The Guild of Property Managers and Developers in conjunction with the EASI (European Alliance for Solutions and Innovations) and its representative in Russia Becar EASI are launching a new European educational and training program on facility management and cleaning.

In February 2010 the first business tour to Germany was organized in the framework of the new project. Its program was focused on such issues as the main working principles of a service company, facility management and cleaning. Each day of the training included lectures and visits to sites and facilities with best practices of facility management and cleaning. Along with such traditional commercial properties as a mixed-use, warehouses and a retail centers, Russian professionals visited a hospital, a factory and an airport.

The tour was hosted by the RAY Group, EASI’s exclusive representative in Germany and the major German operator in facility management. The company has a turnover of 36 billion Euros and over 3,400 employees.

Today personnel training in the sphere of facility management is the most relevant area of education and training. In comparison with 2008 rent rates for office space in St Petersburg dropped by 5-30-0x1.40cfebf8403ep-7nd for retail space – by 10-60%.0 Most dramatic decline was registered for high-quality property. In 2010 occupancy rates decreased by 20-30%, which made many management companies revise their operation and cleaning budgets to cut these by 20-30% vs the pre-crisis level. Yet, hasty decisions and lack of experience in reducing costs resulted in equipment failures and decreased the value of properties. The consequences of mistakes once made are becoming increasingly visible and evident now. Therefore, many management companies seek to improve their competence in facility management.

“When the crisis began many owners decided to outsource services, which they used to provide themselves with the help of in-house management companies. By this they minimize their own risks and labor costs”, says Pavel Goncharov, Managing Director of the Guild of Property Managers and Developers. “Today the highest level of demand is for cleaning services, then comes a demand on facility management, which is followed by the integrated property management (including relations with tenants). According to our projections, demand for facility management will be growing. But if with the onset of the crisis the owners concentrated on the cheapest offers, now, sadder but wiser, they would pay more attention to quality and professionalism while still seeking to keep the costs down. Therefore, we expect a growing interest in our educational program from professional management companies”.

“Seeking to reduce operation costs we learned a lot from our EASI partners”, says Ekaterina Yemelyanova, Director for Development, Becar EASI. European countries have lived through many similar crises before and have developed efficient methods of optimizing costs in an adverse economic situation. Besides, their well-developed methodological framework – a detailed system of service standards for different types of buildings – affords a more efficient and prompt adjustment of the relevant service departments. We have studied the EASI’s experience and consider it highly relevant for the Russian management market and important for its further development, which prompted our initiating this training program”.

  The Guild of Property Managers and Developers (GMD) was established in February 2002. Today the Association includes over 250 members - companies dealing in property management, construction and investment.

Organizing training programs, seminars and round table discussions for the leading players of the real estate market is one of the important areas of the Guild’s activity. The GMD has been carrying out programs of regional seminars in property and facility management as well as organizing annual training conferences “Development and Property Management” in Moscow.

EASI is an international organization that unites major facility management companies in Europe. The Alliance was established in 2006 to bring together the leading facility management and cleaning companies. The Alliance includes 16 member-companies and manages a total of over 153 million square meters of space, its annual revenue amounting to over 122 million Euros. EASI’s partner in Russia is the company Becar Realty Group. 

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