Description

The facility management (FM) landscape in Thailand is highly competitive and mature. The market is fragmented, with a high outsourcing rate to major multinational companies, and many local services for established end-user sectors. However, a major multinational company, ISS Facility Service Co., Ltd., has disclosed its plan to stall its operations in the domestic market due to the company’s restructuring strategy, which will be done by 2020. This will cause essential changes in the foreseeable future of the market. Thailand is an attractive location for many foreign FM companies, especially because the capital is expanding and there are major coordinating projects going on between the country and its neighbors.

The market is expected to grow, with the increasing acceptance rate of outsourcing services spreading out of the central business district area in Bangkok and the government’s plan to invest in infrastructure. On the other hand, the country is facing the major challenges of limited labor supply, political instability, and red tape and bureaucracy in business approach.
One of the most important factors to win contracts in the market is pricing. For a company to differentiate itself from the pricing competition, it has to adopt new technologies such as robotics and drones, which can also help alleviate the human capital issue. Major participants can create opportunities by considering automation and employee training initiatives to improve the quality of operation and services. Moreover, as integrated facility management (IFM) services are projected to grow significantly, they should be highly promoted. As the competition is very strong in the domestic landscape, service providers are recommended to enhance their businesses by forging relationships with customers through real-time information analytics and partnerships through acquisitions or joint ventures with clients.

This analysis on the competitive FM market landscape in Thailand provides in-depth profiling of key market participants. The study focuses on the core segments and market participants’ positioning in each of the key end-user segments and maps out strategies adopted by each market participant from the aspects of service delivery, end-user focus, internationalization, sustainability, and future trends. This study was conducted in 2018, with 2017 as the base year.