What Abdullah Oladipo, Savvy Capire’s Operations Manager, tells Infoprations about sustainable facilities management, cities in Nigeria by 2030

Facilities Management is one of the industries that enhance built environment and meaningful living. How would you describe the contributions of FM in Nigeria to business and individual’s growth?

FM is still in its infancy stage.  In the World, it is about 35 years while it has been practiced for about 18 years. So, many people do not know what FM is all about. However, with the help of companies providing core facilities management solutions, International Facilities Management Association Nigeria’s efforts and our recent Association of Facility Management Practitioners, Nigeria Bill passed by the federal law makers, there is hope that people and businesses we understand the essence of FM and appreciate it more.

FM has not really affect Nigeria businesses, the way it supposed to. In fact, about 10% of Nigeria businesses practice the real Facilities Management, especially multinationals that have known the importance of it. Our local companies still incorporate FM as a corporate service in the administration department. For a company that wants its facilities to be sustainable and play critical roles towards corporate and personnel’s objectives attainment, this practice is not appropriate.  

FM encompasses multiple disciplines to ensure functionality, comfort, safety and efficiency of the built environment by integrating people, process, place and technology. So, for now we are moving towards a revolutionary change of Nigerians and business to recognize and practice FM with international benchmarks.

What have been the significant contributions of your company in Nigeria and other locations in Africa?

We have been very active in FM awareness, and as you know we are fully into facilities management, I always tell Engineers and Architects or valuers, that we are not here to take jobs because we are not expert in those field, but we are here to question and provoke their thoughts in their designs and installations so that we can easily maintained and allow built environment to remains safe and serviceable throughout its design life.

Most of our clients have praised us and referred us to other clients. We have been able to reduce their cost, deployed experts to their sites, procured best valued materials with IE specifications and the lowest price anyone could find. In terms of energy consumption, we have managed and still managing their energy effectively and efficiently. Lastly, we have been a major player in waterproofing works in Lagos, the largest African commercial market, solving water leakages, flakes and Damps issues.

For our other locations in Africa, our goal is to be the leading FM in the whole of Africa in the next 8years. We partner with some local vendors so as to be more economic in our dealings and we are serving our clients with all the management attentions.

How do you see the future of FM in the next 10 years, especially in Lagos and Abuja compare to Nairobi and Accra?

Of course!  FM would be a major player in the industry of built environment in few years to come. 15% of the total cost for a life time of a building goes to the initial building and all the engineering related activities while 85% goes to maintenance. But, in Nigeria, this is not always obtainable like what we have seen in advanced countries like the United States, United Kingdom and South Africa, where maintenance of buildings is being prioritised.

A building is expected to last for at least 50 years throughout its design life. If the total cost of constructing, operating and maintaining the building is N350 million, only 15% of the cost goes to design, plan and erecting the building which is N52, 500,000. This is what the Chief Executive Officers and Captains of industries focus on, neglecting the whole junk of about N298 million of maintenance cost.”

Failure to pledge the remaining 85% to operations, maintenance, repair or replacement of materials always subject building to environmental, political, economic and social forces, which would have significant impact on the health and well-being of people and technologies in the building.

There is every propensity for FM industry in Nigeria to be at par with those in Ghana, South Africa and Kenya when FM practitioners work together with other built environment practitioners during building designs. We need to provoke the thoughts of the Engineers, Architects and other professionals on their designs model, processes, and outcomes.

By the time FM’s practitioners are recognised as part of key professionals for building and other facilities construction, FM will grow at its own pace in Nigeria, mostly in Lagos and Abuja, where new buildings and facilities emerge every day. Besides, we really need to go sustainable way in terms of factoring environmental, social and political issues in the project concept, in the way of building and maintaining facilities towards rapid growth.

By 2030, global leaders want people and businesses to be in sustainable cities. Considering the present growth of FM in Nigeria and few years to attain sustainable cities goal, how do you think FM companies could be part of the stakeholders that will contribute to the goal realization?

Sustainable cities can only be achieved with green buildings and Smart buildings, at the moment we only have 2 building with LEED certified, hence we might not meet the target of the global leaders.  For now, we need to start building smart buildings, a building driven by technologies.  May be, in few decades, such reality could be seen. By then, FM management training institutes and schools will need to start training on smart technologies and facilities maintenance. Beyond this, sustainable cities could also be possible when companies and practitioners embrace smart technologies, people and processes. In sustainable cities as envisage by the global leaders, facilities must be in smart conditions, connecting with the people seamlessly. To achieve this, FM companies in Nigeria must move beyond appropriating analogue technologies and conventional processes to smart devices and processes that linked with people on-site and off-site digitally.

Do you subscribe to the notion that FM industry is knowledge based more than resource based?

Yes, the FM industry is a knowledge base, and a lot of FM practitioners are yet to be aware of that. They see FM as just the repairing and servicing of equipment. The industry has transitioned to more of business management in alignment with built environment. Apart from this, every FM practitioner needs to be knowledgeable about specific processes and procedures required for solving clients’ issues. The approach of having many people with different skills and knowledge, solving a single issue has gone. FM has been redefined in advanced world to having one personnel with an integrated skills and knowledge for effective sustainable solutions delivery. That is why it is necessary for FM companies in Nigeria to train and retrain their employees. Practitioners also need to learn, relearn and unlearn every time to align with the best global practices.