by Brianna Crandall — October 15, 2014—A newly released white paper by global facility services provider ISS discusses the evolution of the facilities management (FM) industry from the 1980s to the present and offers some predictions about industry-wide drivers for growth and where the industry is heading in the future.
Perspectives on the FM market development finds that the worldwide FM outsourcing market is expected to grow from $959.2 billion in 2012 to $1.314 trillion in 2018, based on estimates from third-party data. Growth is evident across all markets, from North America and Europe to Latin America and Asia Pacific.
The market is not just expanding; it is also evolving, with growing public- and private-sector demand for FM solutions that are both global and integrated, says ISS. Along with this evolving market, customer expectations are broadening to include more value-added FM services: customers increasingly expect FM providers to assume responsibility (i.e., accept risk transfer) for regulatory and labor law compliance, for example, and to take an active role in advancing the company’s strategic mission.
To this end, FM suppliers have to evolve from service providers to strategic partners. These changing demands require a new way of thinking about the delivery of FM services, as the industry transitions from having a single-service, local outsourcing model to providing integrated services delivered seamlessly to the customer on a national and even global scale.
