12 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - MARCH 2017

Collaboration without monitoring

Wisse Stenchlak about collaboration in
facility management
Collaborating in the new economy doesnt work if organizations uphold dogmas from
previous decades. Todays market should therefore stop working together in the traditional
sense, where success is measured with KPIs, SLAs and fines. Instead we should move
to collaboration without monitoring. This is the vision of Wisse Stenchlak, Commercial
Manager at ArrangeGroup.
Text: Leo Kranenburg Photography: Aad Hogendoorn

More and more organizations are focusing
on their core tasks. Supporting services, like
facilities management, are outsourced to
service providers. Organizations stay on top
of these services by formulating standards,
minimum requirements, desired results and
goals. But this traditional customer-supplier
relationship doesnt leave much room for
service providers to focus on quality. They often
have to deal with price competition without
necessarily being the most successful service
provider, and end up delivering minimum
standards to secure their return. This might
give customers what they want, but they dont
get the most value out of their relationship.
Rationalization
Wisse Stenchlak studied facilities management
at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences. In
2009 he took his first steps on the FM market
as Interim Professional at ArrangeGroup, and
now he is Commercial Manager Interim &
Consultancy. He acknowledges the problems
that the traditional customer-supplier
relationships face. The market writes
and speaks a lot about partnerships, says
Stenchlak, but
they often use the wrong definition. Most
partners are focused on their own future and
revenue model, but they often dont know this
about each other. There isnt a mutual interest
and instead they focus on price, achievements
and quality. But do we lean so much on ratio
that we forgot how to manage on instinct and
trust in relationships between people?
Matching and dating
Stenchlak encourages customers and service
providers to work together differently.
Focusing on numbers seems necessary, but its experimented with new collaboration methods
not enough for an optimal relationship. Whats
missing? Concern for the match between
organizations. Take a look at what partnership
means in the private sphere, for instance. If
you enter a relationship after a number of
successful dates, you do this because it gives
you a positive feeling. You like someone and
you have the same morals and values. We can
also apply these characteristics to the business
to business environment. If a friend is short of
money, its likely you wont mind picking up the
tab. But would you do the same in a business-
to-business environment? In the market we
continue to view things from our own position,
while we should work together more.
If you want to work together well, you need
to have the best intentions for each other.
Otherwise it only leads to frustration. To keep
control, the customer continues to manage
things they shouldnt manage at all. And the
contractor has the same attitude towards his
or her employees and customer. This way you
never achieve full transparency.
Best Value
In recent years, facilities organizations have
to overcome these problems, such as best
value procurement. Stenchlak: This approach
has a number of new strategic pillars and is
based on predictability, transparency, win-win,
no silos and no control. Its a good starting
point where organizations select an expert
and stop laying down strict guidelines. They
have a price cap for project and organizational
goals, after which the service provider tries to
meet these goals on a functional level based
on his or her expertise. The level of innovation
is higher, there are fewer mistakes in the
process and more value is created for the
organizational goals.
 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - MARCH 2017 13

Wisse Stenchlak, Commercial

Manager at ArrangeGroup

Structure doesnt create value,

people do
Its a step in the right direction, claims
Stenchlak. I believe that best value helps to
select the expert with the best performance.
But its not the method to build the best
relationship. A relationship based on trust
cant be expressed in metrics, and working
with an expert doesnt guarantee the best
relationship. The best value approach reduces
risks and ensures predictability based on
structures and performance data. Stenchlak
believes that trust and a good relationship
thrive on creativity, experimenting and the
autonomy of people in this collaboration.
In the FM market its all about finding a
relationship that creates value by using the
right professionals. They ensure that people
working for a customer are proud of their work
environment, work productively and are happy.
In the end, facility professionals support the
organization by achieving its strategic goals.
Change is never top-down, but bottom-up
instead. Facility management is the internal
service provider that ensures that people enjoy
working at an organization. We can truly call
this creating value.
I look forward to the first customers and
service providers that let go of dogmas and
primarily search for the best relationship, says
Stenchlak. Find an organization with people
that you feel connected to by dating. Then
start to build the relationship, like in real life.
A prerequisite is that you have to believe in
the partnership. Its why this approach isnt
14 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - MARCH 2017
right for organizations with mandatory tender
agreements. Or does this make me guilty of
holding on to a dogma?
Effect of a strong economic
climate
Nevertheless, Stenchlak sees the future
of facility management collaborations as
a positive one. The market has reached a
turning point. On the one hand there are new
initiatives focused on creating value. But the
motivation behind this can be traced back
in part to the 2008 credit crunch. We were
creative with available assets. And at the end
of the crisis we were no longer talking about
money, but more about value and innovations.
It looks like were facing some years of
economic growth. Will we return to our own
horizon? Or will the development continue
and will we look for new ways to collaborate?
I wonder whether well continue to pursue
our collaboration ideals in a strong economic
climate, or whether the abundance will limit
the sense of urgency.
Learning to work together
I expect well find a good balance. Im an
idealist and believe that we enter relationships
that add value in every era no matter the
economic, political or social context. Greyston
Bakery is a good example. This bakery
was located in one of the most criminal
neighbourhoods of New York, and was founded
to help underprivileged people find work. Their
motto says it all: We dont hire people to bake
brownies, we bake brownies to hire people.
Everyone can apply for a job and theyre always
invited for an interview. The employees are
also continuously challenged to develop,
which they do. The profits are given back to
the community, the company and employees.
This sounds idealistic, but it illustrates that
relationships and trust are more important
than monitoring mechanisms, structures and
old beliefs.
Eventually, says Stenchlak, well
learn to collaborate without monitoring
mechanisms by trusting each other. Of course
partnerships require plans, contracts and
organizational frameworks, and we need to
uphold regulations. It doesnt matter that you
document the collaboration. As long as you
do this as minimally and simply as possible,
so people understand it and it isnt used to
monitor a good relationship.
In the market we continue
to view things from our
own position, while we
should work together more.