Perception is one of the biggest hurdles when dealing with customers. Our customers see things differently based on their viewpoint or experiences, and their perception becomes hard to change.

The customer’s perception also dictates whether they think they are getting good customer service. While the old adage ‘The customer is always right’ can’t be taken literally, if you approach their perception as if it is true (i.e. that they are right), you will be in a better position to deal with it.

Staying competitive in your marketplace means you must constantly look inward and examine the opportunities to improve processes, systems and ultimately, results.

Outsourcing a business process is a quicker, more effective way of achieving the same, or even better, results as reengineering.

The Outsourcing Institute considers outsourcing to be a central management tool for the fundamental reengineering and reenergizing of businesses, and have found that accelerated reengineering benefits is one of the top ten reasons companies outsource non-core business processes.

Evaluating RFP proposal responses is a critical yet often painful process. You want enough information to evaluate the bidders, yet you get widely varying responses that don't always answer your questions and sometimes don't reflect their true capabilities. This makes it hard to evaluate.

Bidders aren't usually very good at writing about what they do. You get proposals filled with generalities and marketing pitches, text that is difficult to read, narrative that is hard to follow and answers that don't really answer your questions.

You need to evaluate bidders on their ability to deliver the service, not their ability to write a proposal, so make it easy for the bidders to give you what you need to evaluate their capability, not their proposal writing skills.

Being successful means getting what you need from your service provider after they start working for you - not just during the procurement phase. Establishing a Performance Management (KPI) Framework up-front will ensure you get what you need from your supplier.

Effectively communicating with people who use the buildings we manage is critical, yet it is often at the bottom of a long list of priorities we deal with on a daily basis.

Regardless of the root cause, the challenge identified by 78% of facility managers can be solved by defining service levels, implementing performance management and establishing effective contract management.

These three elements should be put in place before implementing an outsourcing relationship, but you can still implement them with your current service provider or plan them for the next renewal or re-tender. In fact, these techniques can even be applied to subcontracted and in-house services.

The environment isn’t just a fad, it’s an important business reality and social responsibility. One of many ways to demonstrate you are green and put into practice real green initiatives is with LEED.

A North American standard, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a set of standards that cover a wide range of building design and operations activities and technical solutions.

LEED Existing Building Operations & Maintenance applies to existing buildings and provides managers of existing buildings with another tool to improve environmental stewardship. We've provided links to the info further below.

Measuring Performance is only part of the job. Tracking, reporting and managing the results is an important part of any KPI framework. The best way to do this is with easy to read dashboard reporting.

KPI's and Dashboards aren't just for outsourced or out-tasked services. They apply to in-house activities as well.

Looking for KPI's to use in your organization? There are many typical KPI's, but to be effective, you need to develop the key ones based on your own organization's objectives. We can help you to develop your own specific KPI's that will meet your needs, give you information you can use to manage and make decisions and drive results. Email us to see how we can help.

Successful outsourcing doesn’t just mean selecting the right service provider; you also need an effective Stay Back Team (SBT) in place. The SBT is the cornerstone of any outsourcing initiative and is an important link between your corporation’s business and the service provider, not only from the onset of the RFP process and ensuing re-organization when the contract is awarded, but also for ongoing management of the services.

Are you wasting a valuable asset? You can't see it, you don't trip on it, but its cost can be substantial. With any other asset, you work hard to make it deliver results for you and senior management would ask why you spent money for nothing.

Yet many Facility and Property Management systems, including CAFM, CMMS, Work Order management and Help Desk systems, aren't being used to their potential after implementation.

Real Estate costs money, and money is the bottom line for any company. Facilities Managers who recognize this fact are in a better position to raise the profile of the Facilities department and contribute to the success of the company by accurately establishing facility related costs and positioning the information for better corporate decisions.

While cost savings remain one of the initial reasons companies hire an outsourcing company to provide managed services for non-core elements of their business, flexibility quickly becomes one of the most evident benefits. The flexibility comes from the secondary reasons companies use managed services: to focus on their core business, access to resources, world-class business processes, additional scope and improved scalability of the services.