Facility management is the management of a company’s physical space and services to enable people and processes within that space to function and, in doing so, ensure that the organization can deliver its product or service.
This includes cleaning, HVAC equipment evaluation, safety assurance, waste disposal, space planning, etc. The choice of management model for these services will influence cost, efficiency, and overall business performance.
In-house facility management refers to the process of hiring and managing your own team to provide all facility-related services. With this approach, the organization takes complete ownership of hiring, training, scheduling, and service provision. Many companies opt for this model when they need to ensure more control over operations and service quality.
Convenience, security, and control are the top reasons companies opt for in-house when choosing to partner with a facility management service, particularly when customizability and oversight are top considerations.
With internally managed facility services, you control staff and operations directly. This helps you set standards quickly, troubleshoot problems with ease, and enforce them to a greater degree.
Outsourced staff do not have an intimate understanding of your company mission, values, and work culture like internal teams do. This results in improved internal communication, customer service uniformity, and a more collaborative team atmosphere.
In-house teams tend to be more adaptable to tailored, specific company needs. You can control cleaning schedules, security protocols, or maintenance plans without renegotiating contracts or waiting on third-party decisions.
Requiring full control may be great, but it brings more responsibility and expenses.
The other side is hiring full-time employees for facility roles, which comes with a low-grade salary, additional benefits, training costs, and, of course, facility equipment costs. These expenses can pile up over time and burden the company's financial plan.
Your in-house team might not have the industry expertise that specialized service providers have unless you invest heavily in training. As a result, a gap may occur between current practices and the latest standards in efficiency.
Growing an in-house facility management team for your business can slow down and get complicated as you scale. Bringing new team members up to speed: Hiring, onboarding, and training new team members takes time and resources that could be used elsewhere.
Facility management outsourcing is the practice of hiring an external provider of services like cleaning, maintenance, or security. Indeed, this model has a distinctive appeal for businesses seeking to cut costs while still tapping into professional expertise and focusing on their core operations instead of peripheral ones.
Outsourcing can provide several advantages, especially for companies seeking to maximize resources and enhance service quality.
Outsourcing gives you the benefit of lowered overhead. You won’t need to supervise staff or purchase costly equipment. As explained in the introduction, service providers often have competitive pricing from scale.
Facility management companies have trained professionals with experience in the latest industry standards and technologies. Simply put, it means better service delivery, compliance, and processes.
By outsourcing non-core functions, you enable your internal team to focus on business growth, client service, and strategic tasks. You capture internal talent as a time bank and avoid the noise of day-to-day facility management.
They can scale services rapidly to meet your evolving needs. Whether you are opening a new office or require more services during peak seasons, a third-party partner can be agile enough to respond quickly.
Though there are benefits of choosing this path, there are challenges of outsourcing that need to be kept in mind for businesses.
When you outsource, you are putting part of your operations in the hands of another company. “And this means less direct oversight, which occasionally gives rise to problems of consistency or responsiveness in the service.”
They also don’t understand your company’s atmosphere or expectations. The lack of attention can impact communication, morale, or service delivery, particularly in client-facing environments.
A high degree of dependency on a third-party service provider carries risks if the provider fails to perform or terminates the contract without advance notice. In such situations, you may encounter sudden interruptions in your business processes.
An in-house facility management model, on the other hand, is perfect for organizations with strict control requirements, sensitive environments, or longer-term commitment for integration. For instance, hospitals, high-security institutions, or businesses with specialized facility requirements still find it beneficial to retain their own teams. If cost is not a decisive factor and the level of customization is vital, the in-house architecture can constitute a competitive edge.
Outsourcing is an excellent option for businesses looking to cut costs, increase efficiency, or require specialized services. For small to mid-sized companies, start-ups & companies with more than one location, outsourced facility management is very useful. It’s also good in situations where rapid scale-up or cost control is required, as long as quality is not compromised.
Many companies are now taking a hybrid approach — when they outsource functions, it’s some functions (such as janitorial services or landscaping) but not security or IT-related facility roles. To further enhance our design independence at a lower cost, we supplemented our supplier base with other food ingredients and can iterate to address market trends quickly while still maintaining control over critical areas. It’s a clever approach to utilizing internal resources alongside external expertise.
Deciding whether to request outsourcing vs in-house facility management purely depends on your organization’s goals, budget, resources, and operational needs. An in-house team gives you more control, an adaptive culture, and customization. Outsourcing can offer a cost-effective solution, flexibility, and access to experts. There’s no universal solution to this kind of situation, but by understanding the pros and cons of each type of model facilities management company, you can create a model facilities management approach that’s right for you and your company.
