Facility management is a data problem wearing a maintenance uniform

Ask most facility management teams what they are measured on and you will hear two things: response time and uptime. Both are reasonable. Neither is what their organisation is going to ask them for next year.

The questions are changing

The questions arriving at FM desks now sound like this:

• What did this building consume last month, per square foot, per occupied seat?
• Which assets are we replacing reactively rather than on a plan, and what is that costing?
• Can we evidence our energy position to a standard the group auditor will accept?

None of these are maintenance questions. All of them are data questions.

What the strong teams did differently

They started collecting before they were asked. Not with a large platform purchase — usually with sub-meters, a consistent asset register, and the discipline to log work orders in a way that could be counted later.

That is unglamorous work with no immediate payoff, which is exactly why it is a durable advantage.

Where to start

If you are behind on this, the highest-return first move is a clean asset register with real install dates. Almost every downstream question — replacement planning, budget forecasting, energy attribution — routes back through it.

Everything else can be added later. Without it, nothing else can.