Although TFMC was founded to provide Telkom with its outsourcing requirements, CEO Dukes Zondi is keen to emphasise that it is not just a telecoms company.
By Rebecca Waters
Founded as Telecommunications Facilities Management Company, Total Facilities Management Company, or TFMC, is the result of a joint venture between UK company WS Atkins plc and South African-based Rebserve Holdings Limited. The purpose of that joint venture was to “facilitate the outsourcing of Telkom SA Limited’s non-core activities within one organisation,” and embed international best practice into the new private and market facing company.
The proposed transaction involved the outsourcing, by Telkom, of its property management and infrastructure operations to TFMC in a 10-year deal valued at around R10.5 billion. The contract, which was signed in July 2000, included all maintenance and repair services, real estate management, maintenance of masts and towers, and an uninterrupted power supply - directly affecting the client’s core business.
The advantages? Well for one there was cost-saving but it also resulted in increased operating efficiency and many other, non-quantifiable, benefits, such as market rating.
STANDING APART FROM THE COMPETITION
Unlike most companies who provide single-line and bundled FM services TFMC is an integrated Facilities Management company; it provides Maintenance Service Delivery, Project Management, Property Management and Total Integrated Facilities Management. The company currently provides total integrated FM services for approximately 6,500 buildings – quite a feat.
“We advise our clients on what it is, how to buy it, how to install it and how to use it optimally to compete internationally,” says CEO, and visionary, Dukes Zondi (pictured). “Our aim is simple – to exceed the expectations of our clients in terms of value-for-money service delivery, maximisation of savings potential, and support to their core business in terms of reliability and sustainability.”
TFMC has made significant investments in advanced management systems over the years in order to keep up with the demands of an ever changing and complex property portfolio and infrastructure. “To this end we have moved from the Best of Breed system to SAP which we have used in innovative ways that are advancing SAP application in the property and FM market,” adds Zondi. “Our success in this regard has been acknowledged by invitations to global conferences where papers that have been delivered by our Senior Executives have been well received.”
A MARKET-LEADER
Through leadership direction, coupled with the diversity of skills and expertise of its employees, TFMC has established itself as “a market-leader” in the field of property and Facilities Management, and is a provider of world-class services to its clients in South Africa. But it now seeks to establish a profitable client base in the global marketplace.
“Our vision is to be the preferred FM Company on the continent as well as in the specialist markets internationally,” says Zondi. “For example, we have previously responded to tenders for FM work in Telstar which is the Australian telecoms company and we were shortlisted among five other international companies which was very encouraging for us. In Telekom Malaysia it was the same although both tenders were subsequently withdrawn.
“We have also had productive, discussions with Deutsche Telekom Immobilien in Germany which found TFMC to be compartible with the company. We have provided consulting services to Etisalat in the UAE and we are now talking to the MARG Group in India, who will build the infrastructure for the development of the IT Corridor in Chennai, South India.
“We are confident that we will conclude a deal with the latter to form a JV for the development and management of the EPZ for this purpose.”
BEE CREDENTIALS
As Zondi explains, and all its other members will attest being a part of the Mvelaphanda Group Limited, South Africa’s pre-eminent broad-based, black-controlled, owned and managed diversified group, gives TFMC a lot of “muscle”: “Being with the Mvela group, it gives us that advantage of a preeminent, transformational company, listed on the stock exchange as well as having access to the sort of funding that companies with growth potential like ourselves could actually access,” he says.
TFMC, itself 100 percent South African and Black controlled, is the largest contributor within the Facilities Management & Professional Services division of the Mvelaphanda Group, mainly because of the scope of its services and the complexity of the contract with its major client. It also means that TFMC is a major operating division within the whole group.
RITCH VALUES
TFMC subscribes to five core values - Respect, Integrity, Trust, Consideration and Honesty – on which it bases its business, and all TFMC employees are expected to make sure that their actions live up to these RITCH values.
“Each of the RITCH values emphasise an ethos of working within a market facing organisation as opposed to a public organisation,” explains Zondi. “So in order to incarnate this new ethos and operational culture we have actually used the RITCH values to ensure that people are actually looking in the right direction, we all work as a team, we all work as a family, and we all take responsibility for what we do.
“It starts with the team, it ends with the result,” he says. “If there is no respect for others, if there is no empathy, there is no understanding; they are in this team for a common goal and if there is no appreciation of that fact then you are just not going to go anywhere.
“When TFMC was created, there were a lot of people who derived power from holding work and keeping things to themselves. But, with the incantation of this new concept, this has changed. People now enjoy the ‘mixed-team’ environment we have created.”
PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT
At just eight years old, Zondi credits TFMC for being able to attract and retain the sort of skill that it has, particularly because the company is in a buoyant industry.
“Our industry is related to construction,” he says. “It is related to property development and those industries, particularly in South Africa are fairly buoyant. There is a lot of skill migration but we are still able to attract the right people, and we are still able to retain some very talented people, which says a lot about our focus on people.
“I am very much in favour of the development of people, in technical skills, in commercial skills, business leadership skills and those types of things. In all my working life I have been very much involved with business leadership, business development and it has always been people development and the optimisation of human resources in developing businesses that has interested me.
“We are attached to the Wits Business School, which is one of the top universities in South Africa and recognised internationally, and each year we have sent at least one group of our staff for management development whether it is at the level of junior, middle or senior management development. We also have four people studying MBAs through different business schools throughout South Africa,” says Zondi, himself a graduate of the Universities of Fort hare, Michigan and Harvard Business School.
On the technical side, TFMC is supporting skills development projects in South Africa, in particular putting a lot of focus on skills development amongst women. “I think we have got more than 80 people registered and those are mainly black people and quite a number of them female. Particularly in regard to women in an industry like ours, it was a male dominated industry,” he says.
NOT JUST A TELECOMS COMPANY
Founded as Telecommunications Facilities Management Company, TFMC changed its name to Total Facilities Management Company to avoid being typecast as just a telecoms company.
“We changed the company to Total-FM because people had this view that we were a telecoms company, and people have not realised even four years down the line that we are actually operating other contracts outside of telecoms,” Zondi explains.
“We are now managing a whole campus for the Department of Trade and Industry South Africa which is one of the most significant departments and we have got an FM contract with them for the next 20 years. We also have contracts with Cell C, Mercedes Benz SA Head Office and South African Bureau of Standards. However, people still see us only as a telecoms company because in terms of contribution, these contracts are small when you look at them in terms of the telecom contract.”
THE STRATEGY
“The strategy that we have is to grow our business outside of telecoms significantly. If you want to do that, if you really want to get the large complex, outsourcing contracts, you have definitely got to look at the international arena as well,” continues Zondi.
“So we have actually gone to look at business opportunities abroad and we have been very encouraged by the fact that we have been seen as a force to be reckoned with by potential clients as we have been shortlisted with some of the larger international companies for the same contracts.
“We are, however, faced with the difficulty that we do not have local offices in Dubai, India, Malaysia or Australia so when the final analysis is being made in evaluating these contracts that works against us,” he adds. “But we are not just going to open up an international office for the sake of opening it, we will be very timely in doing that and we are putting the effort in to form the necessary joint ventures. As I say that, the one thing that is on our table now is India which really fast-growing in terms of modernising its infrastructure.”
But, Zondi is keen to stress that further opportunity lies elsewhere too: “As a company in Africa, we have also got to be looking at the continent so we are having discussions with people in Nigeria and in Kenya at the moment, which are very big markets. However, they are difficult markets so one has got to try and establish the right base for people to understand our model before we can actually push it in so it can take a bit of time.”
With opportunities on a national and international level, this unique company looks to have a secure long-term future both at home and in the global marketplace. As Zondi maintains, TFMC is a “force to be reckoned with.”
There is no doubt that TFMC can achieve this goal. Total integrated facilities management is what it does, quite successfully, and its objective is to enable you, the customer, to concentrate on your core business. That is, after all, what you do best.
Unsurprisingly, TFMC is a hit and we look forward to covering its story further in the future.