How did the financial crisis and the crises in the construction sector affect your company?
- The crises affected a lot the construction sector, but the facility management services in Bulgaria are seen as needed only at the next ”level” – when the building starts to operate. I will be very happy, if facility managers take part in the whole process – from designing a building till the end of the construction phase and then – the real operation of the building.

Having this in mind, the construction crisis here is felt in a different way.

Did you manage to find new clients, who want their buildings to be professional managed?
- Facility management services are a necessity for every company, no matter if it is a private or public one, larger or smaller. Larger companies with different types of buildings and often spreaded structure have greater need of specialized facility management services. These companies are looking for professional facility management contractors, but not as one sole contractor, but more often for small parts of the integrated facility management.

Government institutions like hospitals, schools and other administrative buildings also need specialized FM services. A lot of these institutions realize the need of good quality maintenance and make some auctions for subcontractors, but these processes take a lot of time and efforts and are not very effective.

Facility management services are also needed for most of the bigger residential or mixed buildings. Companies have to realize, that the life cycle cost analysis of a building shows that more than 75% of the total cost is for maintenance and only 20% is for construction – a fact, that shows the need of professional facility management services.

Which will be the future challenges in front of the FM sector in Bulgaria?
- The challenges are to convince our potential clients that outsourcing the FM services to a professional company can save money, time and efforts. Here is the time to explain the main advantages of using the services of a specialized FM company. The main advantages of using professional FM provider can be summarized as follows: decreasing the expenses for maintaining a building by increasing the lifespan of the building installations and equipment, decreasing the expenses for repairing, decreasing the amount of use energy, full transparency of the processes and expenditures – hundreds of employees, materials and subcontractors invoices are down to one monthly invoice.

Working with only one contractor can guarantee adequate and equal services in the whole country, easy budgeting and expenditures control. The company will have one guaranteed time for reaction in case of emergency. Here I want to add, that the lack of preliminary agreement with a respectable partner for reacting in case of emergencies leads toward decreased comfort for the employees and clients of the company, as well as additional expenses linked with the disturbance of the working process.

You were deputy chairman of the Bulgarian facility management association and now you are member of the Board of Directors. How does the association develop till now?
- The Bulgarian facility management association /BGFMA/ is really very young, but had developed very quickly. The primary idea is to determine, identify and develop this facility management sector, of which we talked about earlier.

Some of the first steps of the communication strategy of the association with the government is that we help and promote the Facility management master program in the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration in Sofia University. BGFMA also interact with the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy for including the facility manager profession in the National classificatory of professions in Bulgaria. So the first steps are already made.

What can you wish to our readers?
- I want to wish them optimism, because we really need it nowadays. Also confidence, that path you have chosen is the right one and will lead you to success – personal and professional. I wish them to work with pleasure and satisfaction. This is my personal recipe – and, I can assure you – it works.

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Bisera Ivanova
is master in economics. From 1998 till 2004 she is part of, and then ahead of the administration division of Overgas holding. From 2004 till March 2008 she is facility manager of the administrative building of Renesans AD. Now Bisera Ivanova is executive director of Facility Optimum Bulgaria, part of AG Capital.