Facilities Management is often an organization’s highest cost, second only to payroll. Yet, when it comes to cost-saving and resource planning, the focus is typically only on direct operating costs and the total cost/value of the facility is not fully considered – usually because the data needed to evaluate performance and make decisions is scattered over many different systems and not readily availableBring this data together, however, and Facility Managers become strategic allies able to provide vital insights into operational expenditure and proposed capital investments.At Facility Issues, this is exactly how I help. With over 30 years of experience on facilities projects, facility data systems and long-term facility portfolio planning, I work with Facility Managers to combine and organize their data into a single set of scorecards and use it to identify where they may be over-performing or under-delivering by benchmarking their results with facilities similar to theirs. Metrics are a powerful way to cut through the noise, detect things of interest and identify actions needed. But when benchmarked against similar facilities, they have the power to highlight best practices and demonstrate what responsible performance is, insights that would otherwise have been missed. Today, organizations are also facing increasing pressure to publish their energy usage data and demonstrate their commitment to sustainability, and how their efforts compare. Facility management benchmarking provides a simple and affordable solution for both measuring performance and identifying potential improvement opportunities. All it requires is for you to have a good set of data about your facilities and your operations, and a willingness to see where the data leads.Of course, many new systems being installed today come with smart technology and the ability to show you this detail. But when the metrics are all stored in different systems, they are hard to analyse. If you’re the Facility Manager of a complex building, such as museums, laboratories, and critical facilities or diverse property portfolios such as utilities and country/regional government buildings, looking to contribute to the organization’s strategic goals and need easy access to metrics, I invite you to connect.