The 4,000 regional banks in the U.S. today are facing unique challenges. There’s pressure to scale up or consolidate to compete more effectively. Many are feeling the pressure to contain costs, be more operationally efficient and assume more control over maintenance and repair spend. And at the same time, they have a responsibility to support local suppliers and provide a community connection.

A centralized facilities management (FM) platform can address all of these challenges, giving regional banks powerful new tools to operate their retail branches and offices at a lower cost and more efficiently. Larger commercial banks have already embraced centralized FM, but many regional banks perceive cost as a barrier to entry. A scalable FM platform could be the answer.

Many regional banks still manage facilities internally and have siloed systems. They also have decentralized processes and work order management systems that struggle to manage tickets quickly and efficiently.

According to Dina Villa, a managing director JLL Financial Services, it isn’t uncommon to find work orders submitted by phone or email with maintenance records tracked through spreadsheets. “Many of the decisions about service providers are not standardized,” she says. “They are left up to individual branch managers, which can make scalability difficult, accelerate costs and create inefficiencies.”

As regional banks often grow through mergers and acquisitions, having a scalable FM platform in place allows organizations to seamlessly integrate operations. These newly formed organizations can find their real estate portfolios doubling overnight, and at the same time, have a rush of locations that need to be downsized or vacated. Larger, more geographically dispersed portfolios also bring greater exposure to weather events that could compromise operations. The faster an organization can mobilize post-M&A, from vendor notifications to active site support, the lower the financial, regulatory, and operational risk.

Villa has worked with clients who have grown significantly through mergers and didn’t have the bandwidth or capacity with their outdated systems and rising maintenance costs to roll out the types of modernized programs that are being asked of their C-suite. Being able to scale without losing control is often a challenge.

Operational risk as well as compliance demands also can pose an issue and shrink margins. Missed preventative maintenance or service schedules that are not standardized, for example, can have an impact on uptime, on customer experience, and can increase the risk of a branch’s exposure to regulatory issues or fines.

At a time when margins are slim and cost containment is critical, having a scalable facilities management plan in place can give new visibility into the efficiency of buildings, spaces and equipment. Banks of all sizes can assume more control over their maintenance budgets in addition to a better understanding of vendor and technician performance, eliminating the burden of many mundane administrative tasks from the local staff.

For some smaller regional banks, who might be outsourcing FM for the first time, it can feel like a big step, which is why it is important to have a partner that can help simplify the process, and easily add or remove resources as needed – such as moving from mobile technicians to dedicated on-site staff. Over time a program can add energy and sustainability initiatives, capital project management, location strategy and much more.

Local supplier relationships are incredibly important to regional banks. Having the right partner can bring new supplier relationships or support the ones already in place. JLL Marketplace, for example, offers more than three million curated products and transparent, pre-negotiated rates with leading industry suppliers. Banking clients would have access to those savings and relationships or have the option to assimilate their local vendors into the program. Transparent pricing models allow banks to mitigate repair and maintenance costs and have full visibility into spend.