by Brianna Crandall — August 6, 2014—The British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) continues to expand the global reach of its qualifications in facilities management (FM) with the announcement of the first BIFM Recognised Centre in the Middle East region. Through a new partnership, leading retailer M.H. Alshaya Co. will be delivering the BIFM Qualifications in Facilities Management at Levels 2 and 3.
M.H. Alshaya Co. is the franchise operator for over 70 of the world’s leading retail brands, and operates over 2,600 stores in markets across the Middle East, Russia, Turkey and Europe.
Commenting on the partnership, Nic Beesley, SVP of human resources at M.H. Alshaya, said, “It is essential that we maintain the standards of our stores to the high standard and quality that our customers expect and our partnership with BIFM, which is the leading professional body for facilities management, will support this goal. Through the online learning and assessment solution offered by BIFM, we will be able to enhance the learning and development we are able to offer our FM team, as well as provide globally recognized qualifications in facilities management which will contribute to their overall career development with us.”
With the BIFM’s medium-term strategy focusing on building a global facilities management community, this latest expansion of international interest through qualifications in FM is a further step toward professionalizing FM worldwide. Instrumental to this are the FM Professional Standards which BIFM launched earlier this year, forming a global competence model for the profession.
Alshaya joins the growing number of internationally recognized training and qualification centers: Portobello, Ireland, in 2011 and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia’s (UTM) Faculty of Geoinformation and Real Estate in South East Asia in 2013. BIFM provides a list of Recognised Centres around the U.K. and elsewhere on its Web site.
