Embracing the nexus of forces for increased performance and cost reduction

The digital era has ushered in a powerful phenomenon that has blown open the doors of the traditional office building and has taken the workplace with it to anywhere business activities are being carried out. It has bypassed the IT department with their control of hardware and software and quieted the hum of their servers in their huge data centres. It has perplexed the HR department who face a new workforce which is used to blurring the lines between their work and private lives making traditional policies and procedures no longer relevant. Now the digital era has ushered in the Nexus of Forces (the convergence of mobility, cloud computing, big data/analytics, social media and the Internet of Everything) is changing the world of corporate real estate (CRE) and facility management (FM) like nothing has before.This article introduces the Nexus of Forces (NOF) phenomenon and explain why it presents one of the biggest opportunities for our profession to embrace these new technologies and truly lead the development of one of the most exciting aspects of the business world today. This is the redefinition of the planning, design, management and utilization of the workplace. New roles are being added to CRE/FM staffs and new skill sets are required for the maximum performance of these professionals. Therefore, new courses must be added to all layers of our education system from grade schools through graduate programs to enable this to become as powerful force as it can be, as predicted in this article.