International. By 2050 Latin America will be strategic for transnational corporations because in the last decade investment in the region has increased due to its high potential and resilience and where facilities managers will play a primary role.
This was considered by Nevardo Arguello, Director of Global Corporate Services at Newmark, when participating in the International Congress of Facilities Managers of Latin America -CIFMers Latam 2020-, held virtually; He added that given that many multinational companies have turned their gaze to the region, it will reach a point where Latin America is much more advanced than at present and will be considered transcendental for investments, especially in technology and where specialists in Facility Management will have a leading role.
During the dialogue table of the CIFMers Latam 2020 related to suppliers, moderated by Luis Morejón and in which the managers in facilities Luis Ronca, of JLL; Claudio Blum, of Cushman & Wakefield; Erika Casillas, from Sodexo; Vanessa Yupari, from Ingestiona of Peru; Rebeca Arguedas, United Facility of Costa Rica; Luis Viña, from CBRE Mexico, and Nevardo Arguello, from Newmark, stressed that the client-supplier relationship must be long-term, in a round table where everyone involved plays an important role in the operation of real estate facilities and avoid unnecessary costs.
"It is important to involve all those related to the operation of a building to define the services that are going to be given, set common objectives and establish a memory or traceability so that all those who participate in the design and offer of the services, also participate in the implementation and operation, in order to avoid problems for companies in times of crisis like this and especially that the spaces reflect the culture of the company," said Newmark's Director of Global Corporate Services.
They pointed out that the current situation has allowed Facility Managers to go from being considered as a necessary evil to strategic partners in companies, in a relationship in which trust has been vital in the plans for the closure and reopening of spaces, so the return to work in offices represents an opportunity to demonstrate the importance of the experience of knowing how to manage spaces and provide security to users.
They added that they are analyzing experiences from Asian and European countries to be able to return to office spaces, which will ultimately be a great challenge, since it will not be like before and where companies will have to prioritize aspects such as psychological, attention to the emotional part of employees, provide them with safe physical environments, for 70% of people who already want to return to their workplaces and interact in a healthy space.
The specialists in the operation of facilities indicated that aspects such as sustainability and digital will have a special focus for the return to the offices, to provide fully integrated systems at another level of security and for those who decide to continue working from home.
"Companies in this period of confinement have been more open to changes that have been dizzying, with people working from home, in satellite offices, hotels or in a place that is not their home, so the challenge for Facility Managers will be how to protect employees in the near future, since it will have impacts on the operations, processes, protocols and technologies of sanitary control, of the air conditioning with new technologies in ventilation, temperature measurement mechanisms and with 5G already underway, it will imply challenges for facilities managers to establish operating strategies in the short term", concluded Nevardo Arguello, Director of Global Corporate Services at Newmark.
At the CIFMers Latam 2020, directed by David Martínez, nearly a thousand Facility Management professionals were present, demonstrating that in the ten years that the organization has, facilities managers in Latin America have been positioning themselves in a relevant way in companies.
