Technical Maintenance & Facility Management

In October 2019, Proximus issued a call for tenders for the management and technical operation of all its offices and stores  in Belgium. Overall, this involves managing almost 200,000 square metres of space. Initially, they were looking for two parties that would each receive a slice of the pie.

Following the success achieved in 2018 by VINCI Facilities, which had taken over the technical maintenance of telecoms installations for internal Proximus employees, it was invited to respond to the call for tenders.

The team involved in the bid were Ward Beniest, Bart Uyttendaele, Thierry Lecocq, Bert Callens, Michaël Leys, Louis Jenner and Mathurin Kuishi-Tsafack. A large team, but necessarily so, given the breadth of the task and the need to make top-down decisions quickly.

This call for tenders clearly shows that Proximus is seeking a partnership with a provider capable of thinking jointly, making suggestions and establishing transparent relationships, i.e. far more than the classic supplier-customer relationship.

The buildings can be divided into three groups, each of which requires a specific approach:

♦ Stores: the stores are small establishments spread across the region. They are mostly located in shopping centres. Their opening hours differ from normal office hours.

♦ Offices: some office buildings were already included in the GTMC contract operated by VINCI Facilities, so their specific problems and technical characteristics are already well known to VINCI Facilities.

♦ Proximus Towers: With 105,000 square metres of floor space and total occupancy of more than 6,000 people, the Towers and other large office buildings require a different, highly systematic approach. They need extremely good administrative monitoring to maintain a constant global overview of the system and recognise any minor issues that might occur. The Towers require the constant presence of various technicians.

VINCI Facilities adapted its successful approach from the GTMC contract to this new bid and persuaded Proximus to award the entire contract – for the first time ever – to a single bidder: VINCI Facilities!

The biggest challenge was in starting the contract on 1 April, right in the middle of lockdown. Wim De Windt and Myrielle Van Damme took charge of the startup phase, and thanks to a detailed project plan, which was followed to the letter, everyone completed their tasks and we managed to start on time. We would especially like to thank everyone involved in this startup phase.

That VINCI Facilities won this contract is probably down to the good work done by Pelle Smolders’ and Tom De Wilde’s teams throughout the GTMC contract. Their two teams have therefore been enlarged to enable them to include, in their region, the extra services taken on in the contract. A new team will be trained for the Towers under the leadership of Philippe Dumont, and the teams overseeing Wallonia will be headed by Gregory Laurent.

Wim de Windt will have global oversight of the contract and will ensure that the same working methods are applied in the different business units, so Proximus receives the same level of service across the board.