Facilities Management and Global Service: an Example of a Forecasting Tool in Tenders.

The growing use of outsourcing processes is and must be supported by rapid development of Facilities Management and Global Service. On one hand, if companies tend to externalise the non-core business activities, on the other such activities become the core business for the service companies, especially within the deregulation of the utilities market. Within this context the availability of risk analysis and quantitative support tools becomes of fundamental importance in order to interface the technical-organisational choices with the economic parameters and the tariff development process. A user-friendly interface and being easy to operate are the indispensable conditions needed to ensure the real applicability and usability of such tools. With this in mind the authors have developed an offer strategy guide. This tool was tested and used during a tender to select a private partner for managing the integrated water service in a particular Italian reality. Developed entirely using macros in MS Excel, the tool is particularly simple since it consists of electronic spreadsheets in which it is very easy to identify and modify all the parameters involved in the analysis. This tool was used to carry out a quantitative evaluation of the effects of the possible decisional alternatives modelled on the main offer parameters. The alternatives were evaluated considering the correct level of stochasticity of the realities objects of the study. The tool is able to optimise the decision-making process and to define an economic-financial plan as the link between company strategies and operating management. These results are obtained considering the external constraints (financial feasibility of the project and investment plan) and the competitiveness factors of the tariff plan (user supportability and offer parameter). The tool input data, as for example the cost parameters, are traditionally evaluated by companies experts based on historical data or on benchmarking analysis. A strong definition of static parameters, even if designed with particular accuracy, can not be and must not be applied to different realities. This kind of analysis can be used only as a starting point for further developments while it is necessary to make estimations and forecasts on several possible scenarios. The logic model, which is quite simple at a conceptual level, includes the elaboration, starting from a first hypothesis of investment plan, of the depreciation plan; through the elaboration of this last factor in addition to a predictive demand analysis and a detailed estimate of operating costs generates the main outputs i.e. the tariff plan, the profit and loss account and the cash flow. In the Authors opinion it is very interesting the tool integration with an investments scheduler/optimiser: this last external module elaborates an optimal configuration of the company plan of investments (optimal plan in terms of time and financial constrains) starting from the first hypothetical investments plan and using an iterative feedback logic of testing and validation. An analysis of the results obtained by using the model led to an efficient orientation relative to development of the offer to obtain the financing feasibility of the project, an excellent tariff (sustainable and competitive) and an investments plan capable of satisfying the expected quality levels.