Business‐driven facilities benchmarking

The last few years of tight economic conditions have served to focus on the need for all organizations to be as “lean and mean” as possible. In this context, the need for the facilities function to contribute to the overall effort in full is clear. Indeed, many have argued that such a large “non‐core” expenditure should produce rather more than average in terms of efficiency improvements and resource and cost reductions. Treating the facilities function in this way is not without its dangers, however. The property dimension of the facilities budget is often the most inflexible component of the organization; and the reason organizations have facilities is to “facilitate” those “core” activities through which they create value ‐ and the reason they therefore exist. Any cut in facilities resource, service and/or cost, therefore, should only be undertaken with a wary eye on the consequent impact on the organization’s overall performance. One overall issue is of paramount importance ‐ all need to have a clear understanding of how their facilities are performing, how that relates to what the organization actually needs, and how the efficiency with which that performance is achieved can be improved on a continuous basis. Seeks to address these fundamental issues, in particular, reviewing in this context the technique of benchmarking, covering its scope, application, area of use and common problems.