The boom in construction projects in the UAE could drive the facilities management (FM) services market to approximately Dh20 billion ($5.4 billion) per annum by next year, said an industry expert.

Nigel Hall, the newly appointed UAE director of Outsource Service in G4S, a leading security service provider in the Emirates, was speaking with reference to an internal study held by the company.

The statistic included FM services that ranged from cleaning services, pest control, office services, landscaping, waste management and building management systems with the exclusion of security services. An average of 60 per cent of the industries in the UAE may outsource their FM requirements, he said.

Dubai-based Hall said that the emirates’ on-going delivery of new commercial and residential buildings, coupled with an increasing demand for higher levels of service provision, will see the industry continue to grow healthily into the next decade.

“Annual growth in the UAE is driven by the construction boom, as well as the increasing customer demand for improved service levels, not just personnel,” said Hall, who has worked in the country for much of the last decade, and currently oversees a team of 8,000.

“The single, most important critical improvement we are seeing in the UAE market is the sophistication of the contracting.  FM contracts are becoming more integrated, more metric-based, and crucially, longer in duration.  The combined effect of these improvements is better service for customers and of course, improved cost-efficiencies for all parties.  The UAE is the GCC’s leader in this respect,” added Hall.

The G4S study said that the UAE clients, as well as those operating across the Gulf, are increasingly looking for a  one-stop-shop solution that will enable their organisations to reduce management time expended on FM, but also a solution which can be measured for effectiveness and efficiency over say three to five years, as opposed to the typical annually-renewed contract.

Hall will also be heading G4S’ Recruitment and Outsource service, a fast growing service that offers organisations recruitment flexibility by allowing them to employ personnel on G4S’ payroll through fixed term contracts.

“G4S is able to manage all selection, recruitment, mobilisation, administration and payroll related to supplied personnel on our customers’ behalf”, he added.

G4S operates from its network of services in manned security services, facilities management, cash solutions, electronic security solutions and recruitment & outsourcing services over eight branch offices in the UAE. – TradeArabia News Service