Legacy and Future

BUSINESS STRATEGIES

We last interviewed Ross Abbate in 2021 on the then Operate’s 2026 Business Strategy which had three strategic priorities: to pursue a sustainable world, to grow together and to deliver distinctive value.

This is still the goal he says: “With our managed services we’ve a target operating model where we’re still focusing on experience, compliance, sustainability and efficiency. But now we can invest more in those areas so I can foresee a lot more opportunity to offer clients innovative solutions.

“For me the business strategy is still one we want to work towards, what we will do over the nine months is rebrand to different terms, but growing together is the exciting bit and I know our team is ready to help grow our business.

“The employees I spoke to say they’re excited that they’ve now got a bigger voice and as the business goes forward this offers them even greater potential. Everyone in the business appreciates we all have to step up a gear.”

He also believes the change will enable Macro to invest in a more targeted way in the future of the workplace – allowing for the introduction of fresh service offerings and the infrastructure required to meet the changing needs of clients.

Sustainability remains a priority. The Mace Group announced it was a net zero carbon business in 2020, and as a group has been building on that success by aiming to achieve a 10 per cent year-on-year reduction in emissions and only offsetting the outstanding carbon to gold standards.

Explains Abbate: “For me, sustainability is not something you do as an add on, it’s part of everything we do and as an organisation that strives to be net zero our role is to help our clients to achieve their sustainability goals.

“As an engineer, I’ll try and keep it simple by asking clients, ‘What is your plan? Let’s go and look at your portfolio, what can we do with it and where will it get you? Let’s implement that and deliver results’. The next priority is to ensure we can measure the results and see a positive change in energy consumption.”

FUTURE PLANS

He says: “All our clients have been fully supportive and can see the benefit it’s going to have for them because we’re in a great position in that we have a global coverage but can also offer a tailored service and because we’re not a huge corporate, every client can pick up the phone to me as group CEO which is not something a bigger player would do for all their clients.

“Financially we’re also in good shape because of the way the deal has been structured and we can start to invest in stuff that we want to do and where we want to do it.”

For the first nine months Abbate says while they’ll concentrate on transitioning away from Mace he’s also keen to explore ways of using technology to drive the FM managed services.

“We talk a lot about AI and IoT and yet a lot of people need to ask, ‘What does it actually do and how are you driving it?’

“For me, it’s about developing a consumption-based model. A good example is in using cleaning IoT, which measures the use of a washroom. Instead of the cleaner going in every hour to clean it, use the tech to engage the cleaner once it’s reached a usage level according to the service agreement. We are also working with our partners on introducing robots to help streamline cleaning services.

“Bringing that into maintenance you can measure temperature, sound and vibration to help identify if there is a fault. It’s those type of technologies I want to build on. Then, when you put AI on the end of it, this is when you start to programme performance, which then offers even more control.

“We’ve also a bit of an exercise to move away from the group from an IT perspective, to enable us to create efficiencies which are tailored more to what we need.”

Meanwhile, Abbate, who was speaking to FMJ from Dubai will be kept busy talking to clients in all three hubs and working to reposition a brand which reflects the values of 800 people instead of being part of a group of 7,000.

He concludes: “My priorities now are to bring our clients with us on this journey. We’ve had a really good year building our client base and we want to continue doing that and deliver a great service.

“That reputation that Macro had is important to me to continue and make it even better because the way we are going to grow is through brand value – we’re not the biggest but we’ve great strong relationships with our clients, a strong reputation for problem-solving and doing a great job.”