The Occitanie region awards a further contract to VINCI Facilities
The Occitanie region (France) awards a further contract to VINCI Facilities to maintain nearly 160,000 sq. metres of structures across all its departments. David Cazajus, Business Development Manager for the VF Occitanie Méditerranée region, tells us more about this success.
Could you tell us more about the background of this call for tender?
The Occitanie Region has been a customer since 2014, when we were awarded a multi-service maintenance contract (multi-service maintenance, cleaning, security and green space maintenance). The geographical scope of that contract covered only the former Languedoc Roussillon region.
What does the new contract cover?
The call for tender that we just won now covers coordination of service provision and two works packages: multi-technical maintenance (heating, ventilation, air conditioning, plumbing, electricity, fire safety and major repairs and replacement of equipment) and audiovisual maintenance.
The latter service is longstanding. The customer decided to again entrust it to us because we deliver genuine expertise. A person is assigned full time to manage the audiovisual systems within the Regional Council room and at the press conferences of the President of the Region. This person is required to have full familiarity with the protocols and their requirements.
Alongside this contract, we also have a “prestation forfait intéressement (PFI)” service contract pegged to the building’s consumption. Under this contract, we make a commitment to a set amount of consumption and receive a bonus or forfeit a penalty depending on our achievement of these objectives.
In addition to retaining the services previously provided in the eastern part of the Region, the new contract involves a substantial extension of the facility management scope of the Occitanie region, which now extends to all its departments, i.e. covers the former Languedoc Roussillon and the former Midi-Pyrénées regions and a total of 67 sites (all buildings of the region, with the exception of high schools).
What enabled you to win the contract?
Unlike the previous contract, this contract allocates service provision. In other words, we are now only responsible for coordinating service provision, but over a scope that is twice as large. To clarify, I should explain that local authorities tend to allocate services to support local businesses and ensure that a single operator does not have a monopoly.
What tipped the balance was our ability to reassure our various negotiating partners. They saw that the VINCI Facilities bid spread work among a network of local business units and understood that the local business units would be implementing the project alongside us.
Our in-house procedure was a further key to success. When a project gets under way, we activate what we call a “boarding seminar”, which is a day-long meeting at the customer’s premises that is held to clearly explain the terms of the contract, reach out to everyone involved and make certain everyone has the same degree of information.
This approach proved compelling for the Midi-Pyrénées region, which had been in the habit of working with several providers rather than a single company.
What are the special features of this contract?
Since our scope has doubled, we have hired an additional 10 people to ensure that we are able to handle the workload, including two full-time staff members with disabilities, who were recruited in partnership with VINCI Facilities Entreprise Adaptée (VFEA – a social enterprise).
What has the initial feedback been?
The contract started in July and the feedback has been very positive. The contract value is €3.3 million per year for a five-year period.
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