Outsourcing of Facilities

Abstract

Outsourcing is widely regarded as a powerful business process that can be employed to streamline an organisation’s operations. This study explores the outsourcing of Facilities Management in the South African Private Healthcare industry. It probes the functional areas of Facilities Management in this sector with the aim to understand its complexity. It also explores how this complexity would influence functional segmentation when outsourcing of Facilities Management is contemplated. The relative importance of financial and non-financial decision parameters as well as the associated risk of outsourcing is also investigated. Current thinking was probed through structured interviews with experts in Private Healthcare Facilities Management. The main findings of this research were that Facilities Management in Private Healthcare consists of many diverse and expert functional areas and should not be outsourced as one function. However, it was found that outsourcing of Facilities Management as multiple functions would increase risk to a healthcare facility. It was further concluded that non-financial drivers are considered to be more important than financial drivers when making the outsourcing decision.