About Der Facility Manager

Der Facility Manager

Der Facility Manager is the trade journal of German facility management: the Fachzeitschrift published since 1994 by the FORUM Zeitschriften und Spezialmedien GmbH in Merching — ten issues a year under the motto "Gebäude und Anlagen besser planen, bauen und bewirtschaften" (plan, build and manage buildings and facilities better). With a circulation of around 10,000 copies per issue, four annual market overviews and the yearly FM-Anwenderpreis award, the magazine serves the facility managers, building-technology responsibles, commercial managers, architects, engineers and service providers who run Germany's built estate. Note on geography: while the directory row lists Augsburg, the outlet's verifiable publishing base is Merching (near Augsburg), seat of the Forum publishing house — the profile reflects the verified facts.

Overview

Der Facility Manager is the working journal of the FM profession. The format: ten issues a year in DIN A4, each with a cover focus (Titel), the departments Management & Services and Daten & Systeme, plus previews (Vorschau) and the imprint's editorial team. The 2018 volume analysis counted 752 pages across 10 issues — 569 pages (75.7 percent) of editorial content: well-founded practice reports, interviews, backgrounds, product news and current news offering expert knowledge for all real-estate operators in business, industry and the public sector.

The readership — the target group — comprises facility managers and those responsible for building management and building technology in companies and administrations with real-estate holdings, commercial managers, architects and engineers, planning and service firms in building management and planning, manufacturers and suppliers in building technology and equipment, and students of facility management. The distribution model: around 70 percent of the roughly 10,000 copies per issue are distributed as free copies (Freistücke) to qualified recipients — the controlled-circulation trade-press model.

The magazine's distinctive assets: the four annual Marktübersichten — the market overviews of Germany's building-management full-service providers, CAFM software, FM consulting firms and energy-contracting providers — which orient readers in the market; and the FM-Anwenderpreis, the annual award honoring concepts and achievements in facility management. The ISSN is 0947-0026.

History

Der Facility Manager's first issue appeared in 1994 — the year the young discipline of facility management was establishing itself in Germany (the contemporary witness Hans Kranz was just then establishing the term "Gebäudeautomation" and fighting for its own trade in DIN 276). The publisher, the FORUM Zeitschriften und Spezialmedien GmbH of Merching — a subsidiary of the Forum Media Group — positioned the journal from the start as the practitioner's title: solutions and action recommendations for corporate organization and real-estate operations, on the strategic level as on the practical.

The editorship evolved with the title: Martin Gräber led the editorial department as Chefredakteur (later moving to event management), with Robert Altmannshofer as deputy; by 2021 Altmannshofer had taken the chief editorship (responsible), leading the Merching editorial team (Miriam Glaß, Sandra Lederer, Petra Kellerer, Marie Graichen, Kirsten Posautz, Lisa Regenold, Sandra Hoffmann). The managing director (Geschäftsführerin) is Rosina Jennissen.

The 2018 anniversary — the decades' trace — deserves its telling. The journal's anniversary coverage traced the FM decades: the 1990s building automation — Hans Kranz establishing "Gebäudeautomation" in 1993, fighting for its own trade in DIN 276 — the 2010s globalization — the first GA applications, the BACnet protocol's rise, the cloud — the smart buildings of the future demanding high-tech services. The anniversary's function — the retrospective's — showed the journal as the profession's memory: the discipline's history written in its pages — from the 1994 first issue to the high-tech building — the thirty years of facility management, documented by its journal. Through three decades the ten-issues rhythm, the market overviews and the Anwenderpreis have held: the journal of the FM profession, still appearing from Merching.

Coverage and Content

The editorial program follows the FM profession's agenda. The management coverage — the Management & Services department — addresses the strategic and organizational level: the cover stories on industry construction and operation (sustainability aspects, site-development master plans, resource conservation, wood as a building material, daylight at the workplace), the FM in education (the Berlin upper-school centers' million-square-meter tender), the startup phase in focus, the client-provider relationship. The systems coverage — the Daten & Systeme department — addresses the digital level: CAFM implementations (Munich's showcase project), big data, workplace apps, the paradigms of the smart building.

The market overviews — the four guides — deserve their telling. Each year the journal publishes four Marktübersichten: the market overview of Germany's Gebäudemanagement-Komplettanbieter (building-management full-service providers), the CAFM-Software overview, the FM-Beratungsunternehmen (consulting firms) overview, and the Energiecontracting-Anbieter (energy-contracting providers) overview. The overviews' function — the four's — is orientation in the market: the facility manager comparing providers finds the structured landscape — the services, the software, the consultants, the contractors — in the journal's pages. The 2020 media data lists the overviews among the brand's core advertising environments alongside the premium company directory (Firmenverzeichnis Premium): the market's meeting place in print. The FM-Anwenderpreis — the annual award — deserves its telling. Each year the journal's FM-Anwenderpreis honors concepts and achievements (Konzepte und Leistungen) in facility management: the prize for the profession's best practice — the innovative operating concept, the outstanding service, the exemplary project. The award's function — the yearly's — is the profession's recognition: the facility manager's work, often invisible in the building's everyday operation, gets its stage — the journal as the awarding institution. Together with the market overviews, the prize forms the brand's institutional role: not just reporting on the market but ordering it — the overviews mapping the providers, the award honoring the best. The product coverage — the Produktnews — tracks the building-technology market. The event coverage — the Veranstaltungsleitung and -management — connects the journal to the industry's conferences.

The formats' mix — the ten print issues, the market overviews, the award, the digital newsletters and whitepapers — defines Der Facility Manager: the solutions journal for planning, building and managing buildings and facilities.

Organization and Ownership

Der Facility Manager is published by the FORUM Zeitschriften und Spezialmedien GmbH, Mandichostraße 18, 86504 Merching — a subsidiary (Tochterunternehmen) of the Forum Media Group. The managing director is Rosina Jennissen; the editor-in-chief (responsible) is Robert Altmannshofer, with the Merching editorial team and the event-management unit (Martin Gräber, Olivia Uhl-Baumm). The publisher is also the Herausgeber of the title.

The business model follows the controlled-circulation trade-press pattern: the roughly 10,000-copy circulation (about 70 percent free copies to qualified decision-makers), advertising across print and digital (the 2020 media data's portfolio: e-mail newsletter, stand-alone newsletter, app navigator, product tests, eCampaigns, whitepapers, premium company directory), and the events business. The IVW figures (2/2009: 3,081 sold, 9,773 distributed) document the historic scale; current audited figures are not publicly confirmed. Detailed revenue figures are not publicly confirmed.

Digital Presence

The magazine's digital home is facility-manager.de: the portal for the journal's content, the reading samples (Leseproben), the media data and the market overviews. The digital extensions — the e-mail newsletter, the stand-alone newsletter, the app navigator, the whitepapers and product tests — carry the brand into the digital marketing of the FM industry.

The digital strategy follows the trade-publisher logic: the print journal for the ten-issue deep read — the solutions, the market overviews, the award — the digital channels for the news flow and the lead generation — the newsletters, the app, the whitepapers. As the facility-management trade journal — the Forum-published Fachzeitschrift (the 1994 founding, the Altmannshofer editorship, the Merching base) — Der Facility Manager remains the profession's paper: "Gebäude und Anlagen besser planen, bauen und bewirtschaften," ten times a year in print and at facility-manager.de.