Real estate, infrastructure top agenda for facilities management roundtable

IN an effort to stimulate opportunities in real estate and infrastructure sectors that can increase their contributions to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, one of Nigeria’s leading Facilities Management Company, Alpha Mead Facilities and Management Services Limited (AM Facilities) is staging facilities management roundtable on key sectors of the economy.

The annual Nigerian Facilities Management Roundtable is organized by AM Facilities 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.

The theme of this year’s FM Roundtable is “Building Resilience for the Future” and aimed to ensure Facilities Management plays a key role in Nigeria’s rebased economy Speaking at a press briefing in Lagos, the Managing Director/CEO of AM Facilities, Femi Akintunde, an engineer, said that 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.

He explained, 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.