Paper info

Procurement and relationship management trends in FM services.

Anssi I. Salonen and Tero J. T. Lehtonen

The paper was published at the 21st IMP-conference in Rotterdam, Netherlands in 2005.

Although services are increasingly taking up a larger part of any organisation’s purchasingexpenditures, relatively few academic studies into buying business services are available. Oneimportant part of the business service sector is facilities management (FM) services. The aim of thispaper is to recognise the procurement trends of FM services and to describe the partnership controlmechanisms that contribute to the success of FM partnerships. The results are based on aquestionnaire, which was carried out in Finland. As well as contributing to the supply chain andrelationship management literature, this study offers potential benefits to both FM service providersand buyers in terms of how to formulate successful relationships and to improve the performance andefficiency of partnering relations.