The Co-founder and Executive Director of Sysserve, Owoeye Johnson, has called on companies to fully embrace intelligent platforms enabling sustainable facility management.
He made the call while delivering a paper at a recent conference organised by the International Facility Management Association Global Africa.
In a statement, it was noted that the event was organised to bring professionals in that field to connect, learn, and innovate strategies for the industry.
Owoeye said, “The Facility Management application floated by his organisation has in the past 13 years helped many organisations across different industries to achieve their digital transformation objectives, helping them at different stages of digitisation, from those just starting to those already running highly matured systems.
“There are five stages of digitisation, with companies operating at different levels, from non-existent to those at the nascent level; some are emerging, others are running connected systems, while others operate intelligent systems.”
Owoeye went on to share the Digital Maturity Model developed by Deloitte and McKinsey, revealing that the framework provided tools for organisations to evaluate their level of digital maturity and help build a roadmap to achieving full maturity.
He added, “Companies in the non-existent category have no centralised system for record-keeping but have data silos that are largely in manual formats. In some extreme cases, facility officers in such organisations literally have to travel to the head offices just to obtain a physical signature for vendor payments, work orders or procurements, while decision-making is generally slow, reactive, and based on guesswork rather than data.
“Such organisations will need to first adopt a central record-keeping system to kickstart their digitisation maturity journey.”
Owoeye noted that those in the nascent category have a system in place but underutilised, stressing that the system does not drive their operation but is mainly used as a record-keeping tool, while other operations still run on manual processes.
He said, “They keep insisting we have a system when, in reality, the system is grossly underutilised and not adding real operational value.
“The organisations in the emerging category are fully utilising their facility management system to power their operation, but their processes are still heavily human-dependent and prone to errors and delays, which sometimes affect the quality of reporting.
“The connected category is investing in the Internet of Things sensors that automatically capture real-time readings, from energy usage and equipment run hours to temperature, humidity, and space occupancy, integrating with other enterprise applications for automated vendor payments, procurement, and financial reporting. This level produces a massive volume of data, which is now becoming increasingly difficult to turn into useful insights to enable decision-making and sustainability.”
Owoeye added that level five is the pinnacle of digital maturity, where AI is embedded at every layer of their facility management operations, where they have generative AI and big data analytics that support planning, budget forecasting, and resource allocation.
He said, “You can describe their operation as autonomous, a self-running system controlled by IoT sensors and AI.”
Speaking on the sidelines of the conference, a manager in a facility management company based in Abuja, Femi Kareem, noted that an intelligent platform is an integrated digital solution that collects, analyses, and acts on data from different sources to optimise operations.
“It focuses on resource efficiency of energy, water, space, and vehicles and reduces emissions, cuts down waste, reduces costs, helps automation, and provides AI-driven solutions.” Kareem said.
Owoeye concluded that building an intelligent FM system that drives sustainability is a journey, not a leap. It is a gradual process. that demands strategic planning, continuous improvement, and sustained investment.
“Every step forward brings you closer to a smarter, greener, and more sustainable future. And the time to begin that journey is now,” he added.
