Breakfast Club

The second fmME Breakfast Club meeting - the forum for passionate industry leaders and knowledge sharers - moved forward on the formation of a licensed trade association for the sector as a whole.

June's meeting at the Movenpick Hotel, Bur Dubai, saw the appointment of ServeU GM Stephen Barker as inaugural chairman to steer proceedings, and the addition of three new industry faces - Ulysses Papadopoulos, BDM, CitySpace; Juma Bin Darwish Al Muhairy, director - Engineering, Dubai World Trade Centre; Dilip Khatwani, CEO, Reliance Facilities Management - invited for their previous involvement in attempts to form a dedicated FM trade association for the Middle East.
Read on and find out how the group is shaping up to the challenges ahead to form an association for you and the industry to work with, and from, to implement best practice...

Chairman appointed

Inaugural fmME Breakfast Club guests agreed the way forward in setting and implementing standards and to gain a regional FM industry voice, was through the formation of a trade association. It was therefore agreed upon in the second meeting to appoint an interim chairman as a single point of contact for the group with government and other key bodies.

With this in mind, ServeU GM Stephen Barker has volunteered to take on the role for an interim period.

How do you go about setting up a licensed trade association in the Middle East?

Stephen Barker (SB): I think we all agree that if this group is to go further and put itself in front of government and the Dubai Chamber of Commerce we need a single point of contact to steer the group. That said, we need to be fully prepared before we seek an audience. Ulysses, why did the earlier attempts fail?

Ulysses Papadopoulos (UP): The initial effort in 2003 stumbled when the meeting we secured with the Dubai Chamber of Commerce fell through. From that point on it became very hard to keep the group moving forward until we had another meeting, which didn't happen. We also tabled the association as member centric, which not only smacked as a trade union and was therefore not particularly appealing to the chamber, but also meant we had to have 25 Emiraties sitting on the board by law. That just wasn't possible then, and I doubt it would even be possible now.

Juma Bin Darwish Al Muhairy (JM): We had around 20 senior people in the group and aligned ourselves with IFMA, the International Facilities Management Association. In short we got too big and the momentum dissipated when the meeting with government failed to materialise. Plus IFMA backed off.

Louisa Theobald (LT): So you think the group should stay small?

Terry John-Baptiste (TJB): Yes. If you have that many people operating around the globe it's easy for people to drop out. They don't think they'll be missed at meetings, but their expertise is and it's then difficult to solve problems and move on if they're not at hand. I've experienced it before with various committees and we need to be mindful of having too many cooks. There's also the time issue. People are giving up their time, and if it's not productive they will stop coming.

Bradley Robbins (BR): Although I agree, we don't want to exclude the wider industry.

Alan Millin (AM): No, we want to reach out to the wider industry once we have something tangible to present. The same as if we went to the chamber, we need to have some to offer, or the movement will be seen as not only toothless, but totally rudderless.

LT: I agree to an extent. But I feel the people around this table should integrate with the wider industry. The industry is talking about this club and we don't want to be perceived as elitist or protectionist. The message has to go out as to why it's being kept small - i.e. to keep momentum and ownership, but also talk about the aims and objectives for the industry as a whole. The FM-Expo networking evening would be a good chance to have an informal chat with the industry.

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