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Professional Performance

In search of the competitive edge

Open-access content Tuesday 7th April 2015 — updated 1.53pm, Tuesday 5th May 2020
ThinkFM 2015

9 April 2015


Whether you are a private organisation, a public service or a charity; you'll have set yourself an aim and will look at what you can do to reach that. 


Find any rower or cyclist who was part of any Olympic team and you'll hear talk of 'marginal gains', the idea that hundreds of small improvements can combine to create a profound impact on performance.


What is it that can push organisations that little bit further up the league tables, secure consumer spend from competing organisations or simply improve on last year's achievements? 


There are quite a few things really. You could look at the marketing mix which includes things like products, price and promotions. It might be the quality of your service or your cash balance. However, an area we think is sometimes overlooked is the workplace. The 'place' provided, the services within it and the tools supplied can be the difference between achieving your aims and being an 'also ran'. 


An amazing statistic from the Leesman Index shows that only 54 per cent of those surveyed (upwards of 87,000) believe that their workplaces allow them to be productive. It's a concern when you consider that people and place are often the top two spend lines on any budget and this appears, in some cases, to be going to waste. How do we ensure that the investment in the environment is best placed to get the most from the investment in your talent; you can't look at the two in isolation.


When we sat down to look at how we follow up on the success of last year's ThinkFM we decided that we wanted to explore the idea of how workplaces can get organisations that edge. 


We wanted to learn from those that were at the heart of the projects that have made a significant impact; this isn't just about good FM, this is about how the FM teams have worked alongside their colleagues as part of a concerted effort to improve organisational performance.


The speakers we are working with will help paint that picture. David Coplin, Chief Envisaging Officer at Microsoft, will talk us through how organisations are coping with the digital deluge. We'll hear from Munish Datta, Head of Plan A and FM at Marks & Spencer, on how their sustainability programme was applied to their property and what impact that has had on achieving their aims. Jim Hood, Director of Customer Services Wellcome Genome Campus, will tell us how his team have made sure that are meeting the needs of science now and in the future. And there is more to come.


Every organisation is different. They have unique aspirations and different market conditions to operate in but what is consistent is that the way that they approach the workplace could be the difference.


James Sutton is chief operational officer at BIFM

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