A UK facilities management (FM) company, Operon Middle East, used the region’s first FM trade event to launch itself in the Middle East.

FM Expo was held in the first week of June at the Dubai World Trade Centre.
Operon Middle East is a joint venture between Operon UK and Dubai-based FM and maintenance company Quality Group. Operon will offer the full range of integrated FM services, including consultancy, mechanical and electrical design, lifecycle costing, energy management and building maintenance.
Operon UK, which was set up in 1993, now employs over 1,000 staff and runs more than 50 contracts providing FM services for a range of buildings, including museums, universities and hospitals.
Quality Group has been established in the region since 1991 and provides specialist construction contracting and maintenance services. It saw a massive potential for facilities management in the region and wanted to link up with an overseas company with proven expertise in the field.
Paul Anson of Operon and Stephen Barker, group general manager of Quality Group, set up Operon Middle East with support from their respective CEOs.  Paul Hillier has joined them as general manager of the company.
The directors of the new company expressed confidence that participation in FM Expo, organised by Streamline Marketing Group and dmg World Media, would help it make inroads into a market sector which experts have estimated to be worth around $144 billion in Dubai alone.
Facilities management is the integrated manage-ment of a broad range of specialist and general services combined to support and service all types of buildings, from commercial towers, resorts and hotels to oil refineries and hospitals. FM practitioners oversee the management of a building from its inception, provi-ding a range of services including property strategy, building mainte-nance and operations and management of space and energy.
Anson said the construction industry in the UK had developed and evolved over the last few centuries, yet in Dubai this had only really taken off over the last six to 10 years. “This means that the FM industry here is still very embryonic and there is still a pressing need to ensure building owners understand that if they want to protect their investments and want their buildings to last, then they need to be maintained properly using professional FM specialists. Our unique selling point is that we provide better value for customers by delivering as many services as possible in-house rather than subcontracting them out and simply acting as managers of subcontractors.”
Operon Middle East hosted a lunch on the first day of FM Expo to introduce itself to the business community. Operon executives from the UK also flew into Dubai to share their FM expertise by participating in the event’s seminar programme.
FM Expo featured many other big international players in the FM market.