2025 is newly upon us and it’s a great time to look at the trends and key drivers that will likely shape the work of facilities management in 2025. Some of these will be an extension of trends that we are already seeing and others will be emerging or increasing in importance. This is my view of what are likely to be the most significant shifts during 2025 that will affect OCS and the wider outsourced facilities management sector.
Technology
The impact of technology on FM has been positive. The increased amount of data now available to us and our customers is helping us drive productivity and optimise operations. The result of this for our customers is greater efficiencies and a reduction in energy costs, as well as helping them with their ESG decarbonisation plans.
At OCS, under the broad banner of technology, we are seeing increasing use of robotics and cobotics, sensors, smart buildings, telemetry systems and AI. We are using technology in contracts across a broad spectrum of sectors to deliver operational excellence and provide customers with increased efficiencies and cost savings.
We have already had great success with employing AI and robotics and have also launched our own smart building management system called ABI which has demonstrated great results in reducing energy consumption for many of our customers.
AI is developing rapidly and its uses are continually changing so its important that we stay ahead of the game. We have invested in a dedicated AI team to keep us at the forefront of these advancing technologies.
ESG
Social value has really started to increase in focus and importance for many contracts, with a demonstration of social value measurement becoming a requirement on tenders. OCS already has measures in place that enable us to track the outcomes of social value in a meaningful way and report this back to customers. We were recently able to a record a £14.9 million social and economic value in partnership with East London NHS Foundation Trust for our activity since 2022. We also recently held a social value roundtable with customers which helped us to understand the challenges they are facing and learn from some customers who have excellent programmes in place already. Social value is going to be one of the big focus areas for OCS over the coming year as part of our ESG strategy.
People
OCS is a business that is built on its people. Attracting and retaining the best people is not an easy task, and the past 12 months have seen the whole industry face labour shortages. This is beginning to ease, but if we want to keep focused on being the best employer, then we need to create an environment where people feel they have the opportunity to grow and prosper.
In 2024, we launched two leadership development programmes, with another due to start in early 2025 for account managers. We have also set ourselves the ambitious target of enrolling 1000 apprentices by the middle of 2025 – a target that we look set to achieve.
Market Consolidation
The FM sector as a whole will undoubtedly feel the ramifications of the recent budget with customers even more likely to be focused on price. And with changes to National Insurance, every business will be feeling the squeeze. The likely impact of these additional costs to businesses will be market consolidation, as smaller providers struggle to remain competitive. 2024 was a very active year for OCS in this respect, completing five acquisitions within 12 months and we see no sign of this slowing down as we move into 2025.
The Future
Outsourcing facilities management is not just about cost, it’s about buying in expertise and we are investing significantly to ensure that we remain at the cutting edge of the latest trends to provide the very best service to our customers. 2025 is certainly going to be an interesting year and we are well positioned to ensure we can capitalise on the opportunities.
