IT: useful tool or nemesis for facilities management?

History since the Industrial Revolution shows an accelerating trend of change driven by changes in enabling technologies. Such changes give rise to a Darwinian evolution in commerce. The companies most likely to survive are those which can most quickly adapt to such enabling technologies. The World Wide Web provides a potent infrastructure for dispersed but cooperative information sharing. The emergence of powerful and cheap PCs and broadband communications challenges the orthodox organisation of business models. The possibility of dispersed but tightly integrated companies has become a reality. Individual facilities managers may opt to: plan careers outside FM; compete for the remaining work; seek to develop FM to encompass the changed nature of commerce and the facilities provided. Institutions are not exempt from such changes. Academic qualifications need to be date‐stamped. A ten‐year old degree may be of little value when a decade of technological progress has eroded its academic base.