Cultural differences between European countries are preventing suppliers of facilities management services from building pan-European businesses, says research to be released in London on Thursday 28 June.
The study, by Advanced Workplace Associates (AWA), found language barriers and different management attitudes have helped create a fragmented market for outsourced facilities services outside the UK.

'Suppliers all say they have made headway in providing total facilities management — but they are primarily growing in their specialism and doing it by aquisition,' said Graham Jervis, director of service management at AWA.

'There is no evidence that they are yet able to meet multinational facilities management requirements across Europe.'

Jervis looked at how European-based multinationals delivered facilities management. He found that outsourcing was rare and, where it did exist, contracts tended to last longer than in the UK and were built more on personal relationships.

'It will need major investment by suppliers to overcome these problems. And the industry's profits aren't high enough to justify this yet,' Jervis said.

Source

The Facilities Business