INTERVIEW: Facility management companies help clients to focus on their core competencies – CEO, Eliezer Workplace Management Limited

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Eliezer Workplace Management Limited is one of Nigeria’s leading integrated facility management companies. The company was set up to cover total facilities management. Naija247news  recently interviewed Benedict Olugboyega Alabi, the company’s CEO, on how facility managers benefit company’s bottom line and sustainable facility management initiatives in the country. Excerpts:

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For the benefit of our readers who may not be familiar with your background, can you tell us about yourself and how you started?

My name is Benedict Olugboyega Alabi. I am a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (FCIB) and of the Institute of Credit Administration (FICA). I am also a fellow of the Institute of Research and Leadership Technology. I hold a master’s degree in Economics: that is my background but in relation to what I do today, I am one of the few Africans that are certified as sustainability facility managers (SFP).

With a background in economics and finance, how did you find yourself in facility management industry?

When you look at the background that I have given to you, you will realise that it was majorly in the financial sector. Financial sector is more of a service sector, and while working in the bank, I noticed that we used to have a lot of irritations from our facility management providers: you get to office and the air conditioners are not working. In those days of NITEL, you get to office on some occasions and no telephone line would be working. I noticed that we spent a lot of time on what are not the core competencies of these banks. This and my passion for environmental issues as well as resentment towards poor services drove me into the facilities management industry.   So I felt there should be a better way of doing these things.

Every day, you see big buildings being built in Nigeria and 10 years down the line, they are dilapidated. Looking at all these, I felt the dire need to do our maintenance properly and this led to formation of Eliezer Integrated Engineering Limited, the first company of our group.

Eliezer Integrated Engineering Limited, was into engineering supplies and provisions of services like generator repair and maintenance. We rendered services to Shell, NLNG, Sterling Bank and Chevron, providing them with basic maintenance services, and I kept researching on institutions that train companies and individuals on property maintenance as a single study. We have civil engineering, mechanical engineering and janitor’s schools but I needed a school that is basically into training people on how to do property maintenance as a single study? Then I found International Facility Management Association (IFMA) online and that became the beginning of our/my journey into Facility Management.

International Facility Management Association (IFMA) offers certification examinations, seminars and magazines on facility management, so while still working in the bank, anytime I was on vacation, I’ll travel outside the country to learn more about facility management. I went to America, China and Europe for both classroom and industrial trainings. I wanted to know the structural way of doing it because I knew that here in Nigeria we have mixed culture and multi-cultural formation. With so many competencies in engineering within our team (welder, generator technicians, plumbers, mason) we decided, “let us cover all the areas of facilities management” and that was when we now set up Eliezer Workplace Management Limited.  Eliezer Integrated Engineering Limited does our constructions while Eliezer Workplace Management Limited deals with built environment and it is designated as our group holding company.

Looking at the industry in general, what aspect of facility management do you consider to be trending right now?

One aspect that everybody is talking about is sustainable facility management, but are we practising it? I am talking of where I operate; Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana.  No! But are we learning it. Yes, a lot of people are talking about sustainability, but we have not started walking the talk.

One of the few organisations that I see walking that talk is Standard Charted Bank. Go to their head office and you will see a lot of sustainability initiatives being implemented

So, we can say the trend now is the consolidation of services. In Europe, it is called Integrated Facility Management, Americans call it Global services but here in Nigeria we call it Total Facility management.

Can it be that the facility management practitioners in Nigeria are not doing enough to educate their clients on the need or benefits of going green.

No. Five years ago, facility management in Nigeria was a novelty. Before then, some big organisations were even telling us that they didn’t know the difference between facility management and facility maintenance, but today they are sending their staff for facility management training. They are looking for facility managers. Now, we have reached the stage where facility management is being accepted as a profession and as a core competency in Nigeria.

It is not like that yet in Cameroon and Ghana. While Nigeria might be scoring say 70 percent, Ghana will be on 45 percent and Cameroon on 25 percent. The stage we are now is us first accepting facility management as a profession. Then we can move from there to what we call sustainable facility management practice. So, we are preaching and training our clients and we began to see positive result.

Mind you, it is more expensive to practice sustainability in the short run but in the long run, it has so many benefits and cost effectiveness. Yes, it might appear a bit expensive now but when you look at the total ownership cost, that is, cost from conception, design , build , operate  to dispose, is cheaper and gives you a better working environment which enhances the health of your people and also their productivity.

Sustainable facility management can only be practiced as a corporate policy. At standard Chartered Bank, they have a desk for sustainable facility management. That is why most of their offices are designed to create an ambience )…………(of what) and sustainable initiatives such that they don’t really need much artificial lighting during the day.

In specific terms, how do facility management firms help increase client’s efficiency and productivity?

First and Foremost, we help them to focus on their core competencies, which on its own creates specialisation for them as a company and allows them to outsmart their competitors.

Secondly, good facility management helps your staff to work in a healthy environment that aids better productivity. For instance, talking about sustainability, when you are working with natural light, the environment looks brighter and it helps your sight.

Thirdly, a good facility manager will also ensure that the chemicals being used to clean your workplace are not harmful to you, this protects life and properties.

Fourthly, we also help to preserve some of a company’s biggest assets: property, plant and equipment. Property, plant and equipment account for a substantial part of most company’s balance sheet and we make sure that they have the best returns on them and that they are maintained properly to deliver the services required of them as this is our competency.

Fifth, Facility managers also help you reduce the burden of having many contractors.   For instance, if you outsource to a security company you will have a security supervisor supervising them. A janitor company will need a supervisor and an electrical company will also need an electrical supervisor but if you give everything to a facility manager, only one person will be supervising all these activities for you because they are all working under the same umbrella.

Sixth, it gives us what we call  national buying power because now, I know am servicing so many places so I know who brings in what, at what price and the best price they can be sold. So we know the best place for purchase; we know the quality of things to buy that give you better returns. We help your bottom line by reducing costs of running a bloated admin department; we give national buying power; durability and good returns on your assets because when an asset is well maintained you tend to get quality tenants and regular payments that sustain tenancy in your estate.

But if your assets are not properly maintained, there is the likelihood of having a high turnover of tenants or refusal to pay as at when due and the property itself will be losing value but if it is properly maintained people will keep occupying ,while  the value keeps on increasing.

Lastly, we reduce your cost of operations, through consolidation of services, advise on property issues, advise on ergonomics for health of property occupiers and institution of other health and safety initiatives.

Give us an insight into the facility management services you provide.

Eliezer is a group of companies for which Eliezer Workplace Management Limited is the holding company. We have six companies under Eliezer Workplace Management Limited; they are Eliezer Janitorial Services & Stationary Stores Limited; Eliezer Integrated Engineering Limited; Eliezer Catering Services; Telewest Technologies Limited, our Information Technology (I.T) Company; Eliezer Global Logistics Services and E-Superior Securitas & Safety Limited, our security and safety outfit.  Each of these companies mentioned are stand-alone companies, which can bid for jobs in the areas of their competencies individually.

We have them in this structure because when we take a job that is integrated; we don’t want to rely on a third party to provide it for us as most often they don’t understand the value we are preaching. They can disappoint you and you end up disappointing your clients; but since we all work under the same philosophies and rules, consolidated contract  is easier and better coordinated within our group and all the companies have their individual clients , different from the group.  They service almost all the blue chip companies in Nigeria.

We are really an integrated facility management company and I stand tall here to tell you that in Nigeria today, we are probably the only one that has all the in-house competencies to do all these because we set out to be an integrated facility management company from day one. Our contemporaries do almost the same but they outsource some of these services to third parties. We don’t rely on a third party to do our work for us and that is why you see that most of our staff are not here on contract, they are full time staff because they belong to a section of the holding company

What do you see as your firm’s strongest competitive value proposition?

Being a one-stop shop for facility management of a built environment in Nigeria. We are also the only facility management company in our domain that is OHSAS 1800:2007 (Occupational Health and safety) certified because of our health and safety culture. We are also subscribed to the ISO 9001:2008 Standards for Quality Management System

What do you consider to be the biggest challenge to the industry in Nigeria?

The great challenge is that the government sector is not yet buying into facility management, which means that recognition still needs to be improved on. That is why we are presently working on getting facility management to be a chartered institute by the government.

We need recognition from the public sector so that we can contribute to the national development and we also need to come together as an industry to achieve such.

With subsidiaries in Ghana and Cameroon, you are no doubt a very busy man. How do you unwind when you are not busy closing deals?

On Saturdays, my phones are usually off because I am on a golf course. That is the only time I have for myself. And when I am on vacation, I am on vacation because we have competent hands to do the work, policy and procedures documented to guide our operations.

 

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