Many individuals are aware that an efficient and effective Facility Management model saves money for the company. Every organization has periods of time when the main activity, or even the only activity, is launching invitations to tender, depending on the number of services that the FM department is in charge of and, of course, depending on the expiration dates of the existing contracts.

Organizing an invitation to tender is costly for the client who requires the service because it consumes many working hours and employee training, employees who could be doing other things, such as service compliance control or continuous improvement activities, which, without a doubt, benefits the company more. In many cases, other departments (Legal, Purchasing, Administration, etc.) must be involved in the process, which means that the impact of organizing an invitation to tender affects more than just the FM department. 

Furthermore, in a well-designed service, the best service delivery is assumed from the start, and it should be adapted as the organization's needs and changes happen without reducing the quality. Furthermore, we will require a good compliance evaluation and a continuous improvement policy (essential in FM) that will allow us to obtain the best service delivery throughout the duration of the service contract.

An invitation to tender is also costly for the service provider because, even if they are already providing a good service and meeting objectives successfully, they know from the start of the contract that its assignment has an expiration date, after which the service provider will become "one amongst others" attempting to keep the account. Without a doubt, this creates a lack of trust and a weaker commitment when investing to provide a better service.

Finally, as the recipients of the majority of the services provided, this process is costly for end-users. Although some services, such as technical maintenance or life cycle control, do not affect them or cannot be perceived directly. Catering, transportation, reception desk, or even cleaning services, do and have a significant impact on their daily activities. Seeing or perceiving that those who provide the service change from time to time indicates that they may need to change the ways they work with them. It is widely accepted that an employee who is subjected to change at work reduces his productivity.

As previously said, we will not provide statistics that cannot be immediately applied, thus we will settle for the confirmed fact that a decline in productivity exists and that this has an impact on the company's competitiveness.

So, should we not proceed the tendering process? No, we should organize them but with well-defined needs, more flexible models, and longer-term contracts that allow service providers to become more involved in and invest in the services. Including scopes partially proposed by service providers as experts, with control elements and variable income payments that value compliance and flexibility to changing needs, and so on. If we, do it this way, we will almost certainly be able to duplicate the time between each invitation to tender and use our resources for something more productive.

Reference:

https://www.fm-house.com/en/identifying-savings-in-facility-management-i/