Use an Aggregator for Your Facility Asset Management Needs

An aggregator, just as it sounds, is a facility management partner organization that contracts with other service providers such as HVAC specialists, sign maintenance technicians, lighting experts, plumbers, and others to provide their offerings to customers that have anywhere from several dozen to a few hundred locations.

If you’re a facility manager or other leader at an organization that has this many locations, you understand how complex managing the assets for all of these locations can be. Each facility has dozens of assets — some of which are owned by lessors, some of which are owned by you. If your business has many locations across a multi-state footprint, managing facility maintenance for your sites can be even more complex. If even one of these assets experiences an outage or other issue, it can have serious ramifications for that location:

  • Malfunctioning HVAC systems can cause discomfort for employees and customers
  • Broken-down refrigeration/freezers can lead to spoilage and water damage
  • Poorly performing lighting creates safety concerns and makes space unusable
  • Plumbing problems lead to water damage and other messy situations
  • A sign that’s not functioning can send the wrong message and decrease sales

Situations like these are where an aggregator shines as a facility management partner versus a self-performing service provider, and for a few distinct reasons.

They Cover Everywhere You Operate

Self-performing service providers only operate within a certain footprint. If you have a few hundred locations, it’s almost assured that one company will only cover a portion of them — leaving you and your location managers to frantically search for and reach out to multiple companies to see if they’re available to assist.

  • The Aggregator Difference — Aggregators build long-term relationships with service providers in multiple disciplines and in multiple locations across the country in order to provide national facility maintenance coverage. If rooftop air conditioners go out at two locations four states apart, your aggregator will have a service provider ready to step in and help, while a self-performer will likely only be able to service the one location within their reach.

They Take a Proactive Approach to Maintenance

While your locations could partner with self-performers nearby for preventive maintenance (PM) program support, each company would execute that PM program in slightly different ways, on different timelines, and with different costs and fees. The result is an inconsistent scope of work that can produce different and unreliable results.

  • The Aggregator Difference — Because your facility management partner has nationwide reach, they can implement a more uniform scope of work for each location — whether it’s on the West Coast, the East Coast, or New England. This uniformity ensures greater consistency in the performance of your assets while also bringing all fees into alignment and as part of one program that you have complete oversight of 24/7/365.

The Service and Communication Are Better

Managing multiple assets at dozens or hundreds of locations isn’t possible unless you know exactly what’s going on, what the timetables are, what the costs of each work order are, and many other data points. But, handling all of that information yourself is beyond the reach of one person or even a small team. And the larger the organization, the more complexity, administrative hassle, and time are required. Additionally, with you or your team handling multiple self-performers, you’re likely to run into service issues.

  • The Aggregator Difference — With a single organization managing all work across your footprint, you’ll never have to wonder where your asset management program stands. Your facility management partner will make all information available to you in an easy-to-use online portal, where you access work orders, estimates, invoices, and virtually any other documentation. And — best of all — you’ll have a dedicated team that you can reach out to for assistance (and that same team will be who you reach out to for emergency needs as well!).

Experience the Value of an Aggregating Facility Management Partner

CLS Facility Services has been working with organizations nationwide and across multiple industries for more than 50 years to help them solve their most complex facility asset management challenges. We’re proud to have helped countless companies implement more effective maintenance strategies and realize significant cost savings.

We achieve these results by offering a complete portfolio of services spanning HVAC/R, lighting, signage, plumbing, fire/life safety, and many others. Work is executed through our network of national vendors and suppliers with whom we have an average partnership of more than 12 years — ensuring that only the best companies are touching your program.

If you’ve been looking for a more reliable facility management partner, our team is here to help. Get in touch with us today to learn more about our services and why the aggregator approach is the way to go, or book a meeting with us at a time that works for you.

Are you a vendor looking to establish a partnership? Get in touch with us here.