Vienna University of Technology partnering with Indian Institutes to build a talent pool of facility mangers

Updated on: Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Austria-based Vienna University of Technology is partnering Facility Management (FM) zone, Real Estate User Group (REUG) and Global Initiative for Restructuring Environment & Management (GIREM) to set up a novel institute in this tech hub to build a talent pool of facility mangers for the services sector.

Touted to be the first of its kind in the Indian sub-continent, the Chartered Facility Management Institute (CFMI) will offer a crash course during weekends for seven weeks initially to working professionals and subsequently aspirants looking for a career in the emerging sector.

CFMI director Shyam Sundar S Pani told reporters here on Monday, "Facility management sector is a $15-billion industry in India, growing at about 20 percent annually and is projected to touch $40 billion by 2020, thanks to increasing urbanisation and mushrooming growth of the services sector spanning knowledge industry, hospitality, healthcare, malls, security and MICE (meetings, interventions, conferences and exhibitions)."

As an Indo-Austrian initiative, the institute will provide an 86-hour international certification programme for professionals, including executives employed in diverse verticals across the services sector on facility management.

Alexander Redlein, head of department of real estate and facility management, Vienna University of Technology, said, "Our objective is to educate facility managers in accordance with the needs of companies, as facility management is more than performing services like housekeeping in a building or workplace."

"With complexities of facilities and services increasing, the need to upgrade facility management skills has become critical to a company's growth, as its managers have to ensure efficient and optimal utilisation of resources spanning energy, transportation, plant and safety," Redlein said.

At Rs 42,500 per programme, the institute will commence the training from December for a batch of 35 professionals and increase the number of batches on demand basis first in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and the National Capital Region (NCR).

According to a study by the three real estate partners, there are about 600,000 facility managers across the country while the demand is estimated to be about one million.

KS Viswanathan, vice-president of Nasscom, the Indian software and services firms' representative body, said, "Facility management in India is in a nascent stage. As businesses expand in terms of real estate, physical assets and human resources, the need to manage them effectively is a challenge for the services industry."

Vienna University of Technology partnering with Indian Institutes to build a talent pool of facility mangers

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