Service Delivery in FM: Enhancement or Enchantment?

Purpose: Relationship management in FM is arguably essential in terms of service delivery (Coenen & Nwanna 2014). With the growth of knowledge workers, increasing socio-economic demand on space and wider political demands, the purpose of this paper is to position FM firmly as a service (as opposed to building maintenance) based industry. It uses the concepts of Disneyization to explore the elements existing within this subjective area, and then plot the contractual relationship accordingly. Approach: This stance is novel, borrowing the concept from marketing and tying it with storytelling research to understand the different mechanisms and evolving trends of service delivery within the UK FM industry. The paper therefore seeks to utilise the role of corporate storytelling (Gabriel 2004) within FM, investigating if it is an unspoken core and unique disciplinal competence (enhancement) (Solnet et al 2008), or just smoke and mirrors, illustrative of an increasingly commoditised service in the face of wider economic pressures (enchantment). Scenario based interviews were held to investigate personal tales of service delivery and applied across to FM practice. This allowed the basic delivery mechanisms to be identified and mapped. Concepts of disneyization were then identified, which occurred naturally within the rhetoric as opposed to being specifically asked for within the interview setting. All participants are current, UK-based FM practitioners. Findings: The findings indicated that the use of disneyization is not only useful for understanding the current nature of FM, but also for plotting what expectations are within a practical service delivery environment.