< Previous UPDATE www.fm-middleeast.com10 March 2021 Enova, the Middle East’s energy and facilities management specialist, has contributed to the funding of the fi rst of its kind café, that will be operated and owned by the people of determination in Dubai. The Hemam café model, by Brands for Social Good enterprise, does not only employ the functional capacity of the determined but they also own shares in the trade license of the branch they operate ensuring economic empowerment and shifting them from the government support to productivity and independence. Wael M. Barghouti, co-founder and CEO of Brands for Social Good emphasised the important role that social enterprises can play in achieving social inclusion, economic empowerment and eradicating social and environmental issues, highlighting that the UAE can lead initiatives to twin Arab communities and scale applications of similar nature, leverage research and inter-Arab investments to develop sustainable solutions. Renaud Capris, CEO of Enova, added: “Our contribution in funding the café is to support the entrepreneurship for people of determination, to develop their entrepreneurship skills and ensure economic empowerment. Following Enova’s values, we endorse such models that look at the functional and productive capacities and strengthen a diverse workforce. This helps in building tolerant and happy communities putting them at the heart of sustainable development.” This fi rst branch – to be launched with Enova’s contribution – will be operated by four UAE-based people of determination. STAT ATTACK CSR Enova contributes to the region’s first of its kind “Hemam café” owned and operated by people of determination 35.5% According to the latest research by international real estate services fi rm, Chestertons, revealed in the Observer: UAE 2020 Review & 2021 Outlook, showed that while the total value of residential property sales fell by almost 14% over 2020, to AED55.46bn from AED64.34bn in 2019, completed property sales gained pace over the second half of last year, reaching AED21.67bn, a 35.5% increase from AED15.99bn seen in H2 2019. 3.6% Villa sales prices recorded a comparatively moderate 3.6% decline in 2020, with the overall annual fall eased by a robust fi nal quarter. AED720 per sq. ft Average villa prices across Jumeirah Park increased from AED720 per sq. ft in Q3 to AED725 per sq. ft in Q4, with average prices in Palm Jumeirah rising from AED1,860 per sq. ft to AED1,870 per sq. ft last quarter. AED973 per sq. ft Business Bay and Dubai Marina witnessed more moderate declines over 2020, with prices falling by just 3.7% to AED973 per sq. ft, and 4.9% to AED980 per sq. ft, respectively. Renaud Capris, CEO of Enova.www.fm-middleeast.com12 March 2021 NEWS Aldar Properties will utilise Asite’s cloud- based platform on a magnitude of innovative and exciting projects. These projects encompass a range of sectors, including residential, retail, commercial and hospitality & leisure. The transformative organisation has delivered some of the most dynamic projects in Abu Dhabi, such as their internationally recognised HQ building (the first circular building on its kind) situated in the Al Raha Beach development, the Gate Towers in Shams Abu Dhabi on Al Reem Island, and Yas Island’s F1 circuit. Asite has been awarded a five- year contract with Aldar Properties to work across their future project development pipeline. Aldar Properties will utilise the Asite Project Portfolio Management (PPM) solution, which showcases an integrated Common Data Environment (CDE), to streamline information management at all levels of the asset lifecycle. Ritesh Narain, EVP of MENA and India said: “Asite is extremely excited to start our journey with Aldar Properties and their innovative project portfolio. The demand for a cloud- based platform that enables open information sharing across the entire supply chain has been increasing in the UAE for some time now and we’re thrilled to be able to bring Asite into this dynamic market. The UAE is no-doubt one of the most exciting regions in construction; their history of creating the world’s most impressive buildings remains at large, from Burj Khalifa – the tallest building on Earth – to bringing the first world expo, Expo 2020 Dubai, to the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. Our partnership with Aldar Properties marks the beginning Asite’s construction cloud platform will streamline project information and enhance collaboration across the full lifecycle of Aldar’s assets Aldar Properties to use Asite on all future projects of Asite’s expansion into the UAE market, and this is an exciting step in cementing our presence and supporting continued growth in the region.” Maan Al Awlaqi, executive director, Strategy and Transformation, Aldar Properties said: “Innovation and digital transformation are central to Aldar’s business strategy. Partnering with leading digital engineering companies like Asite enables us to enhance operational efficiencies, increase knowledge sharing across our supply chains, and deliver a seamless customer journey. PropTech is transforming the way real estate companies operate and we are witnessing more businesses in the UAE and the region reaping the benefits of investing in cloud-based platforms to deliver sustainable value to its stakeholders.” Asite’s robust and secure CDE will provide a holistic view across Aldar’s vast and wide-ranging capital projects, including streamlined document management to store, track, manage, and access all project assets from one centralised repository. Advanced task management and extensive project reporting, alongside collaborative BIM (cBIM) – incorporating standardised naming conventions and design coordination to mark-up project models – will also help Aldar to build better across their portfolio. For projects that have been built and require operating and maintaining, the Asite Platform will provide complete asset lifecycle management solutions. This includes providing a 360-degree view of Aldar’s asset portfolio, building an inventory for complex assets in a single online environment, and maintaining a golden thread of information. Aldar will also benefit from a complete planned and preventive maintenance solution in alignment with asset information model requirements, a robust system for managing the lifecycle of a work order using automated workflows, and comprehensive incident tracking. During 2020, Asite announced the launch of its new data center in the UAE to best serve its growing global customer base. The new data center ensures project information remains in the UAE for UAE projects, and will also improve the performance of data management processes, including the fastest possible response times when completing day-to-day project tasks. www.fm-middleeast.com COMMENT March 2021 13 rg a n isa t i o n a l resilience is “the ability of an organisation to anticipate, prepare for, respond and adapt to incremental change and sudden disruptions in order to survive and prosper”. Organisational resilience needs to be fit for purpose. Organisations must be able to manage an unforeseen event that requires change and adaptation in dominating their current environment. The self-correcting type of organisation anticipates changes routinely and addresses them proactively. When it does hit a bump in the road — as all companies do — the resilient organisation distinguishes itself in its response, which is immediate, thorough, and constructive. It attracts motivated team players and offers them not only a stimulating work environment, but also the resources and authority necessary to solve complex problems, states strategy&. According to McKinsey’s global research, organisations that want to keep the benefits they’ve enjoyed during Want to enter the debate? If you have any comments to make on these issues, email the editor at rajiv.pillai@itp.com. VIEWP INT ‘Organisational resilience’ should be the operative word. If the pademic has taught us one thing, it is to be resilient and to plan for the worst! RAJIV RAVINDRAN PILLAI Resiliency is key O About the author Rajiv Ravindran Pillai is the editor of Facilities Management Middle East. the Covid-19 crisis, such as faster decision making and clarity of purpose, need to make a choice now. To shift toward an agile operating model, organisations need to reflect on what they have learned during the crisis and be deliberate about which practices to keep. These practices need to be embedded in their culture and processes if they are going to persist. Further, if they want to undertake a full agile transformation, they will need to allocate appropriate time and effort for management as well as for the teams directly affected. But when the next crisis hits, they will have even greater resilience to absorb and adapt to the challenges they face. Lastly, resilient leaders also play a part. They ought to be genuine, sincere, empathetic, walking compassionately in the shoes of employees and customers. Resilient leaders must also take a hard stance to protect the organisation’s financial performance. If the pandemic has taught us one thing, it is to be resilient and to plan for the worst. COMMENT 14 March 2021www.fm-middleeast.com How technology, followed by Covid-19, accelerated the demand for specialised cleaning services? Kelvin Varghese, director, Hitches & Glitches (H&G), fi nds out T oday’s modern built environment has become ever more technically complex. With technological advances such as AI and IoT, it is hardly surprising that maintaining and cleaning buildings – be it residential, office, hotel, retail, medical or industrial – are now so multifaceted. By embracing and adopting the very same technology and innovation, the THE AGE OF SPECIALISED CLEANING FM industry has witnessed the rise of a growing segment – specialised cleaning. Although we at Farnek recognised that trend, it was relatively still only in its infancy in 2016 when Farnek decided to acquire a small, multi award-winning specialist hygiene cleaning company called Smashing! It was already a specialist market leader with a portfolio of 2,500 customers including Jumeirah, Emirates, Etihad and Gargash. Yet it was still only an SME; how had a small company in a very competitive market, performed so well? The answer was very simple. They had a strategy that focused on select specialised services, which gave them a competitive edge. Through just 65 highly trained technicians, its service offering included air duct cleaning, indoor air quality testing, kitchen exhaust cleaning and pipeline disinfection, Image of a data centre: A data centre can look perfectly clean, when in fact it might be contaminated with tiny particles that become airborne and enter the cooling system, says H&G director Kelvin Varghese.COMMENT March 2021 15www.fm-middleeast.com which were ideally suited for restaurant kitchens. Their focus was on improving the indoor environment for both residential and commercial sectors. Their technicians were not only suitably qualified but also conversant with all of the relevant local authority certifications. Their work complied with global industry associations and international quality, health, safety and environmental standards. Fast forward to 2021 and that specialist cleaning service, after being integrated with Hitches & Glitches (H&G), has grown out of all recognition. H&G and its 1,000 technicians offer 32 different specialised cleaning services including cleaning water tanks, A/C ducts, swimming pools and spas, garbage chutes, laundry ducts, grease traps, drain lines and mist filters, as well as HVAC duct smoke testing. But there was one event that nobody saw coming that would catapult the demand for these niche and other sanitisation services – the coronavirus pandemic! We only need to think about improved cleaning and sanitising regimes today, compared to a year ago and the fact that the general public is far more aware of the indoor environment than they were ever used to be. However, I’d like to highlight the demand for one particular service that really has caught me by surprise – data centre cleaning. The demand for this was obvious in some ways but it didn’t come to the fore until we went into lockdown and non-essential employees started to work from home. That created unprecedented demand for computing capacity following the sudden and significant shift to online working, which was being compounded by cloud computing technologies and the notable surge in online shopping, especially food retailing. And it wasn’t just adults of course, children were, and some still are, studying at home too! That in itself led to a surge in demand for another specialised service – residential deep cleaning and disinfection – from tenants and homeowners. It’s interesting because we have noticed that once these improved cleaning standards were formed, many families stick with them; it becomes almost routine. But coming back to the point. There was considerable ongoing growth in cloud computing, big data, and IoT services, as well as network upgrades to support 5G. This was anticipated by Etisalat that is building two new data centres in Jebel Ali and Al Ain, to meet the growing demand of digital transformation in the UAE. The Jebel Ali campus will become Etisalat’s biggest data centre in the UAE and will have an initial capacity of 12.4MW of IT power, while the Al Ain centre will cover an area of 1,700m2, consisting of four rooms over two floors, with an IT power capacity of 4MW. Other prominent data centre investors include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Khazna, Gulf Data Hub, and Datamount. Interestingly a YouGov survey had revealed that 88% of the UAE’s IT decision-makers were to increase their cloud spend in 2019. Given what we know now, I can only begin to imagine the seismic budget increases that were tabled for 2021, but I digress. Ultimately, that means that these centres will need specialist cleaning and maintenance solutions. Clearly, an average office cleaner would not be suitable to clean millions of dollars’ worth of equipment, not to mention the value of the information they process and save. Quite often, a data centre can look perfectly clean, when in fact it might be contaminated with tiny particles that become airborne and enter the cooling system. Over time these contaminants can damage circuit boards, corrode metals as well as cause disks and tape drives to fail, which can subsequently result in an outage. And if you’re working from Kelvin Varghese, director, Hitches & Glitches (H&G). AS TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION CONTINUE TO MAKE BUILDINGS EVEN MORE COMPLEX, THERE WILL BE DEMAND FOR MORE SPECIALISED SERVICES AND EACH SERVICE WILL BECOME EVEN MORE SPECIALISED. home relying on connectivity, that can be exceptionally annoying. In fact, it would be interesting to find out, how much outages cost UAE businesses last year; it must have been colossal. IT professionals have always spent significant amounts of money, keeping equipment well-maintained, consistently powered and in a cool environment, but relatively little to ensure a high degree of cleanliness and facility maintenance. Now, of course, there’s been a 180-degree shift to that attitude. Organisations have come to realise the true cost of a serious outage, with significant downtime. So, what does the future hold for specialised cleaning? More of the same I would say, or should I say even more specialised? You see, as technology and innovation continue to make buildings even more complex, there will be demand for more specialised services and each service will become even more specialised! COVER STORY www.fm-middleeast.com16 March 2021 LOOKING 16 March 2021 TAREK NIZAMEDDIN, SENIOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AT EJADAH, REVEALS THE STRATEGY FOR FM FIRMS TO FOCUS ON IN THE NEAR FUTURE COVER STORYCOVER STORY www.fm-middleeast.comMarch 2021 17 G AHEAD COVER STORY www.fm-middleeast.comMarch 2021 17 COVER STORY www.fm-middleeast.com18 March 2021 T he coronavirus pandemic defined the year 2020. The unforeseen event left several sectors exposed. Facilitates Management Middle East sat down with an FM industry expert to understand how the “new normal” also exposed the FM sector, particularly on the lack of business continuity plans/disaster recovery plans, and what the future for FM looks like. Tarek Nizameddin, senior executive director at Ejadah, says: “It’s a fact that the majority of FM players were unable to effectively and systematically operationalise their business continuity plans, if any, as the plans were not tailored or suited to fit these unusual circumstances. They were just trying to mitigate the associated risks through a short-term plan. Notwithstanding this reality, we should be very proud, as a sector, for the role that we have played in fighting the pandemic and ensuring that communities are receiving the required levels of services under very hard circumstances. Nonetheless, the FM sector should see this as an eye opener to start acting in agile manner by adopting proper planning, right practices and sustainable measures with a strong emphasis on operational resilience.” He adds that life post Covid-19 should act as a trigger to demonstrate the crucial role that FM will always assume, and the need to have more FM involvement and engagement in all related strategic decisions. Taking into account the nature of Covid-19 as an airborne virus, the air quality has become the main concern among all stakeholders. To this end, FM should be focusing on a few areas such as air quality, the balance between having a safe workspace through social distancing and retaining efficiency and commercial feasibility, and lastly, the management and support of the workforce, especially blue collar colleagues, Nizameddin observes. He says: “The pandemic has opened the eyes of facility managers on the issue of ‘Sick Building Syndrome’ (SBS) which was not a priority in the region prior to 2020. The causes of SBS are frequently attributed to pathogens (e.g., viruses, bacteria or fungus) or ventilation, humidity and temperature related issues. It’s really shocking to know that SBS is especially prevalent in newer, energy-efficient buildings in which the windows are sealed shut and fresh air is scarce. The industry has now learned the importance of disinfection and monitoring the cleanliness of the THE KEY WORD BEHIND THIS PANDEMIC IS ‘BUSINESS CONTINUITY’ WHICH IS DIRECTLY ASSOCIATED WITH THE TYPE OF FACILITY AND THE PERTINENT LEVEL OF RISKS. AS A CASE IN POINT, WITHIN A HEALTH CARE FACILITY, THE FAILURE OF AN EMERGENCY CLINIC IS MORE CRUCIAL THAN THE FAILURE OF AN OFFICE BUILDING. back of a house and plant rooms. Also, focusing on all ventilation, humidity and temperature controls, and ensuring that all are properly functioning where the system maintenance schedules are precisely followed and recorded. Most notably, facility managers are now more involved with the requirements to notify regarding any unusual individual symptoms or environmental concerns.” Covid-19 has shed light on the criticality of identifying and managing the potential risks of a facility’s Tarek Nizameddin, senior executive director at Ejadah. COVER STORY www.fm-middleeast.comMarch 2021 19 Ejadah’s security management arm Arkan has its own security robot.Next >