In recent years, organizations have discovered the benefits of outsourcing facility management. When combined with professional cleaning services, outsourced facility management brings a lot to the table. Among the many benefits are scalability and flexibility.
Scalability and flexibility allow organizations to adapt more quickly to changing needs and market conditions. In a facility management and cleaning scenario, a sudden increase in business could put higher demands on maintenance and cleaning staff. The organization could look to hire, but what if the need is temporary? Even if the need is permanent, it takes time to recruit, hire, and train staff.
An outsourcing partner can adapt to changing needs much more quickly. Organizations can leave scalability issues to their outsourcing partners because they are only paying for a service. It is the partner’s responsibility to handle the actual work.
Scalability’s Basic Concepts
All Pro Cleaning Systems offers both facility management and professional cleaning services. We can combine them for any organization looking for an all-inclusive package. With that in mind, let’s discuss scalability’s basic concepts.
The first concept is adjusting service levels. As previously explained, a facility management provider can easily increase service levels as business demands. Service levels grow with the client’s business. But what about the other direction? Can services be scaled down?
Absolutely. The service provider can reduce its level of services as needs demand. This is one of the primary reasons that outsourcing facility management and cleaning makes so much sense for seasonal businesses. Business owners do not have to worry about juggling staff to accommodate busy times for part of the year and slow times for the remainder.
Other basic concepts include:
- Multi-Site Support – As a client grows and adds new locations, the outsourcing partner can accommodate those locations. The client enjoys standardized service and quality across all sites by using the same provider.
- Service Customization – A competent service provider should be able to customize facility management and cleaning services to each client. Some clients need more services while others need less. Still others have unique facility management or cleaning needs requiring special attention.
Scalability is all about offering an appropriate level of service based on current need. As needs change, service levels change as well.
The Role Flexibility Plays
Making scalability work requires that a service provider be flexible. Flexibility plays out in three key principles, the first being resource allocation. An outsourcing provider should be able to reallocate resources to address urgent needs. There should be no disruption in core services as a result.
Here are the other two principals:
- Contract Flexibility – Facility management contracts should call for periodic review and adjustment of service levels as needed. Locking customers into a hard and fast contract doesn’t work well to promote scalability.
- Specialized Services – The outsourcing partner has access to specialized services clients might only require occasionally. By outsourcing facility management and cleaning, organizations do not need to maintain specialized capabilities in-house.
Flexibility and scalability work together to meet an organization’s facility management and cleaning needs while not forcing the organization to bear a substantial financial burden. At a time when every penny seems to count, being free of such a financial burden can help an organization’s bottom line.
Outsourcing facility management and cleaning to a single provider makes sense for some organizations. If you think it might make sense in your case, we encourage you to reach out to All Pro Cleaning Systems. We have decades of experience we can put to work for you. Let us sit down and talk about your facility management and cleaning needs. Together, we can probably do better.
