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President's View
One minute we were looking forward to the conference and the next, we are looking forward to Christmas (and therefore Chinese New Year). Our newsletter was "off the shelves" in November due to the sheer volume of work that the Board's Directors and Committees had been handling. And I am only talking about the work for which our volunteers get paid for.
There seems to have been a lot of articles in various newspapers and journals of late regarding the fact that technology, rather than creating more leisure time, has actually resulted in people working 21 days extra a year - which is more than most people receive in annual leave. Those facility managers blessed (?) with Blackberries and laptops equipment to work from anywhere, at anytime, will bear testament to this.
Which neatly leads me on to the fact that the people who help keep this Chapter running are volunteers and therefore have to balance the increasing demands of their jobs against the demands of their voluntary work within the Chapter.
A huge effort, unseen by most, was put in to delivering our successful November conference, with the theme, Transform: Change is the only Constant; and which took place at Cyberport in Pokfulam.
The Hong Kong Chapter has a great reputation for its conferences and this year was no exception.
The conference committee, comprising Deric Probst Wallace, Bella Chan, Larry Lau, Jarvis Wong and Colman Li gave up a large amount of valuable personal time to secure sponsors and speakers for the event, design and produce the brochures, negotiate with the venue and arrange catering and transportation, help overseas speakers secure accommodation, ensure all presentation materials and AV equipment were ready, amongst a whole host of other smaller issues. The team met at least 12 times, after office hours, with each meeting lasting an hour or two and generating a fair volume of work.
The Chapter's Administrator, Ms Michelle So and the Chapter's Vice-President, Ms Arnald Ng also ably assisted the conference team.
The team's effort was rewarded with a first class conference that overall received positive feedback. The feedback forms received from delegates are currently being analysed and we will summarise this in the next newsletter issue. Importantly, attendance was up about 10% on the previous year, with around 150 people attended, and the conference was financially successful.
Day One kicked off with an invitation only, complimentary breakfast for our CFM's. A short presentation was given by Philip Lo, one of the founding members of the Chapter, on the history of the Chapter and Philip's thoughts on our future.
The conference's keynote speaker, Steven Sonsino from the London Business School in the UK, presented a talk entitled "The 7 failings of really useless leaders" which saw delegates juggling and tying themselves up in knots! You had to be there to understand what the point of this was.!
Steven was followed by the Honorable Patrick Lau, who gave his view on future changes in building design, an informative talk that brought examples from Patrick's work as an architect in Hong Kong. The morning coffee break was followed by a co-presentation from Joe Pereira and Tony Wong of EC Harris and JPMorgan Chase respectively. Presenting their views of the changes and challenges they have experienced as a result of their companies working together on a facility management contract.
Lunch was taken at le Meridian Cyberport with an opportunity presented to delegates to tour the Cyberport development. The afternoon session of the conference was opened by an FM forum facilitated by Prof. John Gilleard on the development of FM in China and other emerging countries. Joining John for the debate was David Rees from Standard Chartered Bank, Natina Wong from JLL and C H Fan, Managing Director of Synergis.
Peter Andrew, from DEGW in Melbourne, Australia, helped ensure the Chapter could manage change, by stepping in for Paul Doherty, who had to withdraw from the conference at fairly late notice due to unforeseen circumstances. Peter, who was originally scheduled to conduct a workshop only, ably filled the gap and presented some exciting views on the changes that are happening within the workplace.
Our final presenter for the day was Kit Tuveson of Tuveson & Associates, an IFMA Fellow, from California, whose talk, "Morphing from Facility Manager to Change Manager", touched upon a subject which most, if not all attendees could relate to. Kit's talk captured the very essence of the theme of the conference.
The day concluded with some post conference cocktail and a junk trip to Lamma for a fine seafood supper for Chapter Directors, speakers and sponsors.
A key factor in the success of the conference was the two half day seminars that followed the day after and were linked to the key theme of the conference. Both workshops were well attended by around 25 people at each session. Attendees were given the chance to learn more about two of the themes presented the day before.
The morning session saw Peter Andrew explore change in the workplace by examining participant's current working practices, understanding the changes which are happening and setting a series of role plays for participants around introducing change programs. The afternoon session was conducted by Steven Sonsino's and examined managerial styles and related them to working practices.
In due course the Conference web page will be changed to add pictures of the two days proceedings, and information about the conference. We will also provide downloads of as many of the paper presented as the speakers are prepared to allow.
To close, on behalf of the Directors of the Chapter, I take the opportunity to wish all members and friends of the Chapter a very happy Christmas, with best wishes for a healthy and prosperous new year. I hope that the Chapter can continue to provide you with events and materials that can help in your professional development.
And believe me when I say that planning for next year's conference has already started!
The annual global showcase for the facility management profession took place at the end of October on the east coast of the USA, in the historical city of Philadelphia.
"10 years solitary for being an FM"
The journey from Hong Kong certainly was a long haul, taking approximately 26 hours and I arrived a day before the House of Delegates meeting which preceded World Workplace. This gave me my first opportunity to see some of the city and I went on a tour of the Pennsylvania State Penitentiary. This may seem strange choice for a first view of a city but the day was cold and miserable and after such a long journey, I needed some exercise.
Established in the late 1700's, the prison served as a model for other prisons and penitentiaries around the world including China and Europe. At the time, the concept of "what can't be measured, can't be managed" wasn't appreciated and the success of the institution in reforming inmates was never fully established as ex-convicts were not monitored following their release.
There was no record in the museum of the penitentiary's approach to facility management but I gathered there were few cleaning SLA's and minimal building services infrastructure with the exception of the fact that the facility installed flushing toilets before the White House!
Annual House of Delegates
Prof. John Gilleard and myself represented the Hong Kong Chapter at the House of Delegates. The meeting received a report from the outgoing Chairman, Matt Dawson, on the successes of IFMA over the past year including substantial growth in Membership, to over 18,000 members, the introduction of the Facility Management Professional designation and the progress of IFMA in achieving their objectives through the balanced scorecard approach.
Of significant interest to Members of the Chapter was the formal announcement of the launch of the alliance between IFMA, Facility Management Association of Australia ("FMA") and the British Institute of Facilities Management ("BIFM"). Known as Global FM (www.globalfm.org), the alliance (or association of associations) aims to provide a conduit for furthering the knowledge and understanding of facility management across the globe, sharing of best practices and resulting in added value to the individual members of each member organization.
I raised a question on the Chapter's behalf regarding the future of Global FM and the potential impact for Hong Kong.
Geographically, and perhaps culturally, we are closer to Australia than we are the US, and combined with the fact that we have China on our doorstep, we are well positioned to be a part of this new global initiative. The outgoing Chair acknowledged this and further discussions will be held with us as IFMA moves forward.
In recognition of the introduction of the alliance concept, the Chapter had established a local and international professional liaison committee at the beginning of the Board's year and I hope that in 2006, we continue to move forward with some of our initiatives in this area.
World Workplace
Held in a converted railway station, the Philadelphia Exhibition Centre presented an excellent example of urban regeneration and revitalization.
The Exposition Hall
A keynote speaker followed by a parade of Chapters to the conference hall exposition kicked off world Workplace on Sunday. Products on display varied from the latest security systems, meeting room management systems, workplace management software, furniture systems etc. Monday and Tuesday presented an enormous variety of educational sessions being presented to delegates, each lasting around an hour, with two sessions in the morning and two in the afternoon, all of which entitled participants to CEU points. The diversity of subjects presented meant that choosing which session to attend was no easy task.
The whole event was rounded off with a closing keynote speaker and a speech from the new incoming Chair, Teena Shouse. Teena is an enthusiastic and passionate person for FM and I am sure the Association will continue to prosper under her leadership.
Teena Shouse, incoming Chair, addresses a packed
hall of delegates on the closing day of World Workplace
Tuesday evening concluded World Workplace with a Gala Ball and the presentation of the Awards of Excellence. Whilst the Chapter was not successful in our two applications, it was clear that the winners were well deserving of their accolades and I am hoping that we can undertake a "lessons learned" and see if we can have another shot for World Workplace 2006 which will be held in San Diego 2006.
The whole event was thoroughly worth the effort required to get to Philadelphia. Not only was it a fantastic education opportunity with a diverse range of subject matter presented, it also served as a great networking opportunity. Not only was I able to meet up with our IFMA headquarter colleagues, but I also met with representatives from the FMA and BIFM, FM practitioners from China, as well as the President of the Korean Facility Management Association with whom we are working on developing closer ties.
Meeting up with Jae-Youl Jeon from the
Korean Facility Management Association
Finally, I am pleased to say that the Hong Kong Chapter was very represented at the proceedings with around 10 members being present. Whilst I don't have figures to support this, I believe we may well have been, proportionately, one of the best-represented Chapter's present. We certainly beat the Aussies in terms of numbers!
The Hong Kong Chapter of IFMA would like to congratulate
Wai Lap Cheung, CFM,
Facility Manager with Jones Lang Lasalle
For recently passing and receiving the CFM – Certified Facility Manager designation
The IFMA Foundation
The
IFMA Foundation has
recently published its
latest technical report
on “Wireless Systems
in the Facility”.
The report is an in-depth
study of the current
state of wireless systems
and the factors affecting
how to implement them
within buildings.
Currently
you can download a copy
of the report at www.ifmafoundation.org/ifma_tech_report.pdf.
However as past reports
are available for a
fee at the IFMA Bookstore,
this may not be the
case for long.
Established
in 1990 as a non-profit
corporation, the IFMA
Foundation is supported
by the generosity of
a community of individuals—IFMA
Members, chapters, councils,
corporate sponsors and
private contributors.
It uses contributions
to fund research and
education.
Go
to the Foundation web
site at www.ifmafoundation.org
to review the work they
do and the research
they have sponsored.
A Framework for Facilities Life cycle Cost Management
Use
this link www.ifma.org/tools/research/Asset_Lifecyle_Model.pdf
to download from the
IFMA web site a report
titled “Asset
Lifecycle Model for
Total Cost of Ownership
Management – Framework,
Glossary and definitions”
A
group of organisations
in the USA, including
IFMA, set up an inter-association
working group to develop
the report, to help
foster effective communication
between public and private-sector
organisations. It contains
a model of lifecycle
costs; a glossary of
commonly used terms
to communicate about
facility-related issues,
and definitions of commonly
used metrics.
The
report has not yet been
put forward for adoption,
nor approved by IFMA.
Request for Assistance (I)
Brian
Crockford recently
received an email
from a student in
Demark requesting
assistance for his
thesis covering the
market for integrated
facility services.
A copy of the email
is reproduced below.
If anyone feels thay
can assist Chris Christiansen
in his work please
contact him directly
at chrischristiansen@hotmail.com:
-
Subject:
FM/FS
market
size
From:"Chris
Christiansen"
chrischristiansen@hotmail.com>
Date:
Fri, October
28, 2005
21:47
To: admin@ifma.org.hk
Dear
Sirs,
I
am a student
at the
University
of Southern
Denmark
(MSc Business
Administration,
International
Marketing)
and I
am currently
working
on my
thesis
involving
the market
for integrated
facility
services.
I
am trying
to get
an overview
of the
Facility
Management
or Facility
Services
market
- worldwide
but especially
in Asia
and I
was wondering
whether
you had
any articles/material
regarding
the market
potential/size
of the
Facilities
management/Facility
Services.
How
big ($)
would
you estimate
the size
of the
FM/FS
market
potential
to be
in Asia?
Globally?
I realize
that this
is very
difficult,
and that
these
would
only be
'loose'
estimates,
but do
you have
any idea?
I
truly
appreciate
your assistance.
Kind
regards,
Chris
Christiansen
Request for Assistance (II)
The
Corporate Environmental
Governance Programme
(CEGP) at the University
of Hong Kong is currently
conducting a research
project focussing
on impediments and
incentives for environmental
changes in Hong Kong's
business environment.
They
are seeking to contact
anyone who can contribute
valuable opinions
to this research,
which will help bringing
Hong Kong to a more
sustainable future.
Environmental
concerns are gaining
in importance in the
international business
community. In many
parts of the developed
world, companies engage
in environmental initiatives
moving beyond regulatory
compliance, as they
feel that such activities
enhance brand identity,
reputation and competitive
advantage. However,
it seems that many
firms in Hong Kong
are reluctant to do
so.
The
research project aims
to identify the impediments
that deter Hong Kong
businesses (particularly
SMEs) from moving
beyond regulatory
compliance in terms
of environmental performance,
as well as potential
incentives for encouraging
local firms to engage
in such activities.
For
these purposes, the
University of Hong
Kong are collecting
information from various
stakeholder groups
such as businesses,
government agencies,
non-governmental organisations,
academics, etc. on
their views and ideas
about Hong Kong companies
environmental performance.
They
have already interviewed
a sample of Hong Kong
businesses, and are
now seeking to learn
about the views of
other stakeholders.
The
survey consists of
structured face-to-face
interviews of approximately
30-45 minutes. The
interview will mainly
focus on possible
incentives for engaging
SMEs in environmental
change, and on the
roles of various stakeholder
groups in this process.
All answers will be
kept confidential
and the University
will be glad to share
their results with
all interested participants
at a later stage.
If
you feel you can contribute
to this study you
should contact the
persons mentioned
below to arrange an
interview
We
continue our series
of interviews
with people within
the FM industry
by interviewing
Tony S.F.
Wong,
who is Regional
Manager Asia Pacific
for Facilities
Management and
Engineering for
JP Morgan Chase
Bank NA.
The
people covered
by this section
of the newsletter
will vary, from
senior and well-known
members of the
industry to graduates
just starting
in the industry.
The intention
is to provide
information on
a cross-section
of the industry
covering how they
first became involved
in the industry,
what they do,
how they relax
etc.
The
interviews are
conducted and
reported by Santa
Raymond for the
Hong Kong Chapter
of IFMA.
Q.
What do you consider describes the job you do?
A.
The portfolio
for which I am
responsible consists
of close to 2M
sq. ft of space
(including that
in India), with
a headcount of
over eight thousand
people, and an
annual budget
of around $130MUS.
My
remit includes
FM in the existing
sense of the management
of cleaning, housekeeping
and so on - which
we outsource wherever
possible. It also
covers Engineering
Infrastructure
- electrical,
mechanical and
fire services.
Location Service
Delivery is now
a major part of
my work throughout
the region, and
the extent of
this depends on
local conditions
and expertise,
with client relationships
being a key element
Location
Service Delivery
is very demanding,
with our input
depending on the
size of the operation.
It may be that
the local people
can run small
interior projects
but with larger
ones, regional
managers are responsible
for co-ordinating
local experts.
We are busy developing
strategies for
rolling out FM
outsourcing throughout
the region. You
could say that
my job is as 'Super
Reserve' - plugging
holes!
Q.
What is your background?
A.
I
studied architecture
at HKU, and have
always lived in
Hong Kong. In
1990, I obtained
an MBA at CUHK.
In
1993, I was the
founding chairman
of IDRC Asia Pacific
Chapter, and was
involved with
IFMA when it started
here in the same
year. I am still
actively supporting
Cornet (formerly
IDRC).
Q.
Why did you apply for your current job?
A.
My
wife was a classmate,
and we have always
been into exploring
new opportunities.
Having been working
for firms of architects
for some time,
it seemed a good
idea to try something
different - like
a bank, and the
opportunity occurred
when I was contacted
by a headhunter
for a project
manager role in
JPMorgan (then
The Chase Manhattan
Bank).
The
third day I went
to work, my boss
announced his
resignation, and
I gradually took
over his job.
Two years later
I became Asia
Head of Property
and Construction,
and my job has
expanded from
there.
Q.
What are your current key projects?
A.
We are concentrating
on rolling out
an engineering
management programme,
especially related
to risk management.
This involves
developing robust
systems which
respond well
to major incidents
such as power
failure, flooding,
bird flu, bank
runs, loss of
access to buildings,
and so on.
We have a process
in place to
revalue our
engineering
philosophy.
There can be
no single way
of thought,
or of doing
things. With
our many inherited
premises, it's
a question of
finding what
is there, and
what kicks in,
related to the
local situation.
In some departments,
there is no
possibility
of downtime
for testing,
so we have to
ensure that
the systems
that are in
place are reliable
and allow for
all contingencies,
but this can
- of course
- be expensive.
Q.
What do you see as the future for FM?
A.
Better
run buildings,
providing enhanced
value. The demand
is increasing,
but the momentum
is slow. The industry
norm has tight
purse strings,
but the purse
is beginning to
open, with perceptions
changing and the
demand for quality
and reliability
increasing.
There
is a graph that
relates to knowledge
level and time,
that illustrates
how clients' attitudes
to service delivery
are developing.
Re-educating people
and changing corporate
culture is not
a straight curve,
it's a spiral
or a series of
3-D waves - going
up, changing direction,
coming down, and
going up again.
Often one has
to walk back a
step, to go two
steps forward.
It's
a question of
what people really
want, and what
they are prepared
to pay for. There
is a move toward
thinking longer
term, and investing
for longer-term
infrastructure.
But there are
advantages in
thinking short
term, and being
adaptable. It's
a question of
finding the balance
between urgency
and the long-term
picture, and always
thinking 'smart'.
FM
can't be looked
on as a profession,
or a homogenous
discipline, it
is - like what
some called corporate
real estate -
an industry. It
is formed from
many pieces of
the cogwheel,
where everyone
works together
in a situation
of continuous
exchange.
Q.
What do you do to relax?
A.
With two kids and a good wife, I'm involved in the community and as chairman of the PTA of my son's school. I play golf, ski once a year, read books on history and culture, and sing in the Welsh Male Voice choir every Tuesday.
Q.
If you weren't in FM, what else would you like to do?
A.
I'm a generalist, and could work in any kind of job or profession in a management position, handling concepts - and always working hard! I take the path one step at a time, and see where it leads.
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