Canon reveals facilities management challenges, opportunities

by Brianna Crandall — May 16, 2016 — Facilities management (FM) executives said that maintaining high customer satisfaction was both their most important as well as their most challenging responsibility when it comes to delivering high-quality support services, according to a survey report recently issued by Canon Business Process Services.

Yet a significant number of respondents also indicated that they do not measure customer satisfaction for their site operations, which indicates that measuring such key performance indicators might be an important opportunity for some organizations.

The Canon survey, “Achieving Service Excellence: Facilities Management Challenges and Opportunities in 2016,” was designed to help FM professionals better clarify these kinds of opportunities as well as give executives a chance to share their most urgent priorities and uncover what approaches might help drive excellence in delivering facilities support services.

Among the tools available to them, executives specified that FMs applications have the greatest impact on their ability to improve support services. However, using tools for tracking the delivery of supplies or services as well as Six Sigma improvement projects represent opportunities for some companies that may want to take action in these areas.

Besides providing insight on these and other findings, the survey report sheds light on the importance of supporting corporate sites by effectively managing what Canon terms corporate campus logistics. This is a specialized service that ensures the efficient flow of materials and people at large multi-building office campuses serving thousands of employees. It is a complex discipline that includes coordinating shipping and receiving, which survey respondents deem as highly important but also very challenging to supervise.

The survey report, “Achieving Service Excellence: Facilities Management Challenges and Opportunities in 2016,” is available to download from the Canon Web site with a brief registration. In addition to the report, Canon also presented a Webinar: “Facilities Management Challenges and Opportunities in 2016” highlighting insights on specific survey findings, which is also available on the company’s Web site.