BIFM charges facility managers to raise professional standards

The British Institute of Facilities Management has said that as the real estate industry in the country continues to attract local and foreign investment, experts in the sector must raise professional standards.

The Vice Chairman, Mr. Tunde Obileye, who spoke on behalf of the Chairman of BIFM Nigeria, Mr. Wale Odufalu, at the institute’s meeting, said engaging policy makers, was also one of the ways to give the sector prominence.

Obileye charged members to continually promote best practice in facility management.

“With the expanding scope of the real estate sector, Facility Management professionals in Nigeria must begin to show capacity that is commensurate with the growing size of the market,” he said.

The Managing Partner of Ora Egbunike & Associates, Cyprian Konkwo, said one of the challenges facing the FM practice in the country was the low level of awareness and non-adherence to standard practices in critical areas such as Health Safety and Environment and quality management systems.

He urged BIFM Nigeria to support its members with knowledge sharing programmes that could equip the industry with the right policies and standard operating procedures.

A member of the BIFM Nigeria committee, Femi Adejumo, said the current size of the FM market was still largely under-explored.

According to him, the global improvement in FM knowledge is a huge challenge to developing climes such as Nigeria.

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He said, “As FM professionals in Nigeria, we need to begin to probe ourselves to see if we are really living the FM dream and at what distance do we stand from global best practice standards. What is our dream of FM in the country, and are our current professional activities leading in the direction of our aspiration for the market? We must also ask ourselves how much thirst we have for excellence and the confidence we have in organisational leadership to help us reach our goal.

“One of the fastest ways to reach our dream for the sector is to seek how to model our operations after international best practices such that; as foreign direct investors are growing confidence in our real estate market, they can also have confidence in our FM operations.”