Findings from the 2021 Top European Facility Management Survey. The Swiss-based Drees & Sommer AG has recently published their survey presenting Europe’s top facility management companies.
21 firms submitted their detailed responses in the course of the study, while researchers obtained information and data from another 26 companies. The responding companies have a total revenue of EUR 30.224 billion and a total staff of 672,300.
The report ranks companies based on their revenue, the number of employees and market presence.
There are few companies in Eastern Europe offering integrated services
The industry is dominated by Western European companies. 61% of the revenue and 57.3% of the workforce originate from this region. This is followed by Northern and then by Southern Europe. The main reason why Eastern Europe is lagging behind is that there are few companies offering integrated services in this part of the continent, however, one can find here the highest number of small and medium-sized enterprises which are not represented in the research.
The facility management sector is characterised by significant market concentration: the 5 top market players generate 73% of all the revenue. This means that a few ‘big players’ dominate the European market.
In the recent period, the companies have followed a two-way strategy: they are increasingly focusing on their core business, while expanding their service portfolio at the same time. The market exerts great pressure for the provision of complex services.
FM service providers have increasing responsibilities
Although digitalization has evolved a lot in this industry as well, service offers are still dominated by personal presence and established work practices.
Service providers need to face increasing responsibility, for it has been established by various research projects that the efficiency of the tenants’ activities depends to a large extent on the quality of the management and maintenance of the building in question.
The two major global trends of the recent past have posed another great challenge for entities engaged in facility management.
Due to the pandemic, a number of new developments have been introduced: the safety of employees, the level of hygiene and the need for health prevention have increased everywhere in the properties they manage.
As a response to the climate crisis, they have optimised the sustainability of buildings, taking steps towards to zero emission and placing the focus on the ‘green transformation’ of office complexes and industrial buildings.
Naturally, this required significant financial and intellectual investments.
Source: Drees & Sommer AG
B+N
In the report, B+N Referencia Zrt. is ranked 13th among the companies with the largest revenue. The company, which was founded in Hungary more than 20 years ago, took over the Hungarian, Czech, Slovakian, Romanian and Slovenian subsidiaries of ISS-group in 2021, making it a market player with the second highest revenue in the Central European region. With more than 10,000 employees, it generated sales revenue of EUR 300 million, offering services in 6,745 locations and on 9.4 million square metres.
B+N has an extensive service portfolio. As the leading FM company in the Hungarian market, its activities cover the full service spectrum of the industry: cleaning and hygiene, technical operation, fit-out activities, laundry services, horticulture and forestry, professional textile management services, occupational safety services, security, catering and document management. It has been present on the list ranking the top 500 companies with the highest revenue for many years.