Risk of Outsourced Facilities management (FM) 🔧
‘You Can't Optimise What You Don’t define & don’t Own’
Many estate owners assume they’re doing things “digitally right” just because they mandate BIM or outsource FM.
But here’s the catch! Outsourcing only works if performance goals and data requirements are clearly defined early on, ideally at the tender stage, and in collaboration with the Facilities Management team. Otherwise, it becomes a ticking time bomb of mismatched deliverables, underused models, no data and rising maintenance & operation costs.
As part of Karolina’s MSc research on a £65m public project (the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland), she analysed BIM deliverables during construction!
The result? A clear pattern: when no one defines what data is needed for future maintenance & performance, no one delivers it, and you end up paying more to fix it later…
❌ Pain Point 1: Outsourced FM = Disconnected Decisions
University of Strathclyde, like many estate owners, outsources its Facilities Management. Sounds efficient, right?
However, in practice, this led to disconnects:
🛑 No clear Information Requirements (IRs) were defined at tender stage
🛑 FM Team was not involved in early BIM setup or discussions
🛑 No one asked what data would actually be useful for long-term maintenance & better performance
What happened?
The COBie sheet (i.e. the asset data) was partially delivered, but a few challenges were identified:
❌ It didn’t fully align with the model data.
❌ The Maintainable Asset List was defined later during the construction stage by the contractor, making alignment difficult.
❌ Some fields were manually populated instead of being extracted directly from the model.
❌ Certain asset data entries were either missing or inconsistent.
❌ Agreed naming conventions weren’t consistently applied.
➡️ The result? Even though the files existed, they couldn’t be confidently used for Facilities Management.
🤔 Pain Point 2: Good Intentions ≠ Good Performance
Many clients assume that mandating BIM or outsourcing an FM company means their building will be smart, sustainable, and efficient by default!
However, what we saw was this:
⚠️ No clear link between BIM outputs and the Owners’ FM systems
⚠️ No regular project audits to ensure deliverables were aligned
⚠️ No structured data to support day today operations, maintenance and smart performance
The tools were there, but they weren’t being used to their full potential! The outcome was far from optimised.
➡️ The result? You can’t improve what you don’t understand. And without good data, you understand very little.
🎯 Why This Matters: Performance Is the Point
Most owners of estates, buildings or assets don’t care about COBie files or BEPs, but they do care about:
💸 Lower operating costs
🔧 Fewer equipment breakdowns
🌱 More sustainable & efficient buildings
🧑🤝🧑 Happier & healthier occupants
📈 Long-term value and resilience
🗂️ Structured & interoperable data
📊 Better lifecycle visibility
🔄 Digital transformation beyond traditional CAFM
But none of that is possible without accurate, structured data to support decision making after handover.
If your FM team can’t access or trust the information, your building is underperforming from day one, no matter how modern it looks.
🛠️ How Can Owners of Estates, Buildings, or Assets Improve Their Outcomes?
✅ Define Information Requirements (IRs) early
Make sure they’re clearly written into contracts and aligned with long-term FM needs — not just project delivery.
✅ Involve FM teams from the start
If they’re going to use the data, they should help define what’s required — especially for maintenance workflows.
✅ Get data you’ll actually use
Don’t just “get a model” or dump files no one opens. 👉 Ask for structured COBie, aligned asset lists, consistent naming, and metadata that integrates seamlessly with your chosen FM platform.
✅ Don’t rely solely on traditional CAFM platforms
Explore flexible, open-data environments or cloud-based asset management tools that can adapt as your building or estate evolves.
✅ Use data to enable smarter operations
Structured digital asset data supports predictive maintenance, cost tracking, energy optimisation, and long-term asset performance.
✅ Regularly audit your deliverables before handover
Conduct monthly project BIM audits or at least mid and end of stage to catch issues before they become costly gaps.
⚠️ Final Thought
If you're relying on someone else to manage your building's performance, but you haven’t defined what “performance” means or what data is needed, then you’re not running a smart building.
Outsourcing FM isn’t a strategy. Owning your data is!
🎓 Would you like to read the Full Research Paper? Grab your free copy here 👉 Download Now (Link to PDF)
📚 Want to dive deeper into Information Requirements, COBie or BIM audits? Explore our #BIMTalk articles 👉www.bimkarela.com/bim-talk
🔍 Need expert support? Check out BIM KARELA’s Tender Support services 👉 www.bimkarela.com/bim-procurement-tender-support