Modus operandi

Facilities Management Middle East talks to Nigel Hambly about setting up shop in the GCC’s FM industry

Nigel Hambly first came to the Gulf in 1976, a time when the connection between Abu Dhabi and Dubai was in large part a sand track. Since then things have changed. Stints with a selection of big name corporations, then a brief try at retirement, have led to being involved with Modus, which officially started operations in June 2009. In this short time, the embryonic FM company has already tendered AED 135 million worth of work over 12 major projects and Hambly already has his sights set firmly on making a few important changes.

fmME: What do you do?

NH: My role is to steward the growth of the business into profitable areas. At the same time taking the Modus brand into new areas and business sectors, while making money and enhancing the brand.

I have it ensure our brand represents that of a credible professional organisation, regardless of what we undertake; that approach has some upsides and some downsides. For instance we will not do certain types of work, we will also veer away from risk, but embrace work where we think it is credible to do. I think the successful organisations have always been protective of their brand and what it represents. My background is with Shell a company that is passionate about brand values; I carry that ethos with me today. By improving the FM delivery, we can add to the professional credibility of the FM industry in the GCC states, and if we can be a small part of that FM development I’ll be very pleased.

fmME: What is Modus?

NH: Historically, Modus was originally a design and fit out company at the high end of the market, for banks, hedge funds and that kind of thing. As a natural genesis customers came back to us and said ‘you’ve designed a high-tech environment, can please you maintain it’. So it started as maintenance and then progressed. It was not a designed organisation, but grew from customer demand, very similar to the emergence of FM companies here.

Modus has now become one of Europe’s leading design and fitout organisations , not on in the commercial sector but for data centres and high-tech labs. There’s a very limited number of players in this high tech sector..

In the UK it’s a mixture of full FM, some of it is around technology, combined with a substantial FM mobile fleet. We go from the white collar through to the blue collar. We established Modus here at the worst part of the recession; my experience says if you can make a company survive in the middle of a recession you should have a reasonably good platform to expand when the recovery begins.

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fmME: Can you explain the scope of Modus’ work?

NH: Our scope is management and first tier supervisory control. We’re not interested in becoming a blue collar organisation here. What we bring is very comprehensive management techniques. We want to work with qualified partner organisations that have a very similar business ethic to us, in terms of being a credible organisation and what they want to achieve. The other aspect we bring is a wealth of international FM experience, which we can translate into advice for client, property owner, or end user.

We can advise clients on appropriate methods, systems and processes and act as a first tier of expertise. I veer away from calling it consultancy, it’s a much broader spectrum than just specifying something, it’s the whole experience of designing, specifying, procuring and managing thereafter.

With regard to our presence in the market place, I think the brand has become visible quite quickly. We’ve had a credible and quite comprehensive response from most of the clients we’ve dealt with. We’ve not been successful with everything because it is a very competitive market out there and, on a couple of occasions, we’ve been used as a bench mark, or free consultancy.

fmME: You believe there needs to be a radical change in the way FM contractors are engaged, can you explain your views?

NH: There are a number of things. Firstly, there is no standard form for FM contracts. All I’ve seen are plagiarised construction formats, with bits out of UK contracts. Therefore, there is no standardised framework to operate an FM contract under.

Secondly, I do not like the inclusion of performance bonds in many forms of tender. I find this contrary to the precepts of the customer facing service approach the FM industry offers. They fly in the face of partnering and service orientation in as much as clients want a performance bond from you, but you don’t get any chance to get a reciprocal one from them. Effectively it allows them to push payment out to 120 days, plus 10% on top, leaving FMs acting as a charity for six months. In my opinion, this represents a level of commercial immorality.

They are expecting you to provide the best performance service possible and they, in return, are not reciprocating in their support of you doing that. Essentially,tThey are squeezing you for money and using you as a bank.