EVOLUTION IN FM INDUSTRY IN LAST TWO DECADES

The economic reforms in the ’90s led to a tectonic shift in business mindset, from customer needs to client satisfaction and delight. This shift led to an unending quest for quality and competitive advantage, and hence to the idea of hiring vendors for not so critical activities and jobs.

- DEEPAK SHANBHAG, CEO, PSIPL.

On the other hand, the FDI & MNCs were already operating on such outsourcing models for non-critical areas.The organized FM space saw its evolution with global FM players setting up bases in India. It gave the Indian business an option to choose global players & also pushed the evolution in the homegrown FM companies’ space.

Starting from housekeeping contracts, the scope of the contract expanded to other non-critical aspects like water, electricity and waste management services. At this point, these contracts were only a function of manpower supply and hinged around the supply of manhours. This was governed by various government statutes in terms of wages and related salaries components of insurance and social security. While the adherence to these statutes was a mandate, many unorganized players did not comply with it. Hence the entire India FM market was split into compliant and non-compliant players, with the bulk of it falling in the latter space.

With the advent of technology and the new age of entrepreneurs, there were two paradigm movements in the FM space.