If you've spent any time around facilities management, you've heard the acronym CAFM: Computer-Aided Facility Management. The category was born in the 1990s as IT moved into the back office of FM, and it's stuck around for thirty years.
More recently, the term "FM platform" has emerged to describe a different kind of product. People use the two interchangeably, but they shouldn't. The difference matters, especially if you're choosing one.
Here's a straight take.
What CAFM was built for
CAFM systems were designed for in-house FM teams in large organisations. The model assumed:
- One organisation owns and operates the buildings
- The FM team are employees of that organisation
- Contractors are an external supply chain to be managed
- Tenants and end users have no direct interaction with the system
So CAFM features were oriented around what an in-house FM team needs: asset registers, space planning, room booking, work order management, helpdesk ticketing, BMS integration. The FM team logged in, the rest of the world didn't.
This worked when a corporate FM team was the single source of truth for their estate. But the FM world has changed.
What changed
Four shifts:
- Outsourcing. In-house FM teams shrank or disappeared. Property managers, managing agents and TFM contractors took over operational responsibility. The "FM team" is no longer one team in one company.
- Multi-stakeholder workflows. A single repair involves a property manager logging the job, a contractor quoting it, an asset manager approving the spend, a tenant getting updates, an engineer attending. CAFM gave each role its own portal (or no portal). Modern workflows need them all on the same live view.
- Mobile-first contractors. Engineers in the field needed real apps, not desktop logins. CAFM bolted mobile on, FM platforms started there.
- Tenant expectations. Build-to-Rent residents, office tenants and retail occupiers now expect to log issues from their phone and see status live, like they would with any other modern service.
What an FM platform does differently
An FM platform is built around the workflow, not the organisation. Same job, same data, different views:
| Audience | What they see |
|---|---|
| Client / property manager | Every property, every job, every cost, live |
| Contractor | Today's dispatched jobs, quoting tools, app to update from site |
| Engineer | The job, the asset, the photo upload, the certificate |
| Tenant | Log a job, see status, know when it's done |
| Asset manager | Asset-level data, spend trends, compliance status across portfolios |
Same source of truth. One platform. Live updates. No re-keying between systems, no re-explaining over phone, no chasing.
What CAFM still does well
To be fair: CAFM systems are mature, deep on asset register and space management, often deeply integrated with BMS, finance systems and HR systems in big organisations. If you're a Fortune 500 with an in-house FM team and a 20-year IT estate, ripping out CAFM for an FM platform isn't necessarily the right move.
Where CAFM falls down:
- Multi-stakeholder workflows (clients, contractors, tenants on one live view)
- Modern mobile experience for field engineers
- Tenant-facing capability
- Fast implementation (CAFM rollouts are measured in months, sometimes years)
- Pricing flexibility (CAFM is enterprise-priced; FM platforms tend to be more flexible)
How to tell which you need
If you tick more than two of these, an FM platform is probably the right fit:
- You're a managing agent, property manager or asset manager (not an in-house FM team)
- You work with multiple contractors across multiple sites
- Your tenants raise jobs and you want them to see status
- You want field engineers updating jobs live from their phones
- You want to be running in weeks, not months
- You'd rather pay for what you use than commit to a 5-year enterprise contract
If you tick more than two of these, traditional CAFM may still be the right call:
- You have a large in-house FM team as your primary user base
- You need deep BMS, space planning or capital project integration
- You have existing IT systems that depend on CAFM data
- You have a long-term enterprise IT strategy CAFM fits into
What we built
Avero FM Works is an FM platform. We built it because we are an FM company, and traditional CAFM didn't fit how we, our clients, our contractors or our tenants actually work. The platform is the same one our own Avero FM Approved network uses every day, plus our clients and the tenants in the properties we look after.
If you're weighing up CAFM vs an FM platform, or you've inherited something that isn't working, get in touch for a walkthrough, or read more about Avero FM Works.