RICS Launches Free Strategic FM Advice Campaign

On 28 November 2013 RICS launched its ‘Think Strategic’ campaign, which will provide free news and advice from industry experts directly to Facilities Management (FM) practitioners.

The campaign is designed to encourage FM professionals to think and act more strategically by giving them the tools they need to develop an FM plan that will directly feed into the wider corporate objec-tives of their organisations and clients. As a result, FM leaders will be able to demonstrate the value of the profession to business and thus gain a competitive advantage.

The launch of the ‘Think Strategic’ campaign is in direct response to the recommendations contained within RICS’ ‘Raising the Bar’ report, published last year. It will run as a series of monthly articles offer-ing practical advice from leading industry professionals.

The articles, which will be freely downloadable from RICS’ website, will address topical issues includ-ing:

• The risks of cost cutting
• Creating competitive advantage through strategic FM
• Performance benchmarking
• Talking the language of the boardroom

Johnny Dunford, RICS Global Commercial Property Director, comments: “With increasing pres-sures on businesses to drive down costs, the FM sector is in real danger of becoming a commodity market where decisions are made purely on price, with no understanding of the cause and effect to the business as a whole.

“We understand the need for FM to raise awareness of its value to the wider business community and we have therefore launched this free advice campaign to provide additional support to the value-added side of the FM industry. The campaign will sit alongside our globally recognised standards and the new RICS Global Strategic FM Guidance Note, launched on 4 November, as part of our on-going drive to lead the professionalisation of the sector.”