April 9, 2004—BIFM and IFMA have signed a Partners in FM Excellence Agreement to promote international collaboration. Members will now enjoy the benefits of both organizations at no extra cost and at a common discount for events, training, and publications. The agreement was signed and announced at the first FM Excellence Conference at Queens College, Cambridge.
BIFM and IFMA will remain separate organizations but will collaborate on services, standards, research, knowledge exchange and other activities.
Partners in FM Excellence now links up to 28,000 FM members worldwide in four organizations. IFMA has over 17,000 members in 55 countries around the world while BIFM has 9000 members. BIFM signed agreements in 2003 with the Facilities Management Association Australia (over 1300 members) and the Irish Property and Facility Management Association (over 350 members).
In addition, IFMA, BIFM and FMA Australia announced that they had signed an “International Memorandum of Understanding” to promote international collaboration.
The aim is to share knowledge and to promote the development of worldwide standards and best practice guidelines for FM as a professional business sector. This includes enhanced membership experience, educational opportunities, advancement of the profession and promotion of sound administrative, operational and financial best practice.
The three bodies will set up an International FM Panel to review and report on the status of FM around the world, to identify key issues that need to be addressed on an international basis and to develop an action program to deal with those issues. This will include issues related to FM concepts, definitions, standards and best practices.
For more information, contact BIFM.
