Why doesn’t the Gartner definition of IWMS reference organisational Customers?

I have been working within the IWMS arena for 20 years and have seen a lot of change over that time. The acronyms for one thing. When I started in 2003 CAFM  (Computer Aided Facilities Management) was the buzz word that defined the space, in this case both figuratively and literally. Around 2004 however the principle of an IWMS system was proposed by Gartner; defined as:

..a single software platform used by corporate real estate (CRE), IT and digital workplace leaders to manage the end-to-end life cycle of corporate facilities. An IWMS enables organizations to manage building performance, energy use, capital projects, space and asset allocation, maintenance and other portfolio costs using an integrated system.

Of course in 2004 the principles of IWMS were just that and very few, if any, systems existed on the market that actually fulfilled the criteria from a single platform perspective.

It was around this time that our organisation began coming involved in developing some of the early Room/Desk Booking and Asset allocation systems for clients, such as Accenture and Royal Bank of Scotland. Corporate leaders who at the time were looking at ways to better manage their facilities portfolio performance through developing processes to improve workspace allocation and optimised usage.

Spring forward 20 years and the principles behind booking systems and other integrated workplace management processes are now well understood and often modularised into fully fledged Enterprise solutions, forming a core part of managing the end-to-end life cycle of corporate facilities. And just as well, since following the COVID years all organisations have seen a distinct change in workplace practices, in particular when it comes to remote office working, that will (I suspect) ultimately need to be facilitated through technological systems.

The negative off shoot of this, something we have I’m sure all encountered, is the plummeting customer service levels seen across all industry. Something which is in no small part down to organisations simply struggling to adjust quickly enough to the new paradigms of working first enforced through government intervention and later adopted by enthused HR teams and employees as a preferred or even best working practice. Exactly how this drive towards WFH (work from home) and remote working philosophies will pan out is anyone’s guess but one fundamental impact that seems to have been over looked is the experience of the end Customer. And surprisingly this is not as unusual a situation as it first seems.

Reread the Gartner definition of IWMS above and you will not find a single reference point to organisational Customers. The inference here being that huge sums of money and internal resources are being placed into Workplace Management Solutions that do not consider Customers as part of its integrated thinking. Little wonder then that for all the internal cost mitigation, management reporting and ROI (return on investment) calculations the one fundamental operational element that has been lost is the impact upon Customer Experience (CE).

Whilst such CE blindness has not been the complete reserve of large corporates, smaller organisations appear to have fared far better in respect to maintaining a strong focus upon their customer’s needs. The reason for this, I suggest, is that from a day-to-day perspective they are naturally more dependent upon their customers, simply for survival if nothing else. Conversely this is also why we see very few IWMS systems being offered to the SME market, again since it is far less viable for resources to be placed upon customer blind internal mechanisms and processes when they could (perhaps should) be focused upon excelling within product and service delivery.

All this in mind, when MASS first looked to partner with Gravity Business Solutions to develop an IWMS platform it seemed clear that there were a large number of functional tools within corporate solutions that could provide great benefit to the SME market, yet remained unobtainable from a viable cost value proposition perspective. In part because such workplace tools were wrapped up into large expensive platforms and in part because they were not being driven from the perspective of the organisational customer experience.

In creating Gravity Workplace, we have set about changing the paradigm of what an IWMS can be. By creating a single platform cloud-based solution that is founded upon CRM (Customer Relationship Management) principles we have brought the Customer Experience to the forefront of our IWMS solution, where we believe it should be. Not only has this enabled SME’s throughout the world to begin optimising their own Workplace processes to help develop and grow their Business, but it has also given larger corporate organisations the opportunity to refocus their internal resources and processes to ensure the customer experience is not forgotten.  Over the coming weeks we will be introducing our cloud-based and enterprise solution to clients and prospects. Watch this space for further developments and an exciting roadmap.