New ways or working, communicating and dealing with suppliers were the topics for more than 40 delegates packed into the Alan Turing Imaginarium to be welcomed by North region committee member, Lee Murfitt, the event chair.

Become a Socialist - Avoid Extinction

The first speaker was Katie King (pictured), MD of social media agency Zoodikers Consulting, who talked about how FMs can avoid extinction by evolving into social media animals. “Think twice before you give social media to the intern,” she said. “It’s a tool for people who really understand and lead business strategy. All the different business functions need to understand what social media can do – HR, internal comms, sales people, the board.”

King believes that social media is about identifying where the target audience is, whether that be existing or new clients or people you want to hire, finding out where they are talking about and then joining in. King’s four-step approach involved planning, listening, analysing and then involving.

People make success

The next speaker – Andrew Mawson, MD of Advanced Workplace Associates – dismissed the ‘pre-eminence’ of the role of offices in the concept of the 21^st century workplace. “A workplace is wherever you work, it’s not a building, and the 21^st century workplace is not just one workplace but many,” he argued. “The home, cafes, client sites, on the move.” He contested that people’s energy make an organisation a success. “Organisations are large communities of humans strung together by technology.”

That meant the role of the FM person should help those people be the best that they can be. “FMs spend too much time focusing on cost – reducing a cleaning contract by 10% – and not enough time focusing on people. A FM should be responsible for helping each person to have their very best day at work, to give them the different spaces they need to create, communicate, collaborate or think.”

Managing the information

But FM professionals also faced a number of challenges in their daily lives and the last two speakers of the morning discussed two of those – managing the information from a large supply base and negotiating terms with those suppliers in the first place.

Tim Hoiles, Chief Operations Officer, Trade Interchange, outlined the challenges of managing supplier information: risk to brand – from insurance to health and safety certification and environmental accreditation. “It’s crucial to know that your suppliers are fully compliant,” he stated. “With a large number of suppliers, it can be difficult to know the current status of each; there may be multiple versions of the truth with different parts of the organisation gathering information for their own needs. There can be a burden simply through the sheer quantity of documentation. One organisation that I believe is facing these issues head-on is Sodexo which, with Trade Interchange, is implementing a global supplier information management system to manage data about their supply chain partners.”

Negotiating with suppliers

FM service provider Servest’s head of procurement, Stuart Wright then took to the podium to share his experience of negotiating with suppliers to help the FMs in the audience to get the best deal. He explained that there are five key stages – planning, opening, testing, reaching a deal and summarising. Wright explained the importance of knowing your area, understanding both your objectives and those of your supplier, your targets and what you are prepared to ‘trade’ to achieve them.

He also spoke around the importance of establishing an agenda, setting timeframes and maintaining control of the meeting. Wright highlighted the benefits of asking open questions, not taking positions on things that are not important, making controlled concessions, “ensuring a shared understanding and agreement and never “gloating”. The other person must feel that they got the best deal available.”

Pictured: Katie King, MD of social media agency Zoodikers Consulting, addressing the most recent meeting of the BIFM Northern Region

Article written by Mike Gannon | Published 19 September 2014

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