A guide follows to help you understand the terminology:
About facilities management and service management
Facilities Management (FM)/facilities services
Facilities management (FM) means co-ordinating and developing support operations around a property or building. FM services are often divided between ‘hard’ FM services (like property management, energy optimisation and security systems) and ‘soft’ FM services (like reception, restaurants, and mail management).
Service management, IFM (integrated FM), TFM (total FM)
Service management is an evolution of the facilities management concept. Service management involves a broader range of services, which may also include production-related services, for example. It isn’t just a matter of co-ordination, but also about taking extensive responsibility for the development and streamlining of all FM functions. Thus service management isn’t just about providing and delivering services, but also includes the strategic development of FM functions, and what is increasingly becoming known as ‘change management,’ i.e. rationalising and changing operations.
Business services
Business services means all the support services a company needs to get its operations working well. This includes property and workplace services, back office services and IT services. However, production-related services aren’t usually considered as business services. This term also excludes services provided to the public sector.
Different types of outsourcing
On-site services
Support activities delivered directly at the office, factory or warehousing site of an operation. Services that are nearly always provided on site include property services, workplace services and production-related services.
Offshore services
Support services located off site, i.e. delivered outside the premises of the operation or company, to another country. Typical services that can be offshored include back office services (such as payroll management and telephony solutions) and IT services.
