India’s facility management industry is moving beyond manpower-led service delivery, as enterprises run increasingly complex offices, factories, hospitals and hotels. Technique Control Facility Management (TCFM), a wholly owned subsidiary of Embassy Services Pvt Ltd, has grown through this shift over the past decade, scaling from around 500 people to a workforce of 15,000 that manages 130 million sq ft for more than 200 clients. As the company completes ten years and prepares for its next phase, Machine Maker spoke exclusively with Dharmvir Singh, Country Head, TCFM. He talks about why clients now want one accountable partner, why winning trust matters more than winning a contract, how technology fits into a business built on people, and why TCFM refuses to chase numbers for their own sake.
When the Embassy Group, one of India’s best known names in real estate, needed a dependable partner to look after the spaces it built and managed, it decided to build that partner from within. The decision, taken in 2016 as part of a backward integration strategy, gave birth to Technique Control Facility Management, better known as TCFM. A decade later, the company has travelled far beyond its origins as an in-house service arm and today counts itself among the larger integrated facility management players in the country.
“We started this company ten years back as part of a backward integration strategy of the Embassy Group,” says Dharmvir Singh, Country Head, TCFM. “Because the group is in real estate and manages real estate space, they had a need for a homegrown company which could take care of their in-house business. That is where this whole journey started in 2016.”
The numbers tell the story of that journey. From a team of around 500 people, TCFM has grown to a workforce of about 15,000, spread across 30 cities and 10 states. It manages 130 million sq ft of built space for more than 200 clients, and its people are trained at Gurukul, the company’s own practical training facility. Its portfolio covers commercial offices, co-working and co-living spaces, residential communities, industrial units, warehousing, infrastructure, education, hospitality, healthcare and energy.
Leading this national operation is Dharmvir Singh, who brings close to two decades of professional experience to the role. Originally from Agra in Uttar Pradesh, Mr Singh is a science graduate in mathematics who went on to complete an MBA in operations and HR, followed by a Chief Strategy Officer programme at the Indian School of Business (ISB). He began his working life in 2007 and today operates out of TCFM’s corporate office in Bengaluru. He is quick to clarify that he is not a promoter of the company. He joined TCFM three years ago as Country Head and has since focused on strategic growth, client relationships and operational excellence.
Asked what drew him to this line of work, Mr Singh points to people. “I have always been somebody who likes to be around people, interact with people and build business around people,” he says. “That has helped me get into this industry, which is so beautiful to be in, and I think it has really helped me grow faster.” That people-first instinct runs through everything he shared with Machine Maker, from how TCFM wins clients to how it plans to grow in the years ahead.
Why Integrated Facility Management Is the New Normal
For a long time, facility management in India meant hiring manpower. A company would bring in one vendor for housekeeping, another for security and a third to look after its electrical and mechanical equipment. Each contract was managed separately, and the client carried the burden of holding them all together. As buildings have grown more complex and expectations around uptime, hygiene, safety and compliance have risen, that model is giving way to integrated facility management, where a single partner takes responsibility for the outcomes of a whole facility.
Mr Singh explains the idea through the eyes of a client. “Let’s say you are my client,” he says. “You could be a hospital, a pharmaceutical manufacturing unit, a residential unit, a corporate IT campus or a warehousing unit. When you approach a partner like us, we will run you through our bouquet of services.” That bouquet begins with electromechanical, or hard, services, which cover the upkeep of building operations: diesel generator sets, chillers, sewage and water treatment plants, air conditioning and lifts. Then come soft services, which include hygiene management, cleaning, pantry services, horticulture, facade cleaning, pest control, payroll management, business support, reception and visitor management. The third pillar is security management, along with services such as event management, all aimed at securing and running the premises smoothly.
This integrated offering now serves about 12 business segments, including pharma, manufacturing, healthcare, corporate offices, IT and ITeS, education, hospitality and business parks. Mr Singh says the company is actively exploring more, with data centres among the segments on its radar. For manufacturing and pharma clients in particular, where a chiller failure or a lapse in hygiene can halt production or affect product quality, having one accountable partner across hard and soft services is no longer a convenience but an operational necessity.
The latest step in this direction is TCFM Plus, a new service line that bundles specialised services on top of routine facility management. It covers support around learning and development, Centre of Excellence functions, fire drills, carpet shampooing and other specialised cleaning, ESG-related services and annual maintenance contracts (AMCs). Mr Singh is candid that TCFM is not the only player to offer such a line. “Some other companies are also doing it,” he admits. “But what really matters is how effectively they are doing it.”
That, in his view, is where many providers stumble. “People do launch it, but if the bandwidth, the quality and the overall governance are not in place, they struggle,” he says. “Customers will come back with different service requirements, and if you are not able to cater to them the way they are supposed to be served, you will eventually spoil your name and spoil your original service line as well.” TCFM waited until it was confident of its foundations before stepping out. The payoff, he says, is twofold: specialised services carry higher margins, and they deepen client relationships. “Rather than servicing a customer for only one or two lines, it is better to give them at least four, five or six service lines, so that they have to think multiple times before even replacing us as a service provider.”
Trust Before Contracts: Governance as a Business Imperative
In an industry where contracts are often won on price, Mr Singh places far greater weight on how a relationship begins. “Getting into business is secondary. How you get into the business is far more important,” he says. “On what grounds, on what mutual, win-win situation you get into it matters. If you are able to win the confidence of the customer right in the beginning itself, be honest and be transparent, that makes a lot of sense and it goes a long way.”
That transparency, he adds, cannot stop once the agreement is signed. It has to continue through the entire course of service delivery. When it does, the relationship naturally lengthens, and that is where the real value lies for both sides. “When you build a five-year or seven-year contract tenure, I think it has better ROIs, better client retention and better value to the customer,” he says. For a service provider, long tenures bring stability in planning and staffing. For a client, they bring continuity, deeper knowledge of the site and fewer disruptions from changing vendors.
Trust also means knowing when to walk away. Mr Singh shares that there have been occasions when TCFM has politely declined business. “We do not want to be just another facility management company,” he says. “There have been times when we have very politely said no to some businesses, depending upon whether that business really aligns with our values, mission and vision. We do not get into non-compliant business. We do not get into business which is not going to add value to the customer or to our portfolio.” What matters, he adds, is how that refusal is handled. “We have a way to very politely and softly explain to the customer why we are saying no. But we are always open to discuss further and moderate.”
This stance reflects a larger reality of the facility management business in India. A company that deploys thousands of people across hundreds of client sites carries significant responsibility around statutory labour compliance, workplace safety and client audits. A single lapse at one site can damage a reputation built over years. By choosing which business to take on, and by insisting on governance before expansion, TCFM is treating compliance not as paperwork but as a foundation for sustainable growth.
People Plus Technology: How Data and AI Are Entering Facility Operations
For all the talk of automation, Mr Singh is clear that facility management remains, at its heart, a people business. “We are a people business,” he says. “We are about 15,000 to 16,000 people spread across India, deployed across 200 to 250 client locations. So we have to imbibe a lot from people and then combine it with AI.” In his view, technology is not a replacement for the workforce but a way to make that workforce more informed, more efficient and more accountable.
Mr Singh divides TCFM’s technology journey into two parts. The first is internal: the back-office functions that keep a national operation running, such as procurement, dashboards, business reporting, sales, operations and governance. Here, the company has the freedom to automate as much as possible. TCFM uses Power BI for reporting and is working to bring AI into these processes so that data is ready to use when decisions need to be made. The larger aim is to build a repository of historical data that can guide business decisions over time, rather than relying on instinct alone.
The second part is the client site, where decisions are shared. “Because we are dependent on the client in terms of decision making, wherever it is possible for us to imbibe technology and AI, we are utilising it, depending upon the client’s consent and wherever there is openness from the client,” Mr Singh explains. “But we are surely open and very much flexible around the utilisation of AI.” This matters because the hard services side of facility management is where technology is changing operations fastest. Building management systems, IoT sensors on chillers, DG sets and pumps, and predictive maintenance models are allowing operators to spot problems before they become breakdowns. For a provider managing equipment across hundreds of sites, the ability to move from reactive repairs to data-driven upkeep can mean lower energy bills, fewer outages and better asset life for the client.
Technology, however, works only as well as the people using it. That is why skilling sits alongside AI in TCFM’s priorities. The company trains its workforce at Gurukul, its practical training facility, and Mr Singh counts continuous training and upskilling among the levers that will bring cost savings in the years ahead. As clients ask for higher standards in hygiene, safety and ESG performance, a trained and compliant workforce becomes as much a competitive advantage as any software platform.
Scaling Wisely: Value Ahead of Volume in the Next Decade
TCFM already operates through six regional offices, with a presence in Bengaluru, where it has both its corporate and regional offices, as well as Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune and Delhi NCR. The next wave of growth, Mr Singh believes, will come from India’s tier 2 and tier 3 cities. E-commerce, quick commerce and organised retail have already moved into these markets, and new infrastructure is following close behind. “If I have to visualise our business, any infrastructure that gets built requires facility management services, because you need somebody to manage it,” he says. “Any infrastructure that comes up in tier 2 and tier 3 cities will surely require an organised, integrated facility management partner. It might start on a smaller scale, but sooner or later they will get into it.”
Yet Mr Singh is careful not to equate opportunity with haste. Entering a new market brings higher upfront costs, from setting up back-office support to building local teams, and those costs weigh on operating margins before the business matures. “We will be very wise and very picky and choosy about where we go,” he says. “Any new market that you enter will surely have higher upfront operating costs, so you want to balance that out as well.” This measured approach to the economics of scale is consistent with the discipline he described in launching TCFM Plus: expand only when the foundation can carry the weight.
The same thinking shapes how he talks about targets. “We do not want to chase the numbers game, otherwise there is no end to the numbers,” he says. “Numbers are just a byproduct of the journey itself. We should rather focus on the value that we create, the quality that we can provide and sustain, and the change that we can bring to the table.” That change, he explains, includes new initiatives around ESG goals, greater use of technology and AI to automate processes and save cost, and continuous upskilling of people. While TCFM does have mid-term and long-term strategies for revenue and profitability, Mr Singh prefers not to make specific numbers public. What he is willing to commit to is direction: quality, value and higher margins.
Over the next two to three years, TCFM plans to explore newer markets and business segments, with data centres among those under consideration. It also intends to strengthen its own capabilities by bringing more specialised work in-house. Horticulture is one area where the company is building bandwidth so that it no longer needs to outsource the service, and annual maintenance contracts are another. Each such addition widens the range of services TCFM can offer a client directly, which in turn strengthens the retention model Mr Singh described earlier.
