The facilities management industry is set for a major transformation over the next five years.

Fueled by a range of strategic, human and technology factors, the global market is expected to be worth more than $1.2 trillion by 2025, with the Asia-Pacific set to become the world’s largest FM market.

As such, there’s a need to promote the FM industry as one of value rather than cost, where FM professionals are seen as strategic enablers, integral to the core business purpose.

Indeed, today’s FM professionals are business-orientated specialists with the ability to build organisation networks, strengthen employee engagement and workplace culture, adopt design thinking principles, interpret and use analytics and statistics and shape workplace experiences that communicate and reinforce the company’s value proposition.

They survey findings presented in this year’s report focus largely on both the current and future trends affecting the FM industry.

Whether the respondent was an FM professional (“buyer”) or a provider of FM products and services (“supplier”), there was general consensus on the trends likely to have the biggest impact on the industry in the next three years.

At the top of the list was upgrading to smart technology in facilities, followed by staying up-to-date with new technologies, minimizing running costs, wellness and workspace design, and using data to monitor and run facilities.

In encouraging signs, most respondents were acutely aware of the role of smart technology and wellness considerations will play in the industry moving forward, and are taking proactive steps to evolve their understanding and scope (buyers) and their products and service offerings (suppliers).

Above all, the results and observations serve to reinforce the importance of buyers and suppliers working together to navigate the ever-changing facilities management landscape. Thanks to events such as Total Facilities FM professionals can connect face-to-face on a regular basis to foster a sense of community and help strengthen the industry’s value proposition to the C-suite.

Find out more about the future of Australia’s high performing and intelligent living and workplaces.