Global Connections

10 December 2010

The Compass Service Framework (CSF) developed as a comprehensive standard operating platform for the delivery of facilities management, won the e-Business category at the PFM Awards 2010

THE CSF is Compass Group’s web-based standard operating platform that forms the global blueprint for driving best practice across the Group’s trading environments.
Simply put, it is Compass Group’s support services toolkit that outlines the services offered, how they are delivered and the management processes that are used to ensure client expectations are met.
Since the late 1990s, Compass Group has been delivering support services around the world, but each country had developed its own discrete system and procedures with limited consistency or standardisation. There were few mechanisms for identifying and sharing best practice across the different entities. In 2006 Eurest Services, the go-to-market brand Compass Group uses for the business and industry sector, was created to respond to increasing client demand for bundled facilities services and the regionalising of procurement of those services. A diversification programme was launched that expanded the self-delivery of multi-services beyond the traditional catering services into additional services such as cleaning, business and office (for example reception, mailroom, meeting room management), security, and light maintenance.
Some country organisations had already implemented systems to share operational procedures locally, but none were flexible enough to manage the diverse legislative, language and cultural perspectives, nor could they be tailored to specific client requirements.
As the activities expanded the successful deployment of these services depended on a strict assessment of competence for each Eurest Services country organisation. To confirm capability and consistency in process management and performance reporting, Compass Group needed a global approach supported by a common technology platform.
A significant investment was therefore made in a technology solution that could provide the architecture to create a broader FM capability with robust management processes,
transparent auditing processes, shared best practice and consistent service delivery methodology for clients. The CSF incorporates a web-based, access-controlled knowledge management system that leverages the Compass Group’s global facilities management expertise and brings together best practice management processes and operating procedures from around the world.
The technology platform hosts the Compass Service Management Model (SMM) and the Operational Service Procedures (OSPs). The system is based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 operating in a Windows Server environment and is a knowledge management system that serves content authors and readers around the globe. The MOSS system is hosted externally in a virtualised environment providing web access around the world. Any downtime over the 24 hour window invariably impacts someone in some country at some time. Consequently, high availability is important and over the past 12 months has been at 99.97 percent equating to 132 minutes outage over the past 12 months, including outage for planned maintenance.
The CSF is interactive, allowing users to share and modify information in real time. It hosts:
● The SMM that defines how to introduce, mobilise, deliver and manage services: users are not able to modify the contents.
● The OSPs are a set of processes and tools for delivering tasks within each of the identified FM service lines.
These can be modified depending on cultural and legislative requirements in a specific geography or for particular client requirements.
The CSF has been designed to create an environment for a set of processes that can then be automated. It hosts the service management processes with associated supporting documents and more than 500 OSPs across seven FM service lines.
There are three levels of CSF;
1. The Master (Global) CSF, owned by the Global Team (Compass Group PLC), hosts
global best practice for the management and delivery of support services anywhere in the world
2. The Country CSF, localised by geography, language and legislation
3. The Site Specific CSF tailored to specific site KPIs and SLAs.
Each of these levels interacts with the other thereby providing opportunities to share innovation and improvements between all the stakeholders. MOSS allows a Parent-Child relationship to operate between a master (Parent) set of knowledge content and multiple country (Child) variation sites containing localised sets of content. The ability to use related sites based on a master generic content set means the MOSS functionality can be used for the provision of child sites that may be distinct from every other country variation, for example in a different language. This enables users to share practices across multiple countries, to develop knowledge within an individual language framework whilst operating within one overarching system For example, a procedure developed in the master site can be published across multiple country variation sites and then localised and amended to suit the specific country maintaining the relationship to the master version. This allows all in-country teams to access a procedure, tailored for their country, language and legislation whilst ensuring each version is linked intrinsically to the master approach. Such a structure allows the operation of a truly global and local model.
Workflow system
MOSS establishes a workflow system that drives a new procedure through pre-agreed approval and publication channels. This ensures that relevant approvers are informed of a new procedure, that they approve it and that the procedure is then published. The structured workflows allow the organisation to manage multiple updates across multiple
countries at any one time. All of the new publishing and editing is done at the ‘Master’ level. Once this is approved, it is then published, automatically sending a draft update to each of the country sites. The country project team is then responsible for accessing the new draft materials and ensuring that they meet the needs of the local business and the market they serve before publishing within their country site. Within Compass Group this process is referred to as ‘localisation’. The incountry Facilities Managers are then able to modify the new materials so that they meet the specific needs of the site and the client –this is referred to as ‘configuration’.
The system architecture was designed in collaboration with external consultants and the organisational structure to support the implementation was developed by the Compass Group team. Compass Group developed the benchmarks for competence to deliver a broader range of services and then managed the roll out programme that includedtraining and allocating responsibility to content experts.
Auditing the implementation of the content within the system is a vital activity in order to maintain consistency. A regular audit is conducted to ensure that the country CSF has been updated to account for any changes at the Master level. The audit also ensures that where the CSF has been deployed it is fully embedded within the day-to-day management of the contract and the delivery of the services.
Within Eurest Services the CSF is currently implemented in more than 25 countries around the world, supporting a range of client environments with a unique and coherent management tool.
Community of Practice Experts
A specific group of system users form part of a Community of Practice Experts (CPEs). Each country has a CPE for those service lines that are delivered locally. The CPEs work together as an international community to drive innovation and share best practice. The CSF facilitates continuous improvement, by enabling innovations from one area of the business to be embedded into others. Since the launch of the CSF, over 500 delegates have attended the 3-day training sessions. More than 400 delegates have attended the webinars, another way to deliver training to the system users of which there are some 700 registered.
Robust
The CSF and, in particular, the SMM ensures that Compass Group has a robust, end-to-end management process in place for all contracts where a broader range of FM services are delivered. There is an agreed Service Level Agreement (SLA) for all of the management processes geared to ensuring that all the individual Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) within the SLA are achieved. The CSF ensures that both clients and Compass Group have visibility that the services are being managed in the most effective, structured and professional manner.
Compass Group demonstrates management and service delivery capability within the FM arena on a global basis using the CSF as its foundation. Eurest Services has been able to develop facilities management activities in the business and industry sector in countries where capability was not so well established.
The implementation of the CSF in countries such as Belgium, Norway and Turkey has created a demonstrable capability to manage and deliver facilities management. In more mature markets such as the UK the CSF has served to reinforce capability, provide a vehicle for sharing best practice and establish Eurest Services as a leading provider of facilities management.

CSF – Compass Service Framework
● A unique global framework tailored to individual client needs clear expectations to employees of specific tasks and operating procedures and standards.
● Legally compliant HSE system enabling us to manage risk on our clients’ behalf
● Provides reassurance of a consistent service delivery from a single service provider
● Regular audit and evaluation for both service provider and client
● Easy to use system that shares best practice around the globe