Lara Paemen and Tariq Chauhan explore how technology, ESG, and rapid development are transforming facility management across the Middle East.
In this episode, Director of IFMA EMEA, Lara Paemen, interviews one of IFMA's Global Board of Directors and CEO of EFS Group, Tariq Chauhan, about the rapidly evolving facility management landscape in the Middle East. They discuss major trends reshaping the GCC region — from accelerated market growth and large-scale investment in the built environment to the rise of technology, ESG frameworks and the shift from O&M to strategic FM. Tariq also highlights the region’s skills gap, the need for upskilling, and what international FM professionals should understand when entering this dynamic, fast-growing market.
Tariq Chauhan: [00:00:00] The technology transformation that Middle East has adopted at very early stages is mind boggling. I don't think, and at a very rapid pace, right? Yes.
And it is also helping into address some of the traditional challenges of facility management.
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Today, we're discussing one of the fastest growing facility management markets in the world, the Middle East. In this episode, director of IFMA EMEA, Lara Paemen, interviews one of if FMAs Global Board of Directors and the CEO of EFS group, Tariq Chauhan about the rapidly evolving facility [00:01:00] management landscape together.
They Discuss the major trends reshaping the GCC region from accelerated market growth and large scale investment in the built environment to the rise of technology. They also discussed the region's skill gaps, the need for upskilling, and much more. Now let's get into it.
Lara Paemen: All right. We are here today with Tariq Chauhan. I'm Lara Paemen managing director for IFMA EMEA. And we're gonna talk today about global trends in FM in the Middle East region. Tariq, you are an IFMA Global Board member. What do you do on a daily basis?
Tariq Chauhan: I'm the CEO and Executive Vice Chairman of EFS Group.
We operate business across 36 countries. We manage 75 million square meters. I employ about 14,000 people. So you could see my life exactly between uh, planes and across the three different [00:02:00] continents. That's what I do.
Lara Paemen: I know a little bit what you mean. Yeah. Yes. Well, you definitely had a long and successful career already in, in FM in the Middle East.
Tariq Chauhan: Can you, what I would like to tell you that. I have a successful enterprise.
Lara Paemen: Yeah.
Tariq Chauhan: A career is is secondary. That's true. So more about, you know, building a company and, and an organization and that caters to the, to the true impact of fm. Exactly. That's what I do.
Lara Paemen: Can you start by giving us, like a snapshot of how you see the facility management market in the GCC region today?
Tariq Chauhan: See there are three different elements. One is, indeed market is growing at a very fast, is the fastest growing market in the world in double digits over last many years with almost 2.3 billion trillion investment in the, in the built environment. Mega giga projects coming up.
There's a lot of transformation happening from operations and maintenance to fm. So [00:03:00] moving from input to output these are very important factors. Thirdly. The way the Middle East and the many years, especially the GCC have invested heavily in technology and in construction state of art technology built environments have come.
That's also driving a need for a lot more automation in technology, in machine and business automation as well the ESG.
Lara Paemen: Yeah.
Tariq Chauhan: Es one thing very interesting happening in the Middle East is. Many governments have adopted ESG in a very serious manner. And having an ESG framework with driving sustainability towards reduced carbon F footprint is definitely helping to make the market more challenging.
Challenging, absolutely.
Lara Paemen: Now, if you compare the GCC market to the market, because you, I know you travel a lot to the market in Europe, in Asia, in the us. Where do you see the biggest [00:04:00] differences in terms of fm?
Tariq Chauhan: Just for your record? I only have one third of my business in GCCI operate in 40 countries between three different continents.
Indeed GCC is a significant portion of my business, but it's still not, it's still not more than 30, 40% of my business. So you
Lara Paemen: get, make a great comparison. So I
Tariq Chauhan: do see opportunities across the world. FM industry globally is growing. Though it has its challenges. Indeed. If you look at the last 25 years, FM industry has grown over over five to 7%.
And if you look at the compounded annual growth in the last many years due to the adoption of technology, lot more automation coming in, in the business. And one more big challenge that industry is facing at the moment is the skill deficit.
Lara Paemen: Yeah.
Tariq Chauhan: There is a definitive trend happening globally.
More and more people, [00:05:00] college going, kids and university and other students, especially engineering, opting to work more on desk based jobs. Yeah, the field based jobs are a challenge.
Lara Paemen: Yeah.
Tariq Chauhan: That means we need to. FM industry has to walk a lot on upskilling, reskilling, reskilling in replacement because of the fact that our businesses still remains a manpower centric.
Yeah. And especially the region where I operate, it's all more common out there, though we have availability of resources unlike the rest of the world, where there are challenges in order to find sufficient people on board. Mm-hmm. But we still have a challenge in terms of the upskilling.
Lara Paemen: Mm-hmm.
Tariq Chauhan: And the way the world technology and the built environment has changed.
Not universities haven't done much in upgrading skills and work readiness is a challenge amongst a new graduate. So we need to work back on upskilling in a big manner.
Lara Paemen: Yeah. [00:06:00]
Tariq Chauhan: With the the margins. The industry is going through a significant turmoil in terms of. There is definitive slide in the margins.
So where do you find investment on technology, upskilling and others? How do you do the balancing act between the two? We fortunately have a scale with us since we operate across a fairly large region. But it is indeed a big challenge for many comp.
Lara Paemen: And, and if you say that the, does let's say the lack of skilled professionals, is that the biggest challenge in the GCC area or are they, what, what other challenges do you see?
I think the GCC
Tariq Chauhan: has another challenge. They need to develop the, the, the local workforce in each country. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, each one of them. You have to have the local workforce development, which is means the Saudis, Emiratis, and others. To some extent there's not enough education ecosystem available in [00:07:00] terms of their readiness.
So we need to invest in them
Lara Paemen: in the educational programs.
Tariq Chauhan: No, you need to bring them on board. You need to integrate them, in the mainstream work processes, especially in context to facility management because significant part of facility management is still very technical in terms of, built environment if you are in the asset management, lifecycle management, and many of these things. So I think that is where we over the years have realized that this is a indeed a very important element. We worked on investing in people and being a people first organization. I'm very confident.
We've been able to meet up. To the ongoing challenges
Lara Paemen: Yeah.
Tariq Chauhan: That the industry is facing. We have very well mapped it. We were the early movers in the l and d space. We were the early movers in blended and in the the technology automation exactly.
Lara Paemen: On, on the flip side of that, [00:08:00] what do you see as the, the biggest opportunities for FM in the GCC area?
Tariq Chauhan: I think with the governmental reforms, a tremendous focus. Moving on efficiencies, facility management is the first domain that comes to your mind. If you want to streamline processes, you want to enhance, eSG awareness or compliance if you want to bring higher level of compliance in terms of safety and others, and also overall efficiencies in terms of reducing costs.
Of course, FM is a tool, yeah. Not just for appending services in terms of standards. It is also a very important tool for cost optimization. Yes. So what I'm seeing is many more governments at the governmental level initiatives. We saw a significant amount of reaching in context to the supply chain policies the government has now ensuring that they go [00:09:00] and work through very comprehensive majors when sourcing for supply chain partners in context to facility management.
Secondly the technology transformation that Middle East has adopted at very early stages. Is mind boggling. I don't think, and at a very rapid pace, right? Yes. If you look at the, the way they have done in terms of both tool and machine automation.
Lara Paemen: Yeah.
Tariq Chauhan: And it is also helping into address some of the traditional challenges of facility management.
Lara Paemen: Mm-hmm.
Tariq Chauhan: If we need to talk about skill deficient, this is the way going forward. Technology, do
Lara Paemen: you see any, companies leading that, those, those innovations, those technologies innovations in the region.
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Tariq Chauhan: It's a matter of competitive advantage for now. Yeah. Yeah. So everybody's adopting it. It's no more a necessity or something that you could keep it on the back.
Burn. Everyone has prioritized investing in technology processes facility management both structure system and people matters. With process optimization if you need to do optimization of processes, it's easy to adopt technology.
Lara Paemen: Oh, yes. And
Tariq Chauhan: the new technology, the new generation technologies have come in.
AI is only a tool. AI is not the driver. It is enabler. But more importantly is the machine tool automation upskilling having more IFMA courses [00:11:00] like. CFM and others coming up, you know, FMPs and others, like in my organization, I have almost 500 professionals. I have pushed them to complete the IFMA certification.
Lara Paemen: Yeah.
Tariq Chauhan: And the objective of doing that is to help them to understand FM in the new context because FM has evolved. Oh, yes. There's no more operations and maintenance business. The kind of we manage almost 75 service lines.
Lara Paemen: Right. You know,
Tariq Chauhan: self delivery mode. So to be able to provide services at such a wide range, you need to have people with the right skill,
Lara Paemen: with the, with the skillset set the knowledge to really the knowledge and the, yeah, and then the experience.
Absolutely. It's, have you seen a change also in expectations from the client's site as well in terms of what they're expecting as a delivery from FM?
Tariq Chauhan: So when we talk about facility management, I always talk about. Facility upkeep in terms of optimization of on, [00:12:00] based on industry best practices, safety and security of assets and the people there and the, and the, and the assets itself.
Then the compliance and governance across bringing global compliances in-country compliances, and then. If you don't have in-country compliances, then you bring the blender board. The blender boat. Yeah. And then eventually two more. Very important lifecycle management of assets and the optimization of cost.
Lara Paemen: Yep.
Tariq Chauhan: Lot of people consider FM as a, as a, as something which is an additional cost.
Lara Paemen: It's a cost center for a lot of people. Most people don't
Tariq Chauhan: realize this is one way you can consolidate services, you can bring. Significant amount of transparency, you can bring significant amount of cost optimization. I always tell that as a facility management, anywhere between 15 to 25% of enterprise operating costs can be accomplished.
And this is what is [00:13:00] very good. In context to the Middle East, I can say about Saudi Arabia and UAE, both these have embraced fm. Almost, they're the largest markets for fm, right? It's almost two decades of their experience. Yes. They have now really transformed fm.
Lara Paemen: Yep.
Tariq Chauhan: So not only in terms of better built environment, but also in terms of across the board, every KPI be it sustainability or for that matter, end user experience or lifecycle management of assets.
I'm seeing much better built environments
Lara Paemen: Yeah.
Tariq Chauhan: Over the years. And that influence has come in because of the at early stages of embracing fm.
Lara Paemen: Yeah. And you see that UAE has definitely led the way he was the leader indeed. Or do you see that different? Indeed, yeah. Indeed,
Tariq Chauhan: indeed. In the early 2000, I remember, I, I was an early, I was a leader and entered into a facility management.
I'm a banker and who came in as an entrepreneur in facility management. So
Lara Paemen: there's a career for [00:14:00] everybody in fm even. That's right. No matter what background you
Tariq Chauhan: have. So when in 2008, 2009, post COVID, everybody was looking to reduce cost. And most people didn't know how to handle fm. They thought it is just an additional cost.
But then over the years, we have seen how the, the baselines I have provided over $600 million to my clients in savings over the last decade. Yeah. Amazing. And this is exactly the KPI is what it is. So it's not only about reducing costs, it's also optimizing standards. Optimizing,
Lara Paemen: yes. Looking ahead, if you look in the next five to 10 years, what does the future of FM in specifically the GCC region look like?
How do you see
Tariq Chauhan: the evolution there? One thing very transformative happening in the Middle East. There's a lot of o and m business. Out input business moving to output?
Lara Paemen: Yes.
Tariq Chauhan: The fastest growing facility management is not [00:15:00] only because of giga and mega projects, it's also happening because of the fact a lot of people are now embracing fm Of course.
So they're moving from ONM to fm.
Lara Paemen: Yeah.
Tariq Chauhan: And today our mature market stands about $50 billion between the GCC. Mm-hmm. But with 12% market growth and my compounded annual growth of my business. Which is in double digits over the last few years. I definitely see one of the fastest growing facility management industry in the, in, in, in the world.
In the world. Yeah. In the world. And I confirm one very important thing. Unlike many others, they're adopting and they're embracing effort. Yes. They're embracing it.
Lara Paemen: Yep. Final question. What advice would you give to the international FM companies or professionals? Who are looking to engage in the Middle East market?
I think,
Tariq Chauhan: What is definitely very challenging in which every FM should look at it is the scale, [00:16:00] the complexity, and a significant amount of transformation, transformative built environment that you have
Lara Paemen: in the g the project. Yeah.
Tariq Chauhan: In, in Saudi Arabia or in many of these places. It's very rare phenomenon.
You do see that happening in China.
Lara Paemen: You do not
Tariq Chauhan: much is happening in Europe. Americas, yes, with 1.3 trillion as in men, it is unveiled and when they undertake the infrastructure upgrade in others, things would change in America as well. But it's a real practical in Middle East what is happening. And I am operating in over 40 countries.
I employ about 40,000 people. I must tell you that that's a place. No, any fm career person who's looking to transform things, there are opportunities, and I'm more than happy to look at, you know, looking forward for passionate people here because [00:17:00] we require, in the next five years, our FM workforce requirement itself is standing at about 75,000 people.
Lara Paemen: Yep.
Tariq Chauhan: We require FM professionals in the Middle East in the next five years,
Lara Paemen: so let's all move there. Significant. Let's all move to the GCC region. That's where the business lies for. No,
Tariq Chauhan: I'm, I'm very, you can see the analytics and you can see what my organization has accomplished over the last many years.
And this is primarily because I was an early movers advantage. I had an early movers advantage. I did see. And the opportunity is amazing, and we have very well mapped our capabilities in order to meet these. Absolutely.
Lara Paemen: Thank you so much for this podcast Tariq and thank you all for listening today.
Thank you.
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