Buildotech caught up with Tony Keane, CAE, President and CEO, IFMA, and Jon Seller, Second Vice Chair, Board of Directors, IFMA when they visited India recently. The US headquartered International Facility Management Association guides and develops facility management professionals worldwide..

In the last couple of years, IFMA has been working towards globalizing its activities and programs to give the Association a more global perspective.

  Over the past year, the Association has made a lot of progress on its various global programs and initiatives. Particularly, the opening up of two new chapters in Shanghai and Africa and also increasing the number of chapters in India, besides widening the education program from a U.S.-centric base to a global one. We have introduced two credential programs (the IFMA SFP Credential Program™ and the IFMA FMP Credential Program™) based on the global job task analysis formulated by people from 62 different countries. We will also be redoing the CFM within the next 18 months to base it on the global job task analysis model.

IFMA is widening its reach to various countries…

  Individuals certified by IFMA are now working in about 32 different countries. The Association and its credentials are getting increased recognition and acceptance internationally and will continue to as we take a more global approach. The organization has grown internationally in terms of number of memberships and 23% of our chapters are outside the United States. In the last five years, the number of members in the Asian region has grown by more than 62%. At the same time, our overall membership has reached a new record with more than 20,500 members.

  As far as the membership criteria goes, the organizations have to be obviously related either from an end-user perspective that makes them professional or they have to be an associate member where they are providing services or products to the industry.

Europe and America being an established market there are set educational standards. How is IFMA working on matching standards in India and China?

  In India, it’s more of a partnership system where we work together with the local chapters and partner with other training institutions. We are also planning to work with universities by introducing new accredited degree program schools, which provide IFMA-approved professional training based around the facility management core competencies.

How do you look at India as far as the facility management industry is concerned?

  I believe that India has a long way to go. Usually, in countries that are growing at a global scale, we see maturity building up in different industries.

  One interesting thing is that more than anywhere else, in India, I (Jon) always get asked to rate facility performance from 1 to 10. A couple of times I had to rate the performances at ‘3’. There is a desire to do right and an overwhelming desire to be doing the same as the rest of the world and to be respected for it. But often, the discipline to get to the end gets lost.

  Since moving to Hong Kong in 2000, I have delivered projects in 23 countries -- these range from Japan to the Middle East and when you rate the maturity in facility management Industry across the region, you may see Indonesia as the least mature while in Japan technology and maintenance is a way of life.

  In Australia, the facility management market and level of technical skills are mature. What drives a lot of maturity in the business is the cost of labour. So where you have countries with low cost of labour, sometimes it is easy to throw labour at a problem rather than perhaps try and automate processes. I see that even in China the cost of labour is increasing dramatically. The point is that it’s coming from a very low cost base and I do wonder whether we will see the same here as India matures and it’s certainly maturing fast.

  We will start to see the cost of labour around buildings rising as the competencies, skills and maturity of people and their knowledge also rise up the same curve.

  We have heard from many different service providers that hiring and recruiting labour is one of the biggest challenges in India. It’s not that there are no people to hire but there is no consistent way to determine their skills level. Many service providers have shown interest in IFMA offering its educational programs in India, so that with the designations we offer, they at least get a floor to start measuring people’s skills or abilities.

What are your plans for India, and how are you planning to take the education programs forward?

  The Bangalore Chapter of IFMA has been operational for many years. We are now looking at revitalizing and getting it back on the path forward. There are also plans to start chapters in Mumbai and in Delhi. We look forward to getting those chapters on stream by 2012. More chapters will start coming up as interests in the Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore operations continue to grow.

  With strong research and benchmarking aspects attached to IFMA, we look at providing more benchmarking data into our systems in India, so that there won’t be any inequity compared to other global levels. Given the unique situation in India, in terms of continual development, right now it is still cheaper to fill labour in places of technology whereas at the other end of the continuum, it is cheaper to put technology in place instead of labour. So while benchmarking, one has to make sure that it is against a similar type of organization in order to maximize performance.

  Last month, we just launched a new online research portal -- BEX, the Benchmarking Exchange Program. Over a time, this will allow the companies in India to input their data in local currencies and in local standards and then they will be able to draw research reports from that. Thus, with such reports, we can develop a model for India and be able to compare performances and performance targets as well as compare it to international standards. Through all our programs, especially best practices, we can communicate and share global best practices.

  We rely on the local members and companies to basically take those forward and adapt them in the local and regional markets.

Industry Councils

  We are working with our chapters and looking at other programmes in terms of our council, which are industry specific or with specific interest versus our chapters which are geographic specific. We will look at how to involve India in the industry councils so that they get the opportunity to participate and share best practices on a global network.

  These could be industries such as banking, legal system, health care, hospitality, data sellers, etc. that are a good fit. There is a big thing coming up in areas of interest like the casino industry, the gaming industry, museums, city and country clubs. So there is a wide variety and I think there is also an opportunity to look at some of the unique aspects of India and the industries here. There are 16 councils, five communities and two areas of interest right now.

Talking of Sustainability & Energy…

  The whole aspect of sustainability involves the lifecycle of the asset. But in terms of energy management and energy utilization, sustainability becomes far more important in India, as energy costs and utilization will continue to rise rapidly. So the facility management component of that is in a strong strategic position to be able to impact the change within the organizations. We will be looking at how to provide those aspects as well.

  IFMA has the World Workplace Conference & Expo, where we have a sustainability product section and 60 different educational courses covering topics impacting the modern workplace, so attendees can learn new ideas and best practices and network. Those topics cover areas from building integration modeling to sustainability to basic operations to maintenance practices to new technologies to work space design and the whole gamut. We are trying to bring together people and topics that are of value to our members.

  We have a new credential as well – IFMA’s sustainability credential, the Sustainability Facility Professional, or SFP, designation – which intends to provide recognition to those who want to become confident in sustainability within the FM business. That was released about four months ago and its rolling out now. It’s available online.

  Obviously, we cannot implement all the programme overnight and it is going take a long time..