STUDY OF USER SATISFACTION WITH OUTSOURCED FACILITIES MANAGEMENT SERVICES IN OIL AND GAS INDUSTRIES IN NIGERIA
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STUDY OF USER SATISFACTION WITH OUTSOURCED FACILITIES MANAGEMENT SERVICES IN OIL AND GAS INDUSTRIES IN NIGERIA
ABSTRACT
The oil and gas industry is still struggling to strike a balance between expanding global demand, dwindling known resources, and the need to maintain distribution and operational costs within sustainable limits.
While mergers and consolidations continue, oil and gas executives are aggressively looking for alternative ways to boost their bottom lines. One measure is to incorporate business process outsourcing (BPO) into their operational mix.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficiency of such outsourced management in Nigeria’s downstream oil and gas industries using user satisfaction indices.
Among the specific objectives are: identifying the FM services that are most outsourced in Nigeria’s oil and gas firms; determining the relative importance of factors that influence users’ satisfaction with outsourced facility management services in Nigerian oil and gas firms;
and determining the degree of effectiveness of outsourcing as a means of service delivery in the sampled oil and gas firms. Data for the study were gathered using self-administered questionnaires and analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS 17).
The responders were facility management workers from the six major oil and gas downstream industries. They were chosen using a technique known as purposive sampling.
According to the findings, transportation and logistics are the most commonly outsourced services, ranking first among others. The findings also revealed that service delivery is the most important element influencing user satisfaction with outsourced services.
Overall, it was discovered that the elements tested are extremely effective and reliable for the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry. Users have high expectations of outsourced services.
The facility manager in vendor organisations must have experience in Oil and Gas processes, understand the industry’s needs and services, and ensure that their services are structured to match the industry’s growing demand.
They should also pursue technological breakthroughs that provide more cost-effective methods of maintaining equipment and platforms while ensuring safety and environmental considerations.
CHAPITRE ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction to the Research
Business processes and objectives exist and thrive primarily because they provide an effective and meaningful service to their customer (i.e. the user). In order to create a successful service delivery outcome, the user’s perceptions and expectations must be met in order for that service to be effective.
In contrast, the user’s perceptions of the organization’s initial input into the service delivery process are equally important, as they will determine the organization’s strategic and operational objectives, and thus provide the added value required in achieving the end product of customer satisfaction.
Facilities management is a diversified profession, with the primary goal of providing quality settings that are fit for the purpose for which they were built. According to Alexander (1996),
such a strategy “is a total quality approach to sustaining an operational environment and providing support services to meet the strategic needs of an organisation” .
FM is a perpetual balancing act between competing time, cost, and quality requirements. However, with ever-shrinking budgets and increased market competitiveness, cost is frequently the deciding factor.
However, (Wauters, 1995) has identified that cutting facility expenditures does not automatically boost bottom line profits, and that unless savings are achieved without hurting the organization’s performance that is dependent on these facilities, the opposite may occur, i.e. profits would fall.
It is possible to achieve quality while also improving the balance sheet. A quality workplace may increase workforce efficiency, boost workplace satisfaction, and function as a catalyst in attracting and retaining outstanding employees,
consequently improving revenues. In an era where an increasing number of workers are abandoning traditional offices in favour of working from home, providing decent working conditions is becoming increasingly crucial.
However, one of the major impediments to providing quality working conditions is the profession’s diversity. Facilities managers have traditionally come from engineering backgrounds and may have a different focus than the new breed of facilities managers who come from a variety of disciplines.
As a result, one major difficulty for facilities management is to accommodate itself to the needs of these varied backgrounds. It is also important to remember that the facilities manager is not the primary customer. The facility is used by the customer.
To deliver a superior workplace, the consumer must precisely articulate their needs. However, criteria are typically developed by facilities managers, with little input from building users. It appears that more contact with facility users is required in identifying requirements and desirables.
It is also challenging to accommodate individual needs in the workplace. For example, one building inhabitant may be cold, while another is overheated; one may want the light above their desk turned off, while their neighbour considers it too dark.
This is a common issue in open-plan offices, which are now the standard. As a result, while evaluating quality working environments, examine how individual needs might be met and building inhabitants given more control over their immediate surroundings.
This research looks at outsourcing trends and how facilities management service providers can meet industry demands by incorporating quality and performance management strategies into their processes.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
The oil and gas sector has been reorganising for more than a decade in order to function more efficiently and effectively. The business has changed considerably as oil companies have sought to define and focus on their core business.
By outsourcing, the oil and gas industry tends to engage with FM service providers to deliver professional services and improve the overall work environment. Users desire to take a proactive role in the outsourcing process, taking initiative in management, in order to maximise the value generated from outsourcing.
Anshori and Langner (2007) investigated the significance of customer satisfaction and superior service provision in the hotel industry using Surabaya Plaza Hotel in Indonesia with the goal of gaining insight into the concepts of customer satisfaction in the hotel industry and exploring the specific needs and desires of Surabaya Plaza Hotel’s guests.
This was to learn about the opportunities available to hotel management for improving the experience of current visitors and being more competitive in attracting new consumers.
Durodola (2009) investigated the degree of beneficial application of facilities management concepts in the management of hotel organisations in the research area by studying the management of hotel properties in south-western Nigeria from a facility management perspective.
Abolade, Omirin, and Dugeri (2013) conducted a study on property management service satisfaction in commercial properties in Lagos, Nigeria. The goal was to assess users’ satisfaction with estate surveyors’ management of commercial properties in order to provide a framework for better user-friendly management of such properties.
This study does remark, however, that while outsourcing is one of the most investigated areas in facility management studies, its impact on the provision of facilities management services in the oil and gas downstream industry is mostly unknown.
This is because, despite the fact that a wide range of services are being outsourced in the oil and gas sector in response to the aforementioned emerging trends, there has been no comprehensive empirically based research published in the literature to provide insights into such a relatively new and important concept as outsourcing and user satisfaction in the oil and gas downstream sector.
our highlights the importance of our research, which aims to make facilities management services delivery sustainable in Nigerian oil and gas enterprises. This study intends to address this specifically by first identifying
the causes of outsourcing and then conducting an empirical assessment of facilities management services being outsourced in the oil and gas downstream sector. It then evaluates user satisfaction with outsourced facility management services in the oil and gas industry.
1.3 Research Questions
Thus, the purpose of this study is to provide answers to the following research questions:
What are the most commonly outsourced services in Nigerian oil and gas firms?
What are the relative weights of the factors influencing customer satisfaction with outsourced facilities management services in Nigerian oil and gas firms?
What is the level of effectiveness of outsourcing as a method of service delivery in the oil and gas firms studied?
1.4 Aims and Objectives of The Research
The goal of this study is to use user satisfaction indices to assess the degree of effectiveness of outsourced facility management in Nigerian oil and gas firms in the downstream sector,
with the goal of discovering ways to improve facilities management services provision in the Nigerian oil and gas downstream sector. The following objectives are set in order to attain the above mentioned goal: –
Identify the FM services that are most frequently outsourced in Nigerian oil and gas companies.
Determine the relative importance of factors influencing user satisfaction with outsourced facilities management services in Nigerian oil and gas enterprises.
evaluate the degree of efficacy of outsourcing as a mode of service delivery in the sampled oil and gas enterprises.
1.5 Significance of Research
Outsourcing is a strategic management option that has the ability to improve organisational efficiency and resource management while also increasing consumer satisfaction with the quality of services provided in the oil and gas downstream sector. As a result, it merits further investigation.
The study is justified in theory because the findings would contribute to the development of a body of knowledge on the outsourcing of facilities management services in Nigeria.
This is due to the fact that most study on outsourcing and facilities management to far has concentrated on the experiences of industrialised countries in Europe,
the United States, and Asia. There has been little or no writing about the supply of outsourcing services in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector in general.
The majority of the current literature in Nigeria is thus preliminary and pedagogical, addressing issues such as definitions and scope [Odiete (1998), Ojo (2002)], facilities management tools [Mbamali and Adebayo (2006),
Opaluwah (2005)], and which of the professionals within the environmental setting is best suited to serve as facilities manager or to handle what is within the facilities management field (Odiete, 1998, Ahmad, 1998, and Ojo, 2002).
Facilities management has only recently been applied to specific sectors of the economy, most notably education and healthcare. The majority of previous research were conducted in South Africa [Kotze and Nkado (2003)] and the United Kingdom (Amaratunga and Baldry, 1999 and Amaratunga, 2000).
The majority of research in Nigeria has focused on defining facilities management and separating it from historically practised property management and maintenance management.
The current study would fill this need by delivering a ground-breaking application of facilities management to a major economic sector in Nigeria, namely the oil and gas sector.
The oil and gas business is still grappling with how to strike a balance between expanding global demand, dwindling known supplies, and maintenance, distribution, and operating expenses. While mergers and consolidation continue, oil and gas executives are looking for alternative ways to boost their bottom lines.
One measure is to incorporate business process outsourcing into their operational mix. Much of this orientation has resulted from operational processes becoming increasingly complicated and costly in terms of managing a variety of business functions;
as a result, businesses are outsourcing parts of their core work, such as engineering services in addition to finance and accounting, to third-party service providers.
A key purpose for the study is to determine the relative relevance of elements that influence consumers’ satisfaction with outsourced facilities management services in Nigerian oil and gas industries.
The justification for this study is bolstered further by the fact that the knowledge gained from this research will greatly assist the government and stakeholders alike in the establishment and possible enactment of relevant laws, regulations,
and guidelines in the development of an efficient framework for outsourcing and facilities management practise in Nigeria.
The study provided in this thesis contributes to practise by highlighting criteria associated with high levels of performance that stakeholders in the oil and gas sector may consider when making outsourcing decisions in the industry regarding facilities management services provision.
The findings of this study will also help the facility management industry measure the feelings of its service users concerning service quality. Finally, by understanding their relationships,
service providers can gain a better knowledge of their clients’ expectations, and the trust established can serve as a foundation for good service delivery in the oil and gas downstream industry.
1.6 Delimitation and Scope
The focus of this study is limited to internal users, specifically the management and staff of Nigeria’s main oil and gas downstream firms, including Total, Oando, Forte-oil, Conoil, MRS, and Mobil. It should have been ideal to cover both major and independent marketers in Nigeria,
but the researcher chose to limit the scope to major marketers in Nigeria because a study of both independent and major marketers would result in conclusions that were unnecessarily broad and incapable of clear interpretations, especially given that the study was possibly the first of its kind in Nigeria.
A study limited to large downstream oil and gas businesses in Nigeria, on the other hand, would allow the researcher to draw solid results that may be more receptive to clear interpretations and serve as a foundation for future research.
Again, it would have been ideal to address consumer satisfaction with outsourced facilities management across the entire economy. However, this is unfeasible for the same reasons stated above.
A study of user satisfaction with outsourced facility management in sectors as diverse as banking, education, and others, with their varying difficulties and standards, would yield generalised and flimsy results that could lead to a variety of indications of inadequate understanding. A study devoted to the oil and gas downstream sector,
on the other hand, would provide the researcher with a more concentrated study in a previously neglected area of the economy; additionally, the time frame for the research as well as associated logistics require that the research be limited to Nigeria’s major oil and gas marketers.
1.7 Definitions of Terms
Facility Management: Facility management is a multidisciplinary profession that ensures the functionality of the built environment by combining people, location, process, and technology.
Outsourcing helps businesses to focus on other aspects of their operations while outside professionals handle the minutiae. This means that a significant amount of resources and attention that would otherwise fall on the shoulders of management professionals may now be employed for more critical, broader concerns inside the firm.
The specialised firm that performs the outsourced work is frequently streamlined, and it frequently has world-class capabilities and access to new technology that a corporation could not afford to buy on its own.
The concept of “user satisfaction” is based on many ways. According to the process-oriented approach, user satisfaction is defined as the gap between predicted and achieved satisfaction.
Quality Service: An evaluation of how well a service given meets the client’s expectations. Service providers frequently examine the quality of service they deliver to their consumers in order to enhance their service, promptly discover problems, and better assess client happiness.
The downstream sector of the oil and gas industry refers to the marketing and distribution of products obtained from crude oil and natural gas. Petrol, kerosene, jet fuel, diesel oil, heating oil, fuel oils, lubricants,
waxes, asphalt, natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), as well as hundreds of petrochemicals, are all products of the downstream sector.
Users are individuals, organisations, processes, devices, programmes, systems, or other entities that take advantage of another individual, organisation, process, device, programme, system, or other entity.
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