Manage Buildings Smartly - Everything You Need to Know About IWMS!
No efficient building management without Integrated Workplace Management System - here you will learn everything you need to know about IWMS!
- Definition: What is an IWMS?
- Why are IWMS important for your business?
- Functional Areas of an Integrated Workplace Management System
- How to Integrate an IWMS into Your Business
- What advantages do IWMS offer for companies?
- Conclusion
- 7 Providers for Integrated Workplace Management Systems
Order is half the life - This saying is not only true for one's own home, but also for business buildings. The solution is: Integrated Workplace Management Systems or simply IWMS. These systems offer companies and organizations a comprehensive platform for managing their properties efficiently and cost-effectively. In this article, we will discuss the functional areas and benefits of IWMS and why they have become indispensable for companies and organizations.
Definition: What is an IWMS?
Integrated Workplace Management Systems (IWMS) are software-based systems that enable integrated management of buildings, facilities, spaces, and other real estate resources. They represent a platform that integrates different functional areas such as real estate management, space management, technical building management, security management, environmental management, financial management, reporting, asset accounting and document management. These systems enable companies and organizations to manage their properties efficiently and cost-effectively by collecting and providing relevant data and information from different sources.
Why are IWMS important for your business?
Integrated Workplace Management Systems are relevant to you when it comes to managing real estate resources for your business. In times of rising inflation and energy prices, it is more important than ever to keep an eye on the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of buildings. Therefore, you should ensure that you can guarantee an integrated and effective management of buildings, facilities, spaces and other real estate components. An IWMS supports you in this by providing a platform that centralizes different functional areas of building management. By automating processes and simplifying manual tasks, an Integrated Workplace Management System supports you in optimizing the operating costs for your business.
Functional Areas of an Integrated Workplace Management System
As already mentioned, an Integrated Workplace Management System combines several functional areas to provide a central solution for managing real estate resources. The main functional areas of an IWMS are:
Real Estate Management: This includes your activities regarding the acquisition, financial management or sale of real estate. This includes functionalities that support property management, such as strategic planning, transaction management, RFP analysis, leasing analysis, portfolio management, tax administration and leasing accounting.
Investment Project Management: This area covers the design and development of new facilities as well as the remodeling or renovation of existing properties. Important features here are capital project management, capital planning, drafts, financing planning, tenders, procurement, cost and resource management and project documentation.
Facility Management: Refers to activities related to the operation and optimization of the use of facilities. It includes functions that support facility management, such as strategic facility planning, CAD and BIM integration, room management, site and employee service management, resource planning and relocation management.
Maintenance Management: This includes activities of preventive maintenance and the operation of your facilities and assets. Central features and functions here are work order management, the tracking of manufacturer warranties, inventory and supplier management, and the evaluation of the condition of facilities.
Energy Management and Sustainability: Not only from a cost perspective, it is more important than ever to operate your facilities as energetically efficiently as possible. This area therefore includes all activities for measuring and reducing your real estate's resource consumption, including energy, water and waste production or recycling, and CO₂ emissions. Central functions here are energy benchmarking, carbon emission tracking, and further analyses of energy efficiency.
How to Integrate an IWMS into Your Business
Implementing an IWMS is a comprehensive and complex task that requires a lot of preparation and planning. If you want to use an Integrated Workplace Management System for your business, follow these steps:
Step 1: Create a Needs Analysis
Before you can start with the actual integration, you should define what goal you are pursuing with the integration. An Integrated Workplace Management System offers many different core functions, not all of which may be suitable for your business. Therefore, familiarize yourself with the possibilities and then see which functionalities are needed for your business. See what resources are required for this and how you can use them most skillfully without your daily business suffering.
Step 2: Assemble a Project Team
Once you have created a needs analysis, you can put together a team that should carry out the integration of the IWMS. In any case, there should be IT people represented who provide technical support during the implementation. It is also recommended to divide the project team into several smaller groups that can flexibly handle the tasks.
Step 3: Further Considerations
Think about what the integration means for the other areas of your company. Do you need an extension of the IT infrastructure, which makes the introduction of an IWMS possible in the first place? Consider what requirements the IWMS could mean if you want to make major changes or further rollouts later.
Step 4: Data Consolidation
An IWMS is a central hub for your building management. This means for you that integrating the data from different sources will certainly take a certain amount of time. Therefore, it is recommended not to import all data at once, but to store the source material in several phases and updates in the Integrated Workplace Management System.
What advantages do IWMS offer for companies?
IWMS are important for companies as they offer a variety of benefits that improve the efficiency and cost effectiveness of property management processes. Some of the main benefits of IWMS are:
Integrated Data Management: IWMS integrate data from different sources, ensuring that relevant information is centrally and currently available.
Increase in Efficiency: IWMS automate manual processes and facilitate the management of buildings and facilities, leading to an efficiency increase.
Cost savings: By managing your properties more efficiently, you can save costs, for example by avoiding duplicate functions or optimizing maintenance work.
Monitoring of compliance: IWMS enable you to meet regulatory requirements while automating monitoring and reporting processes.
Monitoring of trends and Key Performance Indicators: By integrating data from different functional areas, you can monitor trends and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and thus make better decisions.
Conclusion
In summary: An Integrated Workplace Management System is an integrated software solution that helps you to make the operation and management of your properties and facilities more efficient and cost-effective. It covers various functional areas, such as real estate management, project management, building management, maintenance management, and sustainability and energy management. An IWMS therefore supports you in managing and making effective use of your assets and assets.
Companies and organizations considering implementing IWMS should ensure that the chosen system meets their requirements and supports their business processes. It is important to conduct a thorough needs analysis to identify the IWMS that is best suited for the company. Successful IWMS implementation also requires the involvement of all relevant stakeholders and close collaboration with the provider.
7 Providers for Integrated Workplace Management Systems
If you are still looking for the suitable Workplace Management Tool for your business, you will find many providers at OMR Reviews who have already been rated by our verified users. We have brought seven of these providers to you here:
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