More opportunities coming as AMFacilities pushes FM industry growth frontiers
Slowly but steadily, facilities management is assuming the status of a thriving industry in Nigeria, increasingly spreading its influence and acceptance beyond traditional clients in oil and gas industry to other industries such as telecoms, financial services, prime residential and industrial real estate space.
Observably, the industry, especially in the past five years, has seen tremendous improvement not only in quality and standard of service offering, but also in the number of professionals taking interest in the practice, making it a multi-disciplinary profession.
In various ways and at various levels of interest and capabilities, the practitioners have committed to making all of this happen. One of such companies is Alpha Mead Facilities Management and Services Company (AMFacilities) which, right from inception, has invested time, resources and energy to drive awareness and deepen understanding of the many possibilities and opportunities in this industry.
“We have seen a steady growth in the awareness and confidence level in FM professional practice over these years. Also quality and standards of practice have improved significantly, and open competition is now thriving in the market”, Femi Akintunde, MD/CEO, AMFacilities, told journalists at a press conference he addressed as part of activities to mark the World FM Day coming up tomorrow.
World FM Day is an initiative led by Global FM – a worldwide alliance of member-centered FM organisations, providing leadership in the advancement of the profession. AMFacilities initiated and has been solely sponsoring this event annually over the past five years and Akintunde attributed the industry’s success story in Nigeria to these annual events.
The theme of this year’s event is, ‘Enabling Positive Experiences’ which, for Alpha Mead, is a strategic framework not just for commemorating the day, but also as an expression of the whole essence of the FM profession across people, operational processes and places.
Clearly, Alpha Mead is the leading light in this industry in Nigeria and Akintunde believes that, as a leader and in line with their corporate vision to be among the top three real estate solutions company in Africa, it is time for them to extend the initiative to other parts of Africa.
This belief, he said, is not borne out of selfish or profit motive, but a strategic move to increase the size of the pie, create more opportunities and, by so doing, bring more people to the dining table.
“This, we believe, will help to positively influence and impact development across the region and continue to open the markets and create more opportunities as we share our experiences and the good values that FM practices continue to contribute to the quality of life of the people in various countries of the world where the practice has been well established”, he explained.
Continuing, he said, “in furtherance of this strategic objectives, I am pleased to announce to you that Alpha Mead has decided to take the World FM Day celebration to the gold city of Accra, Ghana where hundreds of industry stakeholders shall be joining us to celebrate and promote awareness of FM”.
The Day will be introducing a new dimension to the celebration as there will be award of excellence and recognition for individuals and corporates who have contributed significantly to the development of the profession in any country where we are holding the roundtable. This shall be in two forms—the ‘Ghana FM Industry Brand Ambassador’ for an individual and ‘Ghana FM Industry Corporate Icon’ for the corporate bodies.
Akintunde hopes that this move, in addition to the awareness creation, would aid contribution to Ghana’s national development, sensitize private and public sector on their roles in this mix, and support in developing local capacity to global standard level.
CHUKA UROKO