eFM and Eptura strengthen their partnership to transform spaces into value
Facility Management is undergoing an unprecedented period of transformation. The day-to-day management of buildings and assets is now accompanied by new priorities: increasingly complex property portfolios, cost pressures, now well-established hybrid working models, and artificial intelligence that is beginning to deliver tangible results.
According to the latest analyses by IFMA, JLL, CBRE and Deloitte, five trends are emerging that are set to influence organisations’ strategies in the coming years. These are not isolated technological changes, but a new way of managing data, buildings and processes, in which Facility Management is playing an increasingly central role in business decision-making.
For eFM, which has been supporting businesses for years on their journey from Known Assets → Connected Data → Portfolio Intelligence → Real Estate Governance → Business Performance, these trends confirm a long-held belief: without reliable, structured and shared data, it is not possible to establish effective real estate governance or to fully harness the potential of artificial intelligence.
1. Facility Management is becoming increasingly data-driven
Organisations collect vast amounts of data, but this often remains scattered across Excel spreadsheets, unintegrated systems, paper documents or email communications. The problem is not a lack of information, but the difficulty in transforming it into usable knowledge.
For this reason, there is a growing need for new analytical skills within Facility Management teams. Standardising KPIs, integrating information from multiple systems and building shared dashboards enables operational data to be transformed into a decision-support tool.
This is the crucial step towards a Single Source of Truth, the essential foundation for any Portfolio Intelligence initiative.
2. Artificial intelligence is only as good as the quality of the data
AI represents one of the key opportunities for innovation in facility management, but its value depends entirely on the quality of the available data.
Organisations with structured and integrated data are already reaping tangible benefits through predictive maintenance, process automation and advanced analytics. Conversely, those who continue to work with fragmented information struggle to move beyond the experimental stage.
The real difference, therefore, will not lie in adopting artificial intelligence, but in creating the conditions for it to work effectively.
3. Facility Management plays a part in strategic decisions regarding the property portfolio
Property management is no longer just about maintenance and operations.
Market developments, combined with new ways of working, require increasingly informed decisions regarding the property portfolio: which sites to retain, which to redevelop, where to invest and where to consolidate space.
In this context, Facility Management takes on a strategic role, as it has the operational data needed to assess costs, performance and asset utilisation.
The ability to compare different buildings using standardised indicators therefore becomes a key element of Portfolio Intelligence.
4. Maintenance data drives investment decisions
Maintenance is no longer merely about ensuring operational continuity.
Maintenance history, asset condition, operating costs and life cycle data now represent a valuable source of information for planning future investments
Basing capital planning on objective data helps to reduce emergency interventions, improve cost predictability and support decision-making with concrete evidence.
For this reason, it is becoming increasingly important to standardise asset classification and adopt shared criteria for assessing risk and criticality.
5. Spaces are designed based on actual usage
Hybrid working is now firmly established and has changed the way spaces are experienced.
The aim is no longer to assign a workstation to every individual, but to understand how spaces are actually used: days with the highest footfall, preferred types of space, occupancy levels and usage patterns.
The design of workspaces therefore becomes an ongoing process, based on occupancy data and collaboration between Facility Management, HR and IT, with the aim of improving both the efficiency of the spaces and the experience of the people using them.
Data is the true driving force behind transformation
These five trends point in a single direction: Facility Management is evolving from an operational function into a strategic lever for the business.
The common thread is data, which becomes the infrastructure upon which to build faster decisions, more effective investments and smarter management of the property portfolio.
This is precisely the principle underpinning eFM’s approach: starting with Known Assets, building Connected Data, developing Portfolio Intelligence and transforming information into Real Estate Governance and Business Performance.