Shabnam Mehta

At Aditya Birla, each facility is designed keeping in mind its utility and function. The company constantly works to ensure that all elements are integrated with the aspirations of the occupants of the facility. “The profile of the workforce is changing rapidly and it is necessary to understand the changing demographics of the users to ensure that the services keep up with these changes,” states Mehta.

In a conglomerate that has a large number of facilities on account of acquisition, it becomes necessary to standardise services through policy, guidelines and process documents. The group has prepared a guideline to ensure that facilities are readily available across all stakeholders — project manager, architects, contractors and service providers. “While one takes into consideration the aspects of geography, size and utility of a facility, there is a minimum standard of facilities and services that will be available at every facility and can be scaled up according to the need of the business,” explains Mehta. There is a constant pressure on a facility manager to reduce costs without impacting services. For Mehta, one way to look at this Cost-Value proposition is to bring in value in areas where there is a possibility of adding value, plus bringing down costs, and in cases, where value is added through specialised expertise that has no cost element. This helps to tilt the scales in Cost-Value segments and add up to the brand image.