Breakfast Club

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That said, exhibitor levels are up for this year’s FM Expo. There’s a trend toward international FM companies and product and service providers coming to the UAE; with the amount of property coming on stream it’s very attractive.
And it’s a great opportunity to knowledge share and educate.

TB: We haven’t had time to touch on the issues of tendering and the poor standard in the region. We have built a tendering template that includes procurement, hard and soft services, insurance, manpower, training, management and the like. My point is that we have self regulated to standardise and implement best practice. We can do this together to combat the problems we’re all facing. This is a great opportunity to benchmark the region using these gathering as the foundations.

SB: It felt like being slapped on both sides at the end of last year. It was a bad climate and certainly damaging, so to get together like this is a breath of fresh air. The fall out though of the realignment is a more focused industry that now recognises the need for policing and change.

This wouldn’t have happened if the exponential growth had continued apace. It’s a wake up call certainly – and one that in my eyes was well overdue – the region had to wake up to the notion of competition at some stage.

The need for education and regulation is obvious and pressing, and I feel that it will have to come from within and from the Breakfast Club platform.

There is obviously the passion to drive the industry forward in this room, and in the industry at large, and take ownership of the FM industry in the Middle East.  

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The guests

Scott Wilson (SW), managing director Development Emcor Facilities Services

Peter Crogan (PC), CEO BCS Strata Management Services

Louisa Theobald (LT), group exhibitions director SMG FM Expo

Stephen Barker (SB), general manager ServeU

Bill Heath (BH), managing director Mace Macro

Gemma Davies (GD), principle consultant FM Now Careers Middle East

Terry John-Baptiste (TB), FM director Omniyat

Stephen Marney (SM), managing director PSDI

Ali Hassan Al Suwaidi (AS), executive director operations Imdaad

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