In conversation with Mr Kareem Fathi, Facilities Manager at Contrack Facilities Management, Egypt, we tried to understand the Facility Management Industry in Egypt.

“The Egypt Facility Management market is in growth stage and is shaped by both Commercial and Infrastructure projects. Egypt FM Market is still in its infancy with a lot of scope to educate the market and slowly bring maturity.”

Q1) What is the current stage of the Egypt Facilities Management Market?

• Egypt's FM market is still in its infancy, with plenty of room to educate the market and gradually bring it to maturity.

Q2) Which service dominates the industry, soft or hard?

• I may favour hard services over soft services because I work for a company that only offers hard services and Integrated facility management, but I'll also respond from my perspective despite the fact that I lack any conclusive data or statistics about the range. In my opinion, soft services are superior to hard services because they fall under a variety of categories and are the focus of numerous companies. There are businesses that provide hard services, but they fall under a different category—possibly hard maintenance of production line machines—which is why I claimed that most businesses in Egypt provide soft services. As I've already mentioned, there are numerous categories and a variety of services.

Q3) According to you in future which service will dominate more Hard/ Soft?

• Soft Services will continue to dominate Hard Services

Q4) Can you elaborate more on Security market of Egypt?

• In Egypt, there is a law that forbids foreign corporations from offering security since they have access to private data. Therefore, all businesses offering security services must be Egyptian; if foreign businesses wish to operate in this sector, they must form a joint venture with an Egyptian business. However, there is one instance where a global corporation entered this market with G4s; I speculate that they may have formed a company with the same name, but I am unsure.

Q5) Are there any laws governing the facilities management industry in Egypt?

• A general labour legislation exists. It governs all interactions between employees and businesses. Perhaps there is an unique law for facility management firms that I am unaware of, but generally speaking, we adhere to Law No. 12 of 2003. I'm not aware of any specific laws in Egypt governing facility management.

Q6) Will landscaping and housekeeping maintain their dominance in the market for soft services?

• Yes, they will continue to dominate as you can see why the companies contract with facility providers, why they don’t invest in housekeepers? Because they are trying to size down their employees and decrease the number of employees and it is also increasing because of the continuous expansion of urban areas and increasing corporate offices have encouraged these two segments to grow.

Q7) In Hard Services, Which Service will continue to dominate and boom?

• Yes, it will increase because all the global companies now have a strategic direction to decrease the number of Associate Staff and increase the number of contractors. The Market for facility management is growing for all sectors.

Q8) According to you companies prefer which service – Single Service, Integrated Service or Bundled Service?

• All the Services will increase but the integrated Service will grow at a faster rate Because Clients prefer to deal with Single companies and the integrated company may further give the contract to some other company. So, IFM works as one stop for all the solutions, it reduces the search cost and helps to achieve economies of scale. IFM – Make one contract and he will provide all the services

Q9) One more thing I noticed in End-user Sector Analysis is that Residential is continuing to decrease as compared to commercial and industrial. So, do you think it will continue to decrease in the future?

• The usage of residential people using facility management services will depend on the cost of services provided by the company, In my opinion residential people cannot pay for facility management because of the cost. If it increases it will only increase by a very small percentage which will depend directly on the per capita income of Egypt.

Q10) If the company will prefer the In house personnel to handle the facility or they would outsource it?

• Outsourcing will increase in the future because the number of international companies that enter the facility management market is increasing and the quality of services they provide has encouraged companies to outsource. The Global Companies have taught the Egyptian market the culture of facility management and that has encouraged local companies also to increase.

For more insights on the market intelligence, refer to the link below: -