Most companies say they have business continuity plans. Fewer can describe, in concrete terms, what actually happens in their buildings and assets when something goes wrong. The reality is that continuity is decided not only in crisis meetings, but in the way facilities and assets are prepared for stress.
JLL’s Global State of Facilities Management Report 2025 highlight resiliency as a core benchmark for modern facilities: the ability to adapt to equipment failures, occupancy shifts and extreme weather without compromising safety or efficiency. This article proposes five failure scenarios that every Facilities Director should be able to simulate and, for each, suggests how a digital, risk‑based asset management approach changes the outcome
Picture a distribution centre on a peak day, a hospital wing during surgery schedules, or a data‑rich operations hub. A prolonged power outage in any of these sites can cause immediate disruption, safety risks and financial loss.
In a traditional, reactive FM model, response often depends on who is on site, which supplier answers the phone first, and how quickly people can locate manuals or single‑line diagrams. In a continuity‑by‑design model, the organization has:
Industry guidance on asset management emphasises that such risk‑based planning reduces both the likelihood and impact of failures in critical infrastructure.
Heatwaves are becoming more frequent and intense, especially in urban areas. Studies on EU buildings show that space cooling demand has been rising, with building energy policies now addressing both efficiency and comfort. When HVAC systems fail during such events, the consequences range from discomfort and lost productivity to health and safety threats in hospitals and elderly care facilities.
Facilities teams can design for this scenario by:
In a digital asset management environment, alarms, work orders and equipment history are linked, allowing quicker triage and response when temperatures start to drift.
Flood risk is no longer limited to buildings near rivers or coasts. Heavy rainfall events and drainage issues can cause water ingress in basements, plant rooms and technical areas even in inland locations. Electrical switchgear, IT equipment and other sensitive systems are often located in these spaces, making them single points of failure.
A continuity‑by‑design approach involves:
Facilities and asset management systems help by consolidating information on asset locations, risk assessments and mitigation actions, so these spaces do not fall through the cracks between projects and operations.
Even when assets themselves are well managed, continuity can be undermined by dependencies on external service providers. Economic volatility and labour shortages have made it harder for many organizations to secure reliable maintenance capacity at the right time and price.
To prepare for vendor disruption, FM leaders should:
By integrating contract data, work orders and asset criticality in a single system, organizations gain visibility into where vendor risks are building up, rather than discovering them during a crisis.
Safety, environmental and quality regulations increasingly require organizations to show - not just claim - how they maintain assets, manage risk and reduce negative impacts. Regulators and certification bodies can request evidence at short notice, especially in sectors like healthcare, public services and energy.
For FM teams, this means being ready to demonstrate:
When all this information is spread across paper logs, email chains and local spreadsheets, audits become stressful, time‑consuming and error‑prone. A digital asset management platform simplifies the process by centralising records and enabling on‑demand reporting.
These five scenarios are starting points. The real value comes when facilities teams turn them into a structured resilience playbook tailored to their portfolio. A practical approach is to:
Resilience‑focused FM is iterative. As teams run drills or experience real incidents, they refine playbooks and asset strategies, gradually reducing vulnerability across the portfolio.
Curious how your facilities would perform under these five scenarios?
Schedule a continuity readiness conversation with our team to map your critical sites and identify quick wins.
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