Sharp believes that as people in these disciplines learn how to further integrate their services, outsourcing facilities management will add even more value to clients' operations. JLL's facilities management business has experienced double-digit annual growth for years, he adds. And the potential for even more growth is huge. “We've done a fair amount of research and the analysis suggests that a majority of the firms in the marketplace are still not outsourcing. We see a huge runway in front of us.”

An important reason for this growth, according to Ehrenberg, is JLL's ability to centralize through technology the management of portfolios, even if they encompass millions of square-feet. For example, the company has a cloud-based building management platform called IntelliCommand which provides 24-hour, seven days per week real-time facility monitoring and control at multiple locations. This allows JLL personnel working in a centralized command center to identify energy savings, ensure automatic work orders get issued and monitor all building systems down to a granular level.

“We're able to predict failures in building systems before they occur,” Sharp says, which cuts costs significantly since repair personnel don't have to make several trips to a site, first to diagnose a problem, and then perhaps another to bring a replacement part. Furthermore, major building components can then have a longer life-cycle, driving costs down even further.

The system, Sharp adds, typically pays for itself in about a year, and sometimes less. As reported in GlobeSt.com, Proctor & Gamble recently brought in IntelliCommand for a hefty slice of their corporate portfolio. Among many other savings, the new system allowed the company to save about 13% on energy use at a research and development facility built in the 1960s, an unexpected result from a facility built in an era when energy conservation was largely unknown. P&G officials believe their system from JLL paid for itself in only three months.

And in addition to improving the bottom line, Ehrenberg believes centralized facilities management can also bolster employee satisfaction and help retain talent. Human resources officials, for example, have the ability to track employee complaints or satisfaction with the facilities they use. “A company can then say, 'maybe we need to reinvest in this property.'”

One of Ehrenberg's top goals will be to recruit young people into the facilities management profession. That has not always been easy, she says, since many millennials mistakenly see managers as building superintendents, and don't yet understand that smart building technology like IntelliCommand gives professionals powerful analytic tools that can have a big impact on a clients' bottom line.

Still, in the past two years she has noticed a growing awareness among millennials of what modern facilities management entails. Some of the world's largest professional real estate organizations have played a role, she adds. Both the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors in London and CoreNet Global started issuing white papers on facilities management, and this helps raise awareness about the profession. “It's become much more intellectual.”