FMJ Facilities Management magazine providing industry-specific intelligence to FM and property professionals
Smart technologies are transforming facilities management, driving energy efficiency, safety, and sustainability. However, relying solely on off-the-shelf technology can lead to inefficiencies, poor sustainability practices, and decreased customer satisfaction, impacting margins. IFS AI-powered technology empowers leading global facilities management companies to optimize field service and asset efficiency, delivering services profitably.
IFS AI-powered technology is used by leading global facilities management companies to optimize their field service and asset efficiency and deliver facilities services profitably.
PHS, Polygon, ACCO Engineered Systems, and Mitie Fire and Security can now boast up to 35% technician productivity improvement and up to 49% sub-contractor spend reductions, which drives greater margins and improved customer experience.
What can our smart, single solution deliver for your service operations?
Challenge: Drive Greater Margins to Remain Competitive. Staying competitive in the FM landscape requires strategic cost management, technology adoption, talent acquisition, and risk mitigation. IFS solutions enhance people management, optimise asset utilization, and streamline workflows, leading to cost reductions and higher margins.
Solution: Fuel company-wide efficiencies with predictive maintenance and workforce management solutions. Predictive maintenance anticipates service issues, learn more about the solution here. While workforce management optimizes scheduling, reducing travel costs and increasing productivity. An IFS FM client has saved €13,000,000, reduced carbon emissions by 30%, and had a 10% increase in productivity thanks to the IFS planning and scheduling optimization solution.
Challenge: Managing a disparate workforce
Many FM teams lack all the workers they need at peak times or for specific skills and are another industry facing a global skills shortage of highly skilled field service workers. Subcontractors can help to fill in gaps and play a vital role in supplementing the service workforce. But, with an average of 44% of workforce spending going to them, over-dependency can reduce profit margins.
Solution: IFS Planning and Scheduling optimization software reduces subcontractor spend by up to 49% while increasing internal technician productivity by up to 35%. Want to see how IFS planning and scheduling optimization can impact your business? Send us your anonymized data to run through our algorithms and experience the benefits and potential savings using IFS Planning and Scheduling Optimization.
If you do need to manage a subcontractor, IFS Field Service Management mobile apps ensure that whoever is sent has easy access to knowledge artifacts, such as the customer’s service history and even virtual assistance from an expert. We’ve spoken about the importance of the workforce and shared how they can be successfully and profitably integrated here.
Challenge: Increasing customer service expectations
With customers requiring a broader array of services, FM companies can no longer provide services through transactional-based service contracts and agreements. Instead, they need to offer proactive solutions that focus on outcome and value to answer growing customer expectations.
Solution: IFS offers complete service lifecycle support, enabling the transition to outcome-based contracts through intelligent monitoring, predictive service, and customer engagement tools.
IFS can support FM companies’ transition to outcome-based contracts through capabilities such as customer service portals, contract and warranty management, remote assistance, IoT predictive service, and planning and scheduling optimization. These solutions provide intelligent monitoring and continuously track performance and predict issues before they occur – taking corrective action to avoid downtime. They also actively engage with customers at every stage of service delivery and leverage technology to put performance and prediction front and center for the customer.
Real Example:
Ainsworth, a multi-trade company, prioritizes customer experiences and service quality to foster loyalty and drive purchasing behaviors. Initially, they operated reactively, waiting for customer calls. With IFS Field Service Management, Ainsworth adopts a proactive approach, leveraging data insights for quicker and more accurate service delivery. Felix Wong, Manager of Business Process Management, notes the system’s ability to facilitate swift action, meeting customer expectations efficiently. Read the full case study for more insights.
“Customers like things quick, both from an information perspective with work orders and an invoicing perspective. They want things quicker and more accurately, and IFS FSM allows us to act quickly.” – Felix Wong, Manager of Business Process Management at Ainsworth
Challenge: Optimizing energy consumption
The drive toward sustainability presents several challenges from the standpoint of moving toward paperless FM operations, improving building efficiency, and better waste management. The challenges stem from the need to invest in new technologies, workflows, and processes to achieve these goals.
Solution: FM companies can reduce fuel costs and paper usage by automating field service scheduling processes, making more intelligent scheduling decisions, and drip-feeding work order assignments to field workers through mobile devices. Organizations that have implemented IFS planning and Scheduling optimization can benefit from annual carbon emissions reductions of up to 13,475,000 pounds.
Want to see the full environmental impact of Planning & Scheduling Optimization? Click here for more statistics that are localized to your country
Get Smart with IFS, your single solution for a smart, safe, efficient and profitable service operation.
