Initial costs represent only 15% of a building’s total cost. If you ignore this when developing a building, you are wasting the other 85% of your costs. Keeping the initial capital cost as low as possible seems right, but it’s costing you a lot more over the life of the building. Visibility into the total cost of ownership is one way to address this. Justification and decisions should be based on the total cost of ownership, not just initial costs.

Measuring is the best way to improve what you are doing. Doing it right is the trick.

Benchmarking is a form of measurement – where you measure something else to see where you are lagging, identify the areas and take corrective action. This is the essence of benchmarking. Incorporate this as part of your Health Check, as discussed earlier.

FM Systems are the most important tools a facility and property manager has to manage his or her responsibilities. They provide critical visibility into the operations, information for decision making and analysis and improved processes and efficient services. All of this results in lower costs and better services.

Real estate costs money and money is the bottom line for any company. Facilities managers who recognize this can raise their profile and contribute to the success of the company by accurately establishing facility costs and positioning the information for better corporate decisions.