Determinants of outsourcing decision for facilities management (FM) services provision

This paper aims to examine key determinants that influence the decision to outsource facilities management (FM) services. FM is said to be acquiring increasing popularity all over the globe, with several sourcing strategies springing up for FM services provision.

Based on questionnaire survey approach, this paper uses purposive sampling to administer 84 questionnaires to selected bank executives operating in the 21 licensed commercial banks in Nigeria, soliciting their responses about what constitute key determinants of outsourcing decision in the context of FM services provision. In all, 41 responses were received, giving a response rate of 49 per cent.

Supported by empirical evidence, this study established 14 factors as key determinants of outsourcing decision for FM services provision. The top three rated factors were “to improve company’s focus”, “to make cost transparent” and “to improve stakeholders’ satisfaction”, while “to restrict own investment in staff”, “to retire personnel” and “to play along with trend in privatisation” were the least rated. There was no significant difference in the rankings of the factors by respondents, while most of the highly rated factors exhibited strong correlation with other factors.

Due to limited dimension of sample size, more robust techniques such as factor analysis and structural equation modelling could not be used.

This paper provides an enhanced understanding of outsourcing decision and basis for further research into decision support models for outsourcing in the context of FM services provision.