THE VAST WORLD OF REAL ESTATE.
Real Estate on Agenda at Nigerian Facilities Management Roundtable 2015
BY Greenwide Limited 26th September 2015
“Most organizations spend up to 30% of their total operating expenditure on Real Estate and Facilities-related activities”, a report discussed by Femi Akintunde, Managing Director/CEO of Alpha Mead Facilities & Management Services Limited, has said. The result of this survey conducted on 256 senior executives of large, medium and small enterprises in the United States formed the crux of Akintunde’s presentation at the 4th edition of the Nigerian Facilities Management Roundtable in Lagos recently.
The Nigerian Facilities Management Roundtable is an annual industry-led event sponsored by Alpha Mead Facilities in commemoration of the World Facilities Management Day. This year’s event played host to more than 100 top decision makers in key sectors such as: Real Estate, Oil & Gas, Financial Services, Telecommunications and Public Services.
In his presentation titled: “Building Resilience For the Future Through Efficient Real Estate & Facilities Lifecycle Management (REFLM), Akintunde related the survey to the Nigerian business environment thus: “for example, if you take a company with turn-over of N1 billion and you are operating a cost to revenue ratio of 60%, leaving you with a gross of 40% and a net of probably 25%, it means N200 million of what you spend relates to maintenance”.
Improving Asset Life Cycle in the Real Estate Sector
At the real estate breakout session of the event, led speaker of the event, Obi Ejimofo, players in the sector assessed what they described as “the impact of good facilities management on a property”. They submitted that good facilities management is an incentive for retaining high valuation for properties, especially in the residential markets.
Presenting the recommendations of his group, Ejimofo said: “I think the emphasis is really on manpower; improving it whether through standardization, education, training or certification. One way or the other, we just need to see an improvement in the manpower involved in the industry”.
One other recommendation that came out strong at this session is the need to involve concerns and issues related to Facility Management at the design stage of any real estate construction. According to the speaker, “doing these, in a way, just reduces the potential costs further down the line”.