So anyway why do you call it IWMS?

I was asked this question by a customer during a recent demonstration of Premiertec’s Integrated Workplace Management System.

IWMS – The Background

The term “Integrated Workplace Management System”, or “IWMS” (to satisfy our lust for acronyms), originated from a university academic, and was subsequently co-opted by Gartner. Up until recently, Gartner produced an IWMS market assessment, including a Gartner Magic Quadrant, and without a common term like IWMS there would have been no other way to group a load of vendors together in a comparison document.

During their initial analysis of the facilities and real estate space, it was observed that the market was moving from point solutions to integrated solutions. It was also observed that there was a trend toward defining the facilities and real estate domain more broadly as workplace management, to recognise the advent of workplace mobility and the solutions needed to manage the virtual workplace. Thus, the two trends were combined to the single acronym IWMS.

Although it is recognised that the IWMS definition is very broad, and therefore less useful to describe a market that is becoming more industry verticalized, users still need a coherent framework to evaluate vendors and market trends. Many vendors have used the IWMS blueprint provided in the IWMS market analysis containing the Magic Quadrant to enhance their products and re-align their messages.

So why do we call it IWMS?

If you type IWMS into Wikipedia you get the following description:
IWMS is an enterprise platform that supports the planning, design, management, utilization and disposal of an organisation’s location based assets. IWMS systems assist organisations in optimizing the use of workplace resources, including the management of a company’s real estate portfolio, infrastructure and facilities assets. Four of the primary areas of functionality include Lease Administration, Project Management, Space Management and Maintenance Management.

Premiertec have decided to place strategic focus on delivering the IWMS solution to market. They have therefore designed and delivered an IWMS solution which is built on the latest Oracle E-Business Suite R12.1 platform. This incorporates integration between the following modules - Oracle Property Manager, Oracle Projects, Oracle Enterprise Asset Management, Oracle Site Hub, Oracle Service and Oracle Financials applications. Known as the Premiertec Integrated Workplace Management System (PIWMS), this solution supports the entire real estate lifecycle through a complete, end-to-end Real Estate Management solution.

George Gallant - March 2010