HD Facilities Management Challenges

Chain Store Age recently spoke with Matthew Perry, VP of client development at Legacy Group, about retail facilities management and multi-site rollout programs.

By Marianne Wilson
STORE SPACES Q & A
CHAINSTOREAGE.COM

What trends are you seeing in retail facilities management?

The biggest trends we are seeing revolve around our customers gaining more control over and increasing predictability of their spends. They are doing this through a wide range of preventative maintenance programs, sustainability efforts and build- ing automation systems.

We are also seeing a desire to identify scalable solutions enabling retailers to easily increase or decrease resources as needed with as little impact to their business as possible.

What is the biggest challenge facing retailers in managing rollout programs?

We see it as identifying resources that can reach all sites in often aggressive schedules with consistent service and also offer customization and flexibility given that retailers operate in a constantly evolving environment. Also, the resources should provide communication that makes them feel like they are on every site and enables them to be able to report on any site, phase, etc. at a moment’s notice.

Project management covers a wide variety of services. Which ones give retailers the most headaches?

Maintenance-driven programs seem to be the area that we are seeing the most activity and it appears to be a big challenge for our retail partners as they are often driven by an urgent need, which doesn’t allow for a great deal of planning or strategy.

Tell us a little about Legacy Group and how it stands apart from other companies?

Legacy Group has a long history of successfully delivering on-demand facilities maintenance services nationwide. Our maintenance-driven projects team is a huge differentiator as we have done an excellent job of marrying the expansive, industry-leading network of trade re- sources with in-house and on-site project management experts. This combination enables us to move quickly, nimbly, and affordably through our customer’s most challenging rollout programs.

What type of approach does Legacy take in assisting retailers with multi-site rollout
programs?

Legacy’s approach is all about trade specialists and dedicated field resources, which are our most valued assets. We are continuously nurturing our current vendor relationships and identifying new strategic relationships. Having a robust and reliable network enables us to align the most appropriate crews with each rollout’s requirements, whether it be re- lated to a specific trade, communication cadence, budget or schedule.

What about repair services? Is emergency assistance available?

We take the same approach in sourcing our repair resources, which gives us leverage in any given region. This enables us to offer highly responsive and effective emergency services on all trades, whether they be required after hours, weekend, holidays, or even natural disasters.

How has technology impacted the services Legacy provides customers?

We all are aware — and bombarded — with vast amounts of new technology that promises to make all our jobs easier. The list of options is endless and literally grows every day. Legacy embraces technology and uses it for measuring our performance, sharing information with our customers and field partners in real time, monitoring workflow, expediting closeouts and timely accounting.
But just as important, Legacy Group, in keeping with our name, has not forgot- ten and in fact embraces a “hands on” and “personal” approach to serving our customers coupled with cutting-edge technology. We believe that “picking up the phone” is a tool more powerful than many proposed automations.

We also believe that the right experts directly sharing information as it happens, asking the right questions when needed and consistently connecting with our customers, and training our affiliates is still some of the most dynamic and impactful tools in our toolbox.

What’s the biggest mistake retailers make in FM?

Spreading work across too many vendors can be a detriment to any retail facilities program. While we absolutely understand the desire to have choices, vendors are most successful when they have enough volume to build a dedicated team and assign the correct assets to focus on how to best serve the customer’s contractual needs.

Through ongoing engagement, lessons are learned, best practices are established and programs that both the vendor and the retailer can be proud of are built.