Implementing Property Management and Facilities systems including CAFM, CMMS, Work Order management and Help Desks can sometimes be the single most important thing you can do to improve service, reduce costs and preserve your assets, including reducing future costs.

Strategic Advisor is not affiliated with any software vendor and has extensive operational experience in large and small facilities portfolios. We understand the operational issues around implementing systems and that's the focus we use when looking at systems - not from the software vendor side.

Unfortunately, many systems are implemented without first understanding why you need it, what you will use it for and how it will integrate with the rest of your operations, including effective processes and training to ensure your staff buy-in and support the initiative. This includes recognizing the resources required, providing refresher training, auditing the system and the processes some time after implementation to make sure they are working as intended and making the appropriate changes.

The biggest problem is not establishing what information you really need and how you will use it to improve your operations. Built-in reports are often not enough. The information you get from your system is perhaps the most important feature along with better process management.

Using the Software Vendor or Software Consultants with ties to vendors will often short-circuit the important front-end process you need to do - before you engage the software company. This is assessing your needs, developing your list of requirements, integrating it with your current practices, staffing and resources and then seeking the system that matches. Another errror is implementing just a software system. You need to implement a complete business process - the software is just one part. If you don't, you are likely to fail.

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These FM systems provide you with better processes, control over work activity and most importantly, information you can use to manage resources, make decisions about your operations and use to support and justify business cases and initiatives.

There are many different types of systems sold by a wide variety of system vendors and system consultants. These provide services such as Asset Management, Lease Administration, Help Desk services, Preventive Maintenance, Corrective Maintenance and Work Order management, Capital Planning, Financial Management, Chargeback and Project Management.

They provide services in Real Estate Management, Occupancy Management, Maintenance Management, Asset Management, Financial and Performance Management and Building Systems Management. There are many types and names of systems. These are some common examples:

• Computer Aided Facility Management ( CAFM )
• Computerized Maintenance Management System ( CMMS )
• Computer Aided Facility Management ( CAFM )
• Facility Information Management System ( FIMS )
• Integrated Facilities Management System ( IFM S)
• Building Automation Systems / Building Management Systems ( BAS / BMS )
• Energy Monitoring & Control Systems ( EMCS )
• Integrated Workplace Management Systems ( IWMS )

There is an impressive array of vendors and software consultants who provide these systems. They include Mainboss, Maximo, SewoodFM, FM System, Archibus, Maintenizer, Maintenance Connections, Megamation, Meridian Systems, Skire, Planon, Bricsnet, Accruent, Manhattan Software, Tririga, Archibus and many more. They range from single dedicated functions to fully integrated systems and from desktop based to server based to Web based access.

With Strategic Advisor's extensive Facility and Property Management experience in all aspects of managing facilities, you get un-biased, experienced help developing your needs, managing the implementation and follow-ing up after implementation to ensure the system functions and is being used properly. Depending on where you are in the process, we can help you develop the business case to sell it to your upper management.

Finding solutions,developing ideas, brainstorming or holding an annual staff session is easier with an external facilitator to draw out results and shephard discussion, giving your better value, less wasted time and full participation.

With Strategic Advisor's Facility and Property Management experience in all aspects of managing facilities, facilitatied sessions with Strategic Advisor will get better results than if you have a facilitator not familiar with your business. Not only do we understand the issues and provide credibility to your staff, they will be able to relate better to our facilitation approach.

As a Facilitator, we will work with you to identify and focus on the purpose of the meeting, develop exercises and approaches to draw out the ideas and constructive comments that help you solve problems or shape future direction.We will also provide feedback and compile the results for you, minimizing your effort and maximizing your time.

We can also lead a short teamwork and teambuilding exercise as part of the facilitation session to clearly demonstrate the value of working together and accepting everyone's input.

Our operational, planning and implementation experience in addition to our industry experience and involvement is a valuable combination to help you get results from your event or meeting.

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If you want to improve or change your organization or your facilities and buildings, you need a solid strategic plan that maps the requirements, benefits, risks,  issues and implementation plan so you can get approval and move forward.

Developing a strategic plan is time consuming and the results hard to justify without input from outside the organization. Strategic Advisor can help you develop your plan, including facilitating the process and developing the documentation, by working closely with you while you continue to manage your responsibilities.

Our operational, planning and implementation experience in addition to our industry experience and involvement is a valuable combination to help you successfully develop and implement a strategic plan for your operations or facilities.

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Effective Business Cases that get the results you need are not easy. They take research, analysis and strategy, not to mention a well crafted and written document that gets the point across and influences your boss, board of directors, council, CFO and anyone else who has the ability to accept or reject your business case.

Strategic Advisor works with you to establish a strategy that will get your business case approved. We do the research, gather industry and internal information, do benchmarking and conduct the operational and financial analysis to back up your proposal.

We then craft the business case to present the information in a compelling way that influences the reader and gets the results you need.

We can even help you develop and deliver a presentation that backs up your business case. 

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Is your FM organization and systems giving you what you need? Are you up-to-date on the leading practices and what you could be doing differently?

Do you have a good handle on your real estate assets with solid information you can use to make strategic decisions that maximize the value of your assets while minimizing costs?

A review can help you fine-tune or completely revamp your organization and systems. With in-house and outsourcing experience managing large portfolios working with the largest FM outsource provider in Canada, you get Best Practices and balanced advice from Strategic Advisor.

You can get started by using our free Mini FM Assessment Checklist. It gives you a high-level comparison of your own operations with best practices. You can download a PDF version or use it on-line.

After using the Mini FM Assessment Checklist, contact us about how we can help you with a further assessment and implementation of additional best practices that provide improved service, efficiency and reduced cost to your organization.

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Outsourcing can be a viable business model. Your organization may benefit from outsourcing, however your success depends on effective analysis, decision-making and implementation. 

Strategic Advisor's experience delivering both in-house and outsourced services, including implementation, will ensure your assessment of outsourcing as a business solution considers all the issues. Whether you choose to initiate an outsourcing contract or not, we can help make your organization more successful.

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Strategic planning implies looking at the future, but most managers are so busy dealing with operational issues, personnel issues, customer service and the current year's bottom line that they don't have time to plan the future, even if they have thought about it and have great ideas.

Strategic Advisor can help you with your ideas, put your Strategic Plan on paper and help you implement it for future success.

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Transitioning can include internal organizational changes, implementation of systems, outsourcing, out-tasking or subcontracting initiatives.

Transitioning and Change Management takes planning and effort to do it right with minimal disruption and maximum impact, whether it's an organizational change, implementation of new systems/processes, first time outsourcing / out-tasking initiative or a change from one provider to another.

Since your current resources are actively managing their responsibilities, adding this task to an existing resource is risky.

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Asset Management is an overall strategy to manage your facilities and maintain asset value, minimize costs and ensure your facilities serve your core business effectively.

As a bundled service, Asset Management delivers results by integrating all aspects of managing properties using expertise and knowledge most companies do not have internally. It provides overall management of the facility maintenance, capital planning, repair and replacement strategies, energy cost reduction strategies and more.

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Managing performance is the most important thing you can do to improve your service and processes. If you don't measure results, you don't have solid management information that enables you to make decisions and improvements that lead to your success.

The problem is identifying the right measures that won't drive the wrong behaviours and then effectively reporting, analyzing and acting upon the results.

Simply implementing measures and KPI's won't get you the results you need. A well developed Performance Management system that includes processes and management tools is critical to provide you with what you need to be successful.

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Well structured Request For Proposals (RFP) get the best results for your contracting initiative. They are harder to develop than it seems, and often internal staff are too busy with other initiatives or are too close to the services to effectively develop the RFP's.

We help you identify your goals and objectives, set a strategy that will meet those objectives, develop the process, the best questions, identify information you need to provide the bidders, establish service levels or output specifications, establish assessment methods and set performance management tools.

Our approach focusses on getting the service you need for your operations first and then getting the right price, not the other way around. You will live with the results, so it must meet your needs, not simply follow a rigid procurement process.

Our background and experience enable us to identify the right questions to ask the bidders to distinguish them from each other and clearly identify the superior bid.

We work with you or your procurement department to ensure you get what you need.

For a Free one-page primer on more effective RFP's, click Here to download.

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Consistent and effective results require well developed policies and procedures that not only meet the needs of the service, they are easy to understand and implement.

Many policies and procedures have not been looked at from an objective perspective to assess their applicability and understandability. In addition, they are often written in dense, difficult to understand language and structures that don't convey the key message to the reader.

Our experience with operations procedures and policies make it easier for you to develop and implement them for better results. In addition, our strength with communications will add significant value to your team

(see www.fmeducation.ca for information on our workshops on Strategic Writing and Strategic Presentations).

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Strategic Advisor develops and implements surveys for Facility and Property Managers. This includes Customer Satisfaction Surveys, Employee Satisfaction surveys, Tenant opinion surveys and more.

Survey services include development of surveys, administration of on-line surveys and analysis of survey results, including help with action plans to address any issues that are raised.

We conduct surveys through our affiliated website. Please visit SurveyFM.com for more information and to participate in our public surveys and polls.

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Get in-house training from a Facility Management expert on key service and productivity topics such as Customer Serivice, Writing and Communications, FM policies and procedures, Supplier Performance Management, Developing RFP's responding to RFP's and more.

We provide seminars and workshops to Corporate FM and PM organizations as well as presentations and seminars to related Associations and conferences.

Training and education information is available on our affiliated website.

For Information on our Seminars and Workshops, Click here

Communicating clearly is important to get your ideas across, influence others, look professional and get better results. Yet most Facility Managers and Property Managers have never had formal training in this important area.

We provide a range of services that fit any need and ensure your reports, presentations, articles and more are effectively getting your message across. Unlike other companies, we can provide services that are geared towards Facility and Property Management staff with examples that fit their needs and an understanding of their typical communication requirements.

We also have formal training workshops available on Strategic Writing and Strategic Presentations. For more information on workshops, please visit www.fmeducation.ca

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Customer service is just as important in an internal service delivery model as it is with externally facing services. It's often even harder to achieve, however, and can have a significant impact on the customer satisfaction food chain, since what you deliver affects the productivity and success of those receiving your services.

Whether your customers are tenants in a commercial building, employees and departments in a corporate environment, strategy and initiatives related to customer service can improve results, retention and your reputation.

Strategic Advisor can help you assess your processes, implement better customer service techniques and implement Customer Satisfaction surveys that enable you to assess your results and make changes that your customers will appreciate.

Our experience includes winning the BOMA Pinnacle award for Customer Service in 2004 for an employer, increasing customer satisfaction in a large outsourced facility portfolio and giving presentations and writing articles on Cusomer Service, including how to develop a customer satisfaciton survey.

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Are you winning all the business you should be with your proposals? If you are a supplier to the FM industry, Michel's background will help you developing a winning proposal.

Responding to proposals can tax your existing organization and you may not have the resources or experience to get it done efficiently and effectively. For proposals, it's not just the writing, it's also developing an effective strategy for the response and ensuring your proposal sells the value your company can provide, representing you properly.I have seen many proposals that don't accurately reflect the company's ability.

Lowering Total Costs and getting the best possible value from your Real Estate and Facilities is critically important with any organization and is  one of your key responsibilities, while at the same time preserving services and being a good steward for your assets. There are you as a Property Manager or Facility Manager can achieve savings that are are sustainable and have little or no impact on real service levels, service quality or asset quality and preservation.

Our experience operating buildings and facilities in large distributed portfolios both in-house and as an outsourcing provider as well as our external, non-biased viewpoint provide us with experience in reducing costs. We have found that having information and analysis of your opportunities is the key, however there are a number of other areas, often used by successful outsourcing companies, that can be used - some of them simply mean working differently with your suppliers, for instance, rather than simply grinding their prices down.

Examples include:

• Analyzing spend and cost patterns to identify opportunities.
• Implement more rigorous assessment methods for capital budgeting and expenditures, including using systems and information to make better decisions about replacement.
• Assessing frequency and work activities to match your actual needs and conditions, not simply use industry guidelines and manufacturers recommendations as-is.
• Re-assessing tendering/contracting methods and specs to get best value.
• Identifying opportunities within existing contracts to reduce costs.
• Consolidation of suppliers and contractors nationally, regionally and by expanded scope. This can include outsourcing.
  
• Assessing work activities, specifications, systems and suppler vs. in-house division of work to identify opportunities and reduce waste and duplication.

Many of our individual services can help you reduce costs, however a customized service scope will usually give you the best results, so please contact us to discuss your needs, or even help identify your needs, and we can build the right services for you, whether for small, short projects, or larger long term projects.

Contact Michel now by email or phone to discuss. Click here to visit our contact page.

Improving Efficiency will help reduce costs and give you and your facilities or property team more time to deal with long-term issues instead of spending wasted time on inefficient processes, cumbersome systems and minor issues.

Our experience in operating buildings and facilities in large distributed portfolios both in-house and as an outsourcing provider as well as our external, non-biased viewpoint will help find areas that need improvement then do the analysis and research necessary, develop strategies, establish implementation plans and implement with you. Whatever Real Estate you are responsible for, you can make improvements.

Examples include:

• Pre-implementation strategy and planning for new systems, including CAFM, CMMS, Help Desk and other FM Systems. Figure out what you need before you buy the system.
  
• System implementation, training, auditing.
• Assessing current systems and processes not being used effectively.
• Conducting a Facility Management Assessment Program / Audit on your operations to compare to leading practices, identify opportunities and help establish your strategic plan. This can include benchmarking.
  
• Develop and implement efficient processes within your organization for all facility and real estate operations functions, including work order handling, preventive maintenance, capital planning and justifications, etc.
  
• Facilitating meetings with your team to identify solutions and enhance teamwork, building on their strengths.
• Provide training and re-training on existing or new processes and systems.
  

Many of our individual services can help you improve efficiency, however a customized service scope will usually give you the best results, so please contact us to discuss your needs, or even help identify your needs, and we can build the right services for you, whether for small, short projects, or larger long term projects.

Contact Michel now by email or phone to discuss. Click here to visit our contact page.

Enhancing Services for your facilities and real estate assets are important to your group as well as the core business of the organization you serve. Facilities are a key part of any organization's success and good service, whether it's to commercial tenants or to internal staff, departments, production or other occupants, will help your organization succeed while increasing the reputation of you and your facilities department.

Our experience in operating buildings and facilities in large distributed portfolios both in-house and as an outsourcing provider as well as our external, non-biased viewpoint will help you enhance service in all areas, providing your team with better tools not only to deliver good service, but to monitor and adjust to improve results.

Examples include:

• Customer service Training for your technicians, managers and admin staff.
  
• Developing customer service related procedures and policies as well as modifying existing proceedures to make delivering customer service easier.
  
• Communication training, both for meetings, presentations and written communication - your team's image and ability to communicate are important to great service and to your reputation. Communicating well also helps you get approval for your business cases, capial justifications, initiatives and ideas.
  
• Customer / Occupant / Tenant Satisfaction surveys - developing questions and conducting surveys, including analysis and action plans to enable you to improve services - this is part of a good quality assurance plan.
  
• Operational review to identify improvements that will enhance customer service, including leading practices.
• Review your current FM Systems and processes to ensure they are effective, your staff are able to use them to their benefit to give good results without wasting costs or resources. This includes CMMS ,CAFM, Help Desk and other FM systems.
  

Many of our individual services can help you develop a stronger Customer Service approach among your staff and with your processes and systems, however a customized service scope will usually give you the best results, so please contact us to discuss your needs, or even help identify your needs, and we can build the right services for you, whether they are small and short projects, or larger long term projects.

Contact Michel now by email or phone to discuss. Click here to visit our contact page.