A Senior Group HR Partners View

The Balance Partnership proved to be a very good choice for the Group. This was mainly because of their consultants' vast experience in dealing with confidential, complex, sensitive operational and contractual issues. We now enjoy a harmonious and cost effective relationship with our contractor and still use the Balance Partnership to assist with benchmarking our soft Facilities Management expenditure when required.

A BUSINESS MANAGERS VIEW

The key benefit to me as Business Manager, was being able to rely on the Balance Partnership's experience and professionalism to undertake the often time consuming tasks involved in collating accurate information, preparing the documents needed to allow contractors to provide an apples for apples comparison and undertaking internal and external contractor visits. I believe that by using the services of the Balance Partnership we were confident of making the correct assessment of our services and making the right decision for the right reasons at the end of the process. The other key element of using Balance Partnership was that while they undertook the entire project on behalf of the School, they not only kept us fully informed with progress but more importantly involved us at strategic stages of the overall process. The result is that we have now appointed a new Contractor who we believe will deliver sustainable and improved customer-focused service levels within agreed financial boundaries.

A Large Schools Group Bursars View

The key benefit to me was being able to rely on the Balance Partnership's experience and professionalism to undertake the often time consuming tasks involved in collating accurate information, preparing the documents needed to allow contractors to provide an 'apples for apples' comparison and arranging reference site visits. I believe that by using the services of the Balance Partnership we could be confident of making the correct assessment of our services and making the right decision for the right reasons at the end of the project.

A Directors View

The most crucial advantage of using the Balance Partnership for our particular assignment was that they were able to get information very quickly and transpose this into tangible and logical forward actions that because of their experience, they understood what would work for us. We soon enjoyed the benefits of a change of contractor at lower operating costs providing an improved quality of service for our employees.

A PRODUCTION MANAGERS VIEW

One of the most important parts of my job as Production Manager in a busy operation is to have meaningful control systems to work with. When we changed our control systems to those provided by consultants Balance Partnership, it was important for me to be able to make my own amendments to the system in order to give me true ownership for my reports and performance data for my Director. Overall, I believe that with my own input, we now have systems in place that not only provides me with information I need today, but importantly allows me to have the flexibility to change things to suit my own needs into the future.

A NEW BURSARS VIEW

As a relatively new Bursar to the School, I wanted to evaluate the level of the Schools none core services delivery and associated costs to pupils, parents, staff and visitors. In order to allow me to focus on equal priorities within the School without loss of momentum, I decided to seek the help of a soft facilities specialist consultancy firm. After looking at a number of companies, I decided to use the services of the Balance Partnership to undertake our review which was undertaken by their Senior Partner, Tony Dilks. Their review proposals included a number of points such as face to face sessions with small teams of year group’s and one to one meetings with selective teaching and administration staff. This not only engaged the School in the review process but more importantly provided me with invaluable and accurate feedback as to how our food service offer was perceived and received from our in house team. In addition to the service evaluation, I asked Balance Partnership to work with our Manager and look at ways of positively implementing improvements to our procurement arrangements, staff efficiency and an easy to use operational/budgetary monitoring system. I do believe that the implementation of the preceding points along with Balances ability to organise external visits for members of our senior team to some of their existing clients, had a very positive effect on the team, which I believe will develop further as we progress into future sessions.

A LONG STANDING BURSARS VIEW

We asked Balance Partnership to put our Services out to Competitive Tender, which included the successful preparation of detailed Documents, Contractor Screening, Site Visit Management, Contractor Short Listing, Contractor’s Presentation Format with our Governors and finally Contractor Selection. The latter also included the overseeing of the new Contract and provision of a hand holding facility during the change of services management from in-house to an external Contractor.   Once we agreed our Terms of Reference with the Balance Partnership, I found them to be responsive, pro-active and totally professional with regards to meeting all related objectives. They also continue to assist us with ongoing monitoring of the new Contractors financial and operational performance when required.

A Finance Managers View

The Balance Partnership provide professional and ongoing valuable budgetary support at our monthly contractor review meetings; they also provide forward trends and statistical feedback for the School's purchasing requirements.

A Multi-Site Procurement Managers View

Because of the critical nature of getting this contract award right from day one, we decided to use the support and services of the experienced soft facilities management consultancy Balance Partnership (BP), their brief from us was to manage the entire tendering process of our multi-site soft FM process for a five-year term. The key benefits to me in my role was that while they pro-actively handled everything on our behalf, they regularly kept us fully informed of progress including tender document writing, pre tender qualification, contractor shortlisting through to contractor presentations and finally assisting with the selection of the most suitable contractor and overseeing some post contract award work. I believe that through Balance Partnerships pre tender and ongoing support, we now have an appropriately experienced contractor in place to manage our soft Facilities Management requirements for the next five-year term.