Analyst Reports
Space management is evolving to be more proactive and data driven than ever before. Many organizations are looking for ways to improve their processes to continue to meet changing needs. This often requires a transformation of their space management.
To assess the way your space management processes are organized, there are six organizational elements you should look at. Without the right balance of these elements, it will be impossible to get value out of your space management in an efficient and effective way.
1. Strategy
In general, it is important that all of the organization’s activities are related to “the bigger picture,” specifically the primary business process. Almost every organization has a detailed strategy in place for the core business – a stragy that defines the actions to achieve long-term goals. Your space management activities should support these long-term goals. Therefore, your space management strategy has to be derived from the corporate strategy.
2. Process
To get the most value out of your space management, it is important that your activities are recognized, structured and aligned. Documenting and standardizing your processes helps to achieve a better understanding of their impact and supports continuous improvements.
3. Data
Data is useful both as an input and output when it comes to space management, and can give useful input into both decision making and improvements. Data can trigger activities to be started, stopped or adjusted. Therefore, it is important for the right data to be available, accessible, kept up to date, and reliable. When it comes to space management data, the scope can be quite broad. This can range from defining room numbers and names, to allocating space or even measuring real-time space occupancy. However, start simple. Define your space ID first and take small steps to improve.
4. Analysis and reporting
Having data available is one thing, turning it into useful information and insights is another. To be sure you make the right decisions and do the work correctly, it is important you can trust the information that you get out of your reports. In addition to this, you need to align your KPIs with the corporate strategic goals. When it comes to space management, analysis and reporting is difficult because of the sheer amount of data. Storing your data in one database helps you to to easily report from a central repository and provides an overview.
5. Automation and technology
Having the right space data stored at the right time also means it is possible to support the business processes by using automation and technology. Automation involves business applications and office tools, such as an IWMS. Technology is more about hardware solutions and IT-infrastructure components, such as sensors, that are used to support the use of automation and data collection. It helps your organization do things more efficiently and effectively by introducing, for example, sensor-based data collection. By measuring real-time space occupancy, you can get more valid insight into the actual utilization of your space. A successful way of doing that is using sensors that measure whether a workspace or meeting room is actually occupied or not.
6. Organizational readiness
By defining well thought-out strategies, processes, and reporting KPIs, and by using automation tools and technologies, you are already doing a good job. However, without support at C-level and the involvement of skilled and capable people who understand your way of working, you will never get the most out of your space activities. That is why organizational readiness is an important organisational element as well. Regarding space management, it is important that your employees are aware of the way activities need to be executed and are trained to use supporting applications, tools and technologies. Besides, you only get the true support of your organization by asking your employees for feedback on the way they experience the spaces and facilities, and by improving based upon this feedback. This is much easier with executive awareness and effective change management when implementing or improving your space management processes.
To help organizations discover the current and desired maturity level of their space management, Planon has developed the Space Management Maturity Model. Do you want to know the gap between your current and desired maturity level of your space management? Please download the model and start today!
