CoreNet Global notes that, while China’s embrace of capitalism has made it the world’s second-largest economy, it is still catching up to the developed world’s more mature markets in terms of modern office planning and design.
“The government’s attention to its strategic emerging industries will result in a larger office worker demographic,” thus continuing to fuel the dramatic growth of the Chinese middle class, CoreNet Global’s professional journal, LEADER Magazine, reports in its January 2013 edition.
The report points out that a new approach to FM is emerging in China; one in which strategic building management contributes to a more valuable organisation. The role of the facilities manager and the plans in place will become more and more strategic in nature as FM influences all aspects of the workplace. These goals include sustainability, energy efficiency and increased worker productivity.
“Facilities management is a burgeoning industry making inroads across the country,” the report states.
One reason is that by the year 2050 China is expected to build as many as 50 new cities that don’t exist today. CoreNet Global cites China’s current Five Year Plan, which is based on inclusive growth and economic prosperity across a broader segment of the country’s 1.3-billion people. This includes China’s historically prosperous coastal cities, as well as its more economically challenged interior cities.
According to report author Melissa Securda, director of knowledge & research at CoreNet Global: “A new approach to FM is emerging in China; one in which strategic building management contributes to a more valuable (corporate) organisation. The role of facilities managers…will become more and more strategic in nature as FM influences all aspects of the (Chinese) workplace.”
She added that China’s business evolution “is making larger strides” because CRE, a more strategic version of FM, is driven in large part by multinational corporations that are beginning to instill their best-in-class global management practices across China’s vast economic landscape.
