Increase your communications with vendors to reduce your FM issues and costs.

The sharing of ideas and feedback is one of the most overlooked approaches to reducing R&M spend. The difference between an invested and engaged facilities maintenance partner versus a vendor that is purely reactive is significant. As the quote says, “Good is the enemy of great”. Are you taking full advantage of a potential ‘great’ vendor or are you accepting of their ‘good’ performance? Taking the time out of your busy schedule involves a commitment to achieve greatness with your R&M program.

To streamline your processes and optimize job completion performance, it requires a conscious effort to make time to collaborate with your service partners. Given the hectic life of a multi-site facility manager, working in a silo can easily and unknowingly occur.  If you can make any time to break from this habit, this is a simple and strategic approach that will effectively improve operations, KPIs and reduce overall expenses.

Planning to convene with your vendors isn’t necessarily to be focused on individual project statuses and updates. While job tracking is an essential component, the real focus of these scheduled calls should be to share ongoing experiences and information. Sharing about each other’s challenges and goals will place you both on the same page and capitalize on a truly aligned vision. This should nurture thoughtfulness and ideation long after the call has ended.

Consider creating an established frequency of meetings with your key vendors. The ROI on this investment of your time is proven to yield actionable data that will fuel better practices. This will serve to provide better care for your company’s real estate assets. Additionally, it will cement longer, more meaningful relationships with your ‘great’ partners and possibly filter out your not-so-great vendors.