OCS Group keeps focus on Asia with total facilities management
OCS Group, a UK-based international facilities service provider, has made an aggressive move to expand its services in Asia with its solution-oriented Total Facilities Management service (TFM).
Heather Suksem, regional managing director of OCS in South, Southeast Asia and Middle East, said that this year the group continued to focus on the buoyant Asian market by expanding operations into India, Indonesia, Philippines, and even Myanmar.
“Non-core business is our core business. Thus the TFM has been created to offer an integrative solution of non-core services for clients,” she said.
Suksem added that with its worldwide presence, OCS had a strong focus on the Asian market, where nearly half of its global employee strength working in different countries across the region – and with Thailand taking the lead.
OCS now provides integrated facilities services in more than 30 countries worldwide with more than 60,000 employees. Under the expansion plan, the company expects to generate 20,000 additional jobs in the near future.
In this country, Property Care Services (Thailand) or PCS, part of the OCS Group, has officially launched the TFM as a new solution offering a full suite of facilities services, while maximising clients’ asset values. To date, PCS’s TFM portfolio includes Harrow International School, New Ford Assembly, Phromphan 53 apartments, and Porto Chino.
After 45 years of operation, PCS now represents more than 23,000 employees and more than 5,000 clients through 16 branches nationwide. Sebastian Anthony Power, PCS’s director for business development and regional account management, acknowledged that the recent increase in the minimum wage would drive up labour costs by 40 per cent. Therefore, the company has to offer different solutions to meet clients’ needs.
“As technology gets cheaper and cheaper, we definitely look for more technology and fewer people.” Its car-park security service, for example, will disappear in the next few years.
He said clients’ priorities included reducing the cost of facilities management, improving service-level agreements and key performance indicators, health and safety enhancement, and improving efficiency.
With a service customised to each client’s needs, TFM integrates such services as janitorial, catering, gardening, inventory and audit, mechanical and electrical, pest management, security personnel and systems, energy management, and washroom hygiene.
Power added that TFM minimised operating costs through a single chain of command, elimination of margin-on-margin expenses, and economy of scale.
Meanwhile, Nick Blackstock, regional TFM director, said that to enhance the quality of service delivery, people’s qualifications were very important. The company has to enhance the skills of its staff through training. However, the engineering side is difficult to get a grasp on in some countries.
He added that after the establishment of the Asean Economic Community in 2015, PCS would take advantage of Thai knowledge. PCS is expected to export expertise to other Asian countries.
