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On this page we touch upon the set-up of the Provider Performance Survey. We highlight the way in which FM service providers and their client organizations have been involved in the project, the research method that was used, the reliability of the survey, the different research areas that were included and we outline the final calculation of the Provider Performance Score.
The Provider Performance Survey is an initiative of Hospitality Group and was first carried out in 2016 as a research solely for the Dutch facility management market. Before initiation, the survey was aligned with the majority of the Dutch FM service providers who provide integrated packages of FM services. Since then, it has been conducted on a yearly basis and with a lot of success in the Dutch market. In 2021 the survey evolved towards a global setting. This first international edition of the survey is a derivative of the survey used for the Dutch market. The survey has been altered to better match the international context of this year’s edition. The aim of the survey is to realize improvements and further professionalize the FM market in collaboration with the service providers and their clients.
All FM service providers that were included in the survey have been informed upfront whereby the research method, definitions and demarcations of the research have been discussed. A structured method was used for the research whereby client organizations of the FM service providers have been interviewed. All service providers have been asked to participate actively in the survey and to provide the contact information of their clients. Hospitality Group has in addition approached client organizations in its own network and asked them if they were willing to participate and rate the performance of their service provider.
The research method that was chosen was to conduct interviews with representatives of the client organizations. The advantage of this method is that the response is maximal and that interviewees are given the opportunity to explain their answers to (complex) questions, which increases the reliability of the research.
Client organizations of the included service providers were interviewed by telephone, whereby a structured survey formed the basis of the conversation. The interviewees were all either responsible for managing the contract with the FM service provider and/or responsible for the overall performance of the contract. Interviewees were mostly the lead for their facility management organisation, the contract manager or the demand manager on a regional or global level.
The research population consists of a number of client organizations whom have outsourced their FM services internationally and in an integrated manner. This population has been identified with the use of different sources. On the one hand, a selection of service providers who offer integrated FM services internationally were asked to provide the contact information of their client organizations. On the other hand, the network of our consultancy firm was used whereby all client organizations that fit the scope of the research were asked to participate. More specifically, FM contracts were admitted into the survey if they:
The performance of the FM service providers in this research is assessed from different angles. This increases the validity of the research. Validity is the extent to which we measure what we actually intend to measure. The client organizations have been surveyed on a range of different areas:
The client organizations have been asked to give an overall score for the performance of their service provider. All aspects that a client organization finds important in the performance of their service provider, have been considered in this general performance score.
The recommendation score is a simple but powerful instrument to measure satisfaction with just one question. It is generally used as a measure of customer loyalty and satisfaction, whereby the client is asked how likely they are to recommend a product or service. In the Provider Performance Survey, the client organizations were asked on a scale of one to ten how likely they are to recommend their service provider to other organizations.
Six specific themes were chosen that were considered most relevant to the performance of the providers:
These themes have been operationalized into a large number of closed interview questions, which have been presented to the client organizations. The client organizations scored each of these different themes based on how satisfied they are, on a 5-point Likert scale.
In addition to the satisfaction of the client organizations, the importance given to the aforementioned themes was also examined. This has been measured by asking all interviewees to rank the different themes in order of how important they consider them to be. By surveying the importance of these themes, we can offset satisfaction and importance and examine the relationship between these two variables. Not all themes are equally important to client organizations. Ideally, when assessing a provider’s performance, one should consider the importance the interviewee attaches to the individual themes. This relationship (importance vs. satisfaction) has been emphatically included in this research.
A major challenge to international FM service providers is to establish consistency in performance across different geographic regions. To assess how successful providers in the global IFM market generally are in this area, the participating client organizations were asked in the interview to evaluate this for their FM contract.
To arrive at one overall indicator of the providers’ performance, the Provider Performance Score was developed. The Provider Performance Score is made up of various elements. These elements represent the different research areas as outlined in the paragraphs above. The Provider Performance Score is calculated as follows:
Provider Performance Score = ΣXi ((Gper* 0,3) + (Rrecom* 0,2) + ([TOE + TRC + TIC + TRF + TAC + TIS] / 6 * 0,4) + (Cper * 0,1)) / n
Formula components
In order to be able to make reliable statements about the performance of the providers, we have set a minimum threshold when it comes to the number of client interviews needed for the provider to be included in the survey. All providers that were included have reached this threshold and have met the survey entry requirements that are outlined in the paragraph ‘Research method’ as well. As this year was the first time the Provider Performance Survey was conducted internationally, generalizations should be made with caution. The global IFM market is large and although we have included some of the most prominent organizations in the industry, we are just creating the very first insights into the market. We can therefore not provide definitive conclusions on the representativeness of the sample. Moreover, as Hospitality Group is based in Europe, it may be that through our network and exposure a natural bias exists in the sample as we are more connected to organizations operating in Europe. The latter region is therefore better represented in the survey than others.
Geographical representation
Client organizations were asked for which geographical regions they have contracted their service provider. This figure displays the total number of FM contracts (in %) in which the provider was indicated to be active in the region.
Duration of contract
Contract size: number of countries
This figure displays the number of countries included in the FM contracts
Contract size: spend
This figure displays the spend of the FM contracts
A selection of international FM service providers was made and invited to participate in the Provider Performance Survey. This selection was based on the one hand on market research and on the other hand based on which providers were known to Hospitality Group to fit the requirements of the research. A few providers were invited to participate but could eventually not meet the entry requirements, as they could not provide a sufficient amount of client organizations to be interviewed. We recognize there may be other providers active in the global IFM market that were not (yet) included in this survey. This first international edition of the survey was meant to create initial insights into the global IFM market. As we continue to carry out the survey in the upcoming years, the selection of participating providers will become larger and more representative. The providers that were included in the survey this year are: