The outs of facility management: outsourcing facilities management isn't an all-or-nothing decision on today's campuses

University Business, July, 2006 by Julie Sturgeon

THERE ARE FEW GIVENS IN THE world of facilities management outsourcing. Take the percentage of colleges that have taken the plunge, for one: Most providers estimate about 20 percent of this market has turned over control of some aspect of its operations--food service, bookstore, groundskeeping, building maintenance, janitorial, energy maintenance, or security--to an outside expert.

Are any institutions farming out the whole ball of wax? According to a 2002 survey of attendees conducted during several National Association of College and University Business Officers meetings, a mere 2 percent had done so.

From Kristy Elmore's office as the director for Higher Education Solutions at Johnson Controls in Milwaukee, those numbers are definitely climbing. "In just three years with the higher education market, the conversation has gone from 'Don't say the O word' to 'We need help,'" she reports.

Yet the field report from Rick Justis, an area sales manager for Johnson Controls, is that mass scale outsourcing isn't nearing tidal-wave proportions--it's more like the tide itself. "It's really not very common," he says. "For a while outsourcing was a good thing, and for a while outsourcing was a bad thing. Now, it's situational, and the university's attitude depends on local politics, local labor pool, and so on."

The concept, of course, is solid. "As a risk manager, if it reduces your potential liabilities, it's a good strategy," says Michael Christensen, assistant vice president of Risk Management Services at California State University, Sacramento. Yet he can't identify a single outsourcing project on the IHE level.

The atmosphere is a bit chummier in Waco, Texas, where Baylor University's Don Bagby, director of Facilities Management has finally, after 12 years, shed his oddity status at Association of Higher Education Facilities Officers conventions. "We had a tough time attending activities because colleagues wanted to spend [an extraordinary amount of] time with us finding out how we outsourced and our reasons," he says. "At that time a lot of people said it would never work at their university. Now I hear they've outsourced that work."

According to a 2002 study by FMLink, an online publication for facilities and building managers, 72 percent of the nation's businesses in general outsourced custodial and housekeeping, 65 percent farmed out design and architecture, 63 percent hired others to do landscape maintenance, 51 percent said good-bye to in-house security, 50 percent contracted for preventive maintenance, and 45 percent of utilities maintenance was handled by outsiders. Of those polled, 36 percent said they were likely to add still more functions to their outsourcing lists.

Meanwhile, the folks at Philadelphia-based Aramark worked with 350 registered attendees last year when it held a web seminar on the topic, with a 67 percent increase in web traffic immediately after that event. Overall, the site has received 2 million hits since it launched last year. Such data means officials there estimate the number of IHEs now looking into comprehensive outsourcing is growing at perhaps 1 percent a year. In this large market segment, even a single-digit jump represents serious profit dollars for vendors.

Still, Elmore isn't spinning when she claims that comprehensive outsourcing as a strategy for campuses is not stagnating, but simply resting before the next crest.

The facts: Energy costs are escalating, a large percentage of college employees are nearing retirement, and deferred maintenance issues have reached critical status (the average age of buildings on American campuses is 30 years), just as new construction hits a record pace over the next decade. It's no surprise that Thomas Galvin, vice president of marketing at energy management provider SourceOne in Boston, now sees first-timers knocking at his door instead of the other way around.

But SourceOne hasn't necessarily found a slam-dunk angle with its market niche. On campus outsourcing priority lists, "I'd say energy hasn't been at the top," Galvin admits. "In parts of the country where we see very stable, low-cost sources of electricity, there isn't the same sense of urgency as in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Texas, where there is real volatility in pricing."

So in the end, vendors and administrators agree on only one statement about facilities management outsourcing: "We are seeing, quite dramatically, an increase on the part of institutions to think about their facility needs and to consider outsourcing more often and much more seriously than before," notes Frank Mendicino, president of Aramark Education--Facility Services.

Green Light

As a verb, outsourcing has outlived its headline news status. UNICCO, based in Arlington, Va., has served more than half its IHE customers in operations areas for more than 15 years. Randy Ledbetter, vice president of Business Development, says the facilities services firm retains more than 95 percent of its business--so longevity is piling up.