Cloudy Skies for FM Air?

The other day I was planning a trip. My first step? I went to my favorite airline’s Web site (We’ll call it “FM Air”) to see how their flight options and prices compared to all the others…

Really?!

Does FM Air know all the options? No. Are they in business to help you compare their service and price to other airlines? No. Their tools really only exist to support their business: providing the service of getting you to and from your destination.

That’s why you rely on Web sites like Expedia or Orbitz. They provide a neutral platform for managing travel. They don’t own airlines or hotels. Their business is the tools: giving you an easy, efficient way to find the right travel services for you at the best price.

So, what’s this got to do with facility management?

There’s a lot of confusion in the facilities software world today. Facility software vendors are also increasingly becoming contractors – even building relationships with other contractors whose services they markup.

Reminds me of the old story about foxes and henhouses… and raises a lot of tough questions: Who chooses the contractor? How do they make those choices? Who enters and tracks information on the performance, cost and quality of the service? If the software vendor sees all the data from unaffiliated contractors, will that be shared with the in-house providers? Will the best independent contractors want to be part of a network owned by a competitor?

At ServiceChannel, we keep it simple. Our business is the tools: giving you an easy, efficient way to find the right facility services for your company at the best price.

You get information on price, performance and quality that you can trust. You add your trusted contractors to our platform and get a rich database of contractors if you need to find new ones.

No hidden agendas, no conflicts of interest. You manage the relationships and ServiceChannel gives you the tools to do it better.