‘Entrepreneurs yet to fully tap potential in facility management’
Adama Salihu is the chief executive officer of Clayfields and Harrow, a facility management company. In this interview with ODINAKA ANUDU, Salihu, who is a serial entrepreneur, says the facility management industry is a market full of opportunities.
What does facility management really entail?
In a very simplistic way, facility management is about building maintenance — from electrical to water systems to plumbing to waste disposal. It’s what makes a building works and, literally speaking, every building needs it. Everybody does it, just that we may not know. When you call your carpenter to come and fix your door, you’ve done building maintenance. At every point in time, there is something that needs to be maintained in your home and office. Facility management is very broad. If you bring it to the commercial realm, it’s more than that. It goes beyond the physical structures. You could expand it to administrative tasks, talking about the receptionist in the office, the guard and so on. The concept of facility management is borderless. As much as people’s lives are being touched in terms of comfort, facility management is taking place.
How big is the industry in Nigeria?
It’s a developing profession. What we used to know was estate management, which many people go to the university to study. Facility management is an evolving sector unlike other renowned professions like law, medicine and so on. As it evolves, you’ll find out that it is broad and huge. It’s a multibillion dollar industry worldwide. Abroad, you would hear of facility management companies signing contracts that run into millions of dollars. Even in Nigeria, it’s a multibillion naira industry because it is taking place in every living space you can imagine. From the security man who opens the gate for you to where you park your car, facility management is taking place. As you go to the restroom, it is taking place; as you switch on the lights and put them off, it is also taking place. So, if you look at it, you can imagine the magnitude of the industry.
Are you saying there are lots of opportunities for entrepreneurs interested in coming into the sector?
I believe so. The beauty of the profession is that you don’t have to come into the industry and do everything. As someone focuses on plumbing, another person can focus on fixing the air conditioners. It’s almost impossible for one person to do the job end-to-end, just like in every industry. For instance, in this company, we don’t do security jobs, but we work with them. If we want to include provision of security to our job, then we would need to apply to the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps. So, in most cases, we work with third parties. You can choose a line of service and you can succeed there. It’s a market with a lot of opportunities, especially now that there are many building estates springing up. However, what will fast-track the growth of the industry is if we have cogent laws that stipulate how things are done.
What challenges do you face in running a facility management company in the country?
I will categorise the challenges into two broad perspectives. First, let me talk about the challenges of running a facility management, and second, as a business. Like every business, facility management also has its own challenges, especially in terms of pricing. Particularly during this economic recession, people are slashing contract sums. Other challenges include inadequate manpower, spare parts problem and foreign exchange. Many of the things being used, such as the air conditioner and its spare parts, are imported. How many are made in Nigeria? But mainly, there is problem of talent. Most of the people we deal with are technicians, that is, the people who fix the water system, the electrical system, carpentry, tiling, bricklaying and so on. You and I know that technical schools have taken a nosedive in the country. So, lack of pool of talents is the first and greatest challenge.
The second challenge I see is our clients’ inability to understand the profession. Some people think facility management is just for you to come and clean and park dirt and so when they see a contract running into millions of naira, they scream, ‘What! Is it not just cleaning you’re doing?’ There is a simplistic assumption of what the business means, so when some see a contract of, say N50m, they think the company CEO will pocket N45m and spend only N5m on the work. I sometimes laugh. I liken facility management to construction. Sometimes when a contractor gets a contract of N1 billion, you will be shocked how much he’s left with after finishing the project. It could be less than five per cent of the money. I’m not saying the profit margin is terrible, but it’s not an amount that can blow our minds.
In facility management also, if you go below a certain threshold in terms of cost, you would not get the quality you’re looking for. I’ve heard people who said they almost slept at Heathrow Airport (in London) due to the neatness and aura of the environment. If you did research, you would be surprised at how much millions of pounds are being spent to maintain the facility. If we are to spend a quarter of that to maintain what we have here in Nigeria, I’m sure some people would say the facility management company are thieves. What I’m saying is that it costs money to get that kind of quality service.
Another challenge is the importation of spare parts as we don’t produce them here. In the last 12 to 15 months, it’s been a disaster because as the foreign exchange problem lingered, prices have skyrocketed.
There is also a challenge with the regulation of contracts. Up till today, there isn’t a clear-cut road as to how to treat someone who defaults in paying for services rendered. Fine, the law says you can withdraw your service, but it is not well-defined, especially as we begin to have combined living spaces.
As a woman, what would you say has made you successful and kept you going in the business world?
It’s grit, first and foremost. That’s the staying power and I’m not talking about physical power. I tell my staff that knowledge is very important. Sometimes you see people who look very fragile, yet they’ve got brains and are more impactful than someone who looks big and strong. Grit is the ability to survive and it’s more than determination. It’s about being smart. Determination is what you do to survive. It’s about doing something to survive, not just determining. I’m always willing to do what it takes to keep on going. Especially as a woman, in a male-dominated world of ours, you need grit. I was telling a young lady in her early 20s who just joined the company that as a woman, she needed twice the efforts of a man to succeed. To survive in business as a woman is tough and to survive in a male-dominated industry like facility management is tougher.
Tell us one big mistake you’ve made in this business and how you rectified it.
There is one that haunts me up till tomorrow. About eight years ago, I got a young man in his 20s and I made him a site manager. I was impressed with him. He just finished his National Youth Service Corps and he had a good attitude to work. Things got more interesting when I realised he went to the same school with my nephew, so it created a sort of bond. I helped him at catching up quickly in the business and he was smart. One day, I looked at him and asked how he got second class lower or so despite being smart. He said his father was paralysed and he was the only son. He said he found himself in a situation of having to go home often due to his father’s sickness. He literally became the father of the house. That affected his studies. How sad, I said, and we brushed it off. A year or two into working with me, his father died and he went to see his family. A day or two later, I was expecting him to be back, but he didn’t return. I got very upset and a week after then, the heat was just too much and he resigned. I felt angrier. But you know we get more mature as we grow, so a year later, I realised I underplayed how traumatised the young man was. I should have realised that being the only son of his father, he had naturally stepped into the shoes of his late father to provide comfort for his mother and sisters. It must have been tough for him, which at that time I didn’t realise. I didn’t see his pain then, I was only thinking about work that needed to be done. He had needed my support at that time. From a people management angle, it still haunts me. Why it’s a mistake or regret is that if I faced such a scenario today, I would handle it differently. He still calls me and has a lot of respect for me and it makes me feel worse sometimes. I’ve never discussed this with him, but one day, if I have an opportunity to sit with him face-to-face, I will apologise to him.
What more do you think should be done to enable women to unleash their potential in our society?
Everyone has a role to play in girl child empowerment. This will happen if we make it happen. It’s not enough to say the government should do this or that. It’s also high time the media started showcasing successful women rather than focusing on men alone. Women who have broken barriers should also mentor young girls and spur them to success. Where we’ve made mistakes, we should tell them so they could avoid them.
ODINAKA ANUDU