i-FM: The online resource for facilities professionals

The BBC seems to be in the news almost as often as it reports the news. Past schedule and cost over-runs at Broadcasting House, next year's move to Salford, changes at the Television Centre complex in White City, have all made the headlines in amongst the ongoing popular and political pre-occupation with the licence fee, perceived editorial slant, programme content, the digital future and so on and on.

Whatever angle you take on the BBC, it must be admitted that the £2bn workplace transformation project currently underway is not only remarkably ambitious but also – at this mid-stream point – appears to be delivering real success. One reason for that is the vision and determination of Chris Kane (left), the man brought in six years ago to refocus the change strategy and see it through to implementation.

Back in the '90s, the BBC had realised that a large proportion of its estate was no longer fit for purpose. At the time, 90% of its holdings in London were 25 years old or more. Gazing out at the coming millennium, the then Director General, John Birt, recognised that the existing estate would simply not be able to support the Corporation as it moved into the digital era. Discussion around that issue gave rise to the 2020 Property Vision, a programme to transform the entire estate and make it fit for purpose. Critically, that was to be achieved within two clear constraints – first, none of the BBC's public sector borrowing allowance was to be used; and second, there would be no increase in the proportion of licence fee monies spent on property.

To deliver on this new vision, the BBC started down a route that looked in those days as though it might have a major role to play in shaping the future of the UK built environment. The Corporation struck a 30-year property partnership deal with Land Securities Trillium, bringing the PFI model of ownership, occupation and servicing into what is effectively the private sector. That deal was unwound just a few years later, but it had nevertheless proved instructive.

"The experience opened up the whole realm of how one best supports an organisation such as the BBC," Kane explains. "It also made clear how the worlds of property, facilities, design and construction need to be drawn together, taken out of their silos and the 'warring tribes' made to reconsider how they operate."

Starting point
Chris Kane arrived in White City with the LST deal already in place. The contract had been signed in 2001. He was recruited late in 2003 as Head of Corporate Real Estate and moved into his new office in January 2004. It would be fair to say his colleagues were surprised by his decision. For seven years, he had been running the international real estate portfolio at the Walt Disney Company and prior to that he was a founding partner of the corporate real estate group at Jones Lang LaSalle. His fellow surveyors took one look at the prospective employer, a second at the 30-year property contract, and simply dismissed his proposed role as a 'non-job'.

"But," Kane says, "I believed differently. I knew it would be a real challenge in coming to work for the Finance Director at the time - who had already recognised there were some problems emerging in the way the contract was running. He also realised that having embarked upon this massive transformation programme, he needed to bring on board a different set of skills.

"My task on arriving here was to assess what the capability of the BBC was to deliver these projects while – and this is the critical factor – staying on air."

Kane describes himself as a 'lapsed' chartered surveyor. He holds a Masters in Corporate Real Estate, a diploma in project management and an MBA. He is also clearly passionate about the industry. And by 'the industry' he means the three silos of property/asset management, facilities management and construction/design management.

Fired by that passion, he declares: "This industry will fail unless it realises that breaking down those silos is absolutely essential."

From virtually the moment he arrived at the Corporation, Chris Kane has been putting that belief into practice in pursuit of what he regards as the only sound operating model: a completely integrated supply chain.

"BBC Workplace [he abandoned the corporate real estate label early on] cannot deliver on its objectives without an effective supply chain," he explains. "What we have been doing over the past five years is starting on the journey of becoming the world's best corporate real estate/facilities team. We will only do that if we work together. We moved from the old BBC Property regime because we recognised that our world is changing fundamentally. It's no longer about bricks and mortar or servicing buildings; today, it is about enabling the organisation to be successful. That requires you to think about the business of the organisation and how best you can support it. I've been working on a massive transformation within our world, which has culminated in rebranding the entire function – property + FM - as BBC Workplace. We are also working to build a one-workplace team based upon simple and well thought through supply chain management principles."

Two major players in Kane's supply chain are Johnson Controls and Balfour Beatty Workplace; the former looks after London sites and the latter the English regions. In total, the workforce represented here is well over 2000 people, and the goal is to ensure they all share one purpose.

"Coming out of the LST deal enabled us to rethink our entire view of FM – which is now driven by an ambition to have a unified strategy right across the UK," Kane explains.

"The essential issue for us is not the change to the buildings but how they are serviced and operated; how you bring 21st century thinking into them; how you bring state-of-the-art front-of-house management into them; how you handle the demands for catering; how you address sustainability issues. The beauty of the one-workplace approach we are pursuing is that both Johnson Controls and Balfour Beatty Workplace are serious about working with us to deliver on our objectives. We've got some very challenging targets, especially on the environmental responsibility side of things, but everybody is rolling up their sleeves to see how we can attack this and deliver success. It shows what can be done when the will is there."

Change management
The Corporation is in the midst of a £2bn transformation programme, with four major construction sites on the go now and plans for more. There must be a huge management and communications challenge involved in all this, especially to explain what is being done and why – knowing all the while that the BBC is constantly in the public eye.

Kane says: "Given that we have about 2500 people on the team, we do have to make considerable effort to help them understand what we are trying to achieve, to help make the big picture a small one they can relate to. We invest a fair amount of time in communicating right across the supply chain. And we also have to engage with BBC stakeholders and the public in general. We often feel a bit like a fish in a fishbowl – everybody looks in to see what we're doing. Of course, one reason we are so interesting, certainly within the industry, is because what we're doing nobody else is doing."

This interview took place before publication of the latest NAO report on BBC projects, but Kane must have known what was coming: though critical of early performance, the report acknowledged that lessons had been learned. He told me: "There's no doubt that when we started this, some mistakes were made – for example, in Broadcasting House Phase I. But that was seven years ago. Since then, we have finished our Media Village project at White City (above); we've started and finished Pacific Quay in Scotland (below); we've got the new scheme at Media City in Salford coming on; and a whole raft of other projects have been completed or are making good progress."

But what about the wider supply chain, or even in-house at the BBC – has the team encountered any difficulties in selling in the one-workplace concept?

"There have been some challenges around scepticism, a 'not invented here' attitude, or 'what's in it for me'," Kane concedes. "But my response to much of that is if you don't like the journey, get off the train. Anyone who can't see that this is an enormous opportunity to improve your margins, but also to be involved in an unprecedented mission to change an entire estate and to explore new ways of working is in the wrong place. Having been on the other side of the table, I am well aware of what makes people tick: my goal is win/win for everybody. Some people can't see it, and that's understandable if they have been entrenched in a typical buyer/supplier, master/slave environment focused on trying to squeeze out a little more benefit whenever possible. But I'm not interested in playing that game.

"BBC Workplace is best regarded as a change agent. We're here to create value by managing and supporting the day-to-day operations of the Corporation, by providing thought leadership on the future of the workplace and by delivering the raft of projects that enable transformation. This can be seen as quite radical, but in one sense it simply comes down to ensuring we get value for money for our very sizeable investment."

Industry challenge
Stepping back again to a wider perspective on the industry, Kane continues: "I take a simple view: my world is about being a steward of the built environment. At the moment, we are making one almighty mess of it in terms of sustainability, for example. I have been struck by the waste that goes on, both consciously and unconsciously, through the dysfunctional nature of our property and construction industries. I have always asked myself – how can we do better? We must do better.

"We need to look at the FM landscape and see how we can pull it away from a generally mediocre approach towards a more value-adding, career-enhancing discipline that we can be truly proud of. I'm thinking about the future but also the legacy that we leave behind, a built environment that will last for years - but much of it now having gone in the wrong direction. That's not only the responsibility of the operators, of course, but also of the designers, builders and investors. Our value chain is fragmented because of those silos that shape it. And the real estate consumer is paying a premium because of the disconnects. That's not right.

"The traditional silos are not viable any longer – and increasingly so as the nature of work and the workplace change. I see a big opportunity for the FM industry to evolve into something that is very different, something that addresses the servicing of the workplace wherever and whatever that is. Technology is going to be the key driver in that, with agility being the key consideration. The mindsets of today, the maze in which we are trying to find our way around, is going to change totally to be replaced by something new. We need to look at what's already going on, think about what it means for the future and start getting ready for that.

"My challenge to the industry is – get this sorted!"

Click here to read more about the BBC/Balfour Beatty Workplace partnership, winner of the top PFM Award in 2009.