Barriers to the operation of the facilities management: property management interface Available to Purchase

Facilities management (FM) is often seen as the management of cost‐efficiency rather than as a method of achieving the multi‐dimensional enhancement of business competitiveness. If the role of FM is to be recognised for the literally facilitating strategic mechanism that it represents, organisational structures must be constructed in an enabling rather than a disabling form. This paper argues that existing organisational structures tend to repress the need for the integration of the functional and strategic dimensions of FM, through the practice of physically separating responsibilities for the various aspects of supporting the business operation, and this is compounded by the general failure of management to look at property issues broadly. The paper proposes the existence of barriers to the operation of the facilities property management interface and suggests that an improvement in effectiveness is possible by the incorporation of facilities managers into strategy management through subordination to strategy as opposed to management.