In its quest to ensure Facilities Management plays a key role in Nigeria’s rebased economy, leading Facilities Management Company, Alpha Mead Facilities & Management Services Limited (AMFacilities) is focusing this year’s edition of its annual roundtable, ‘The Nigerian Facilities Management Roundtable’ on key sectors of the Nigerian economy.
This is in a bid to stimulate the opportunities in Nigeria’s Real Estate and Infrastructure sectors with standard Facilities Management practices that can increase their contributions to the nation’s GDP. The theme of this year’s FM Roundtable is “Building Resilience for the Future”.
According to Engr. Femi Akintunde, Managing Director/CEO of AMFacilities the five key sectors to be discussed at the roundtable include the Real Estate and Infrastructure sector, Telecommunications, Banking and Financial Services, Oil and Gas, and Government agencies and parastatals.
The annual Nigerian Facilities Management Roundtable is organized by AMFacilities in commemoration of the World FM Day – a day earmarked internationally by Global FM, a worldwide alliance of member-centered Facility Management organisations, providing leadership in the advancement of the FM profession through FM institutions such as the BIFM, IFMA International, F.M.A, Australia and many others around the globe.
Speaking at a press briefing of the event in Lagos, Akintunde said the company decided to host the annual event to continuously create awareness for Facilities Management practices in Nigeria, draw attention to standards practice by bringing together players in the industry to share knowledge amongst themselves, and discuss various challenges facing the industry with a view of finding lasting solutions to them.
“As a leading Facilities Management Company, our interest is nurturing the FM industry to be able to absorb the opportunities coming into the market, and the FM Roundtable is one of the many windows we are exploring to institute standards and promote professional FM practice in Nigeria. Particularly, our motivation for this event is to through it; stimulate a standard-driven Facilities Management sector that can sufficiently support Nigeria’s growing Real Estate and Infrastructure market to contribute significantly to the nation’s GDP”
Akintunde, also explained the theme of this year’s event further, saying “in the face of dwindling revenue occasioned by the deep in the oil price and the current economic realities, we consider this theme very apt in the role Facilities Management will play in helping businesses hedge against risk and downtimes. So like we have been doing, we have carefully selected top executive and professionals within Nigeria’s business environment to come and deliberate on how Facilities Management can continue to help business stay resilient in the face of global economic realities.”
While describing infrastructure as critical to the nation’s GDP, Engineer Akintunde, advised the incoming Government to give priority to infrastructure development and maintenance.
In her remarks, Mrs. Wale Odufalu, General Manager, Corporate Services, AMFacilities explained that the 2015 roundtable is focusing on these key sectors because of their relevance to the nation’s economy.
She stated: “This year, we will be paying special attention to five key sectors of the economy. We intend to have a collaborative forum where the key stakeholders in these industries can share their experiences with the Facilities Management Industry, so that we all can proffer solutions that are peculiar to each sector.”
“In the face of global economic realities, cost reduction is on the front burner of most businesses. While this is understandable, we have to look what this will translate to for the businesses in the future. As cost reduction tops the list of most businesses, Facilities Management might be one of the victims. So we are having five difference industry-specific breakout sessions focusing on how each of these sectors interacts with Facilities Management, and how FM can even help them stay afloat, giving current dwindling revenue”.
She added that the FM Roundtable Compendium which is a compilation of the various discussions and resolutions has become a reference point for Facility Managers, Real Estate experts, investors, the academia and the public sector in the country.
The Nigerian Facilities Management Roundtable holds on June 10 at the Eko Hotel and Suites.
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