Fexa transformed facilities maintenance for one of America’s leading retailers for women’s loungewear and lingerie. Fexa’s state-of-the-art, fully flexible CMMS solution provided this company with over $4 million in R&M savings by reducing the spend per store by 11.4%.
The transformation was the result of streamlined processes, automated PMs, and improved accounting, and more.
Customer Situation
As a global leader in women’s loungewear, clothing, and beauty products, this company has 858 stores with an average size of 6,942 square feet. They are headquartered in Reynoldsburg, OH, but their stores are found in every US state.
This specialty retailer has built a reputation on high-quality intimate apparel and beauty products, with locations in upscale shopping malls across America. Importantly, their brand presence demands immaculate store conditions. Their goal is to give shoppers a premium shopping experience, which means that every facility must operate seamlessly.
Store aesthetics, lighting, temperature, and overall ambiance are incredibly important to the brand. Maintenance breakdowns will damage the company’s customer satisfaction rates and brand identity, which is why they have always worked so hard to keep everything running smoothly.
When we took a look at this retailer's needs, we understood that their complexity and scale required a sophisticated CMMS solution. Each location needed to maintain specific environmental conditions for customer comfort while protecting high-value inventory. Their stores' mall locations added another layer of complexity, with varying landlord requirements and building management systems to navigate.
The retailer's commitment to providing an elevated shopping experience meant that maintenance issues needed to be resolved quickly and efficiently, without disrupting the customer experience. This made the need for automated, streamlined facilities management even more critical to their operations.
The Challenge
Before choosing Fexa, the retailer was struggling with inefficient, manual maintenance processes that created significant operational challenges across the organization. With nearly 850+ US stores, plus warehouses and other facilities, these inefficiencies were causing significant expenditures in R&M tasks.
The per-store average for R&M was $52k per year. On top of the spending, brand executives and store managers were overburdened by a facilities management software system with insufficient configurability and limited automation.
Communication issues
Communication was one of the major pain points for almost everyone involved in maintenance processes within the company. Store teams were completely out of the loop because they weren't receiving email notifications about maintenance work. This led to situations where store managers were unaware of when technicians would arrive. Then, they couldn't validate whether services were actually completed.
The call center was purely inbound, offering no additional support services, which meant the facilities management team had to handle every vendor interaction and escalation themselves. This created an overwhelming burden of unnecessary phone calls and manual coordination for the FM team.
Preventive maintenance protocols
The company's preventive maintenance programs were managed manually, creating a significant administrative burden that also increased the risk of missed maintenance tasks across their extensive network of stores.
The accounting validation process for routine maintenance was also manual, making it time-consuming and error-prone.
When routine maintenance gets deprioritized, retailers are more likely to face costly emergency maintenance. Assets need to be replaced more frequently when they haven’t been appropriately serviced.
Complex delegation processes
Adding to these challenges was a complex delegation of authority that wasn't well-supported by the retailer’s existing systems. As vendor assignments were managed at the store level, no one could effectively bundle similar trade work to reduce service charges and dispatch fees.
The lack of automation and real-time visibility made it difficult for finance teams and senior leadership to track and analyze total portfolio spend. Budgeting became a completely manual process, as they couldn't easily track data on a daily, monthly, or quarterly basis in real time.
All of this led to a facilities team that was frequently spending excessive time on administrative tasks---instead of on strategic initiatives that would improve company growth. They added more labor to handle the growing workload, but this just meant even more spending on R&M.
These challenges created inefficiencies and drove up costs across their operation, ultimately leading them to seek a more sophisticated, automated solution when their contract came up for RFP review.
The Fexa Solution
Upon drafting a new RFP and reviewing their options, the retailer was impressed with what Fexa had to offer. Some of the features they were most excited about included:
- Automated PM scheduling and smart dispatch workflows
- No vendor access fees, reducing overall costs
- Automated alerts via email, SMS, and IVR for improved communication
- Automated financial compliance checks and accounting integration
- Advanced analytics and reporting through Fexalytics
- Real-time visibility into portfolio spend
- Automated invoice validation
- Multi-channel communication to keep store teams informed
- Smart dispatch system to improve vendor management
- Streamlined workflow automation to reduce manual tasks
Once Fexa’s solutions were implemented, the first teams to feel the difference were Facilities Management and Finance. From there, the entire organization began to see benefits.
One of the first major changes occurred when Fexa negotiated a new partnership with an inbound and outbound call center. This took a significant burden off of the facility managers. They no longer had to handle every single vendor interaction; automated workflows eliminated the need for constant human intervention in every project. Now they were able to focus on more critical service projects.
Finance was thrilled by the newfound visibility into total spend and analytics. These told a better, clearer story of asset performance and store needs, and in turn enhanced ROI. This solidified the value of Fexa’s software solutions.
Learn how Fexa’s CMMS can reduce your facilities management costs with our free Efficiency Audit.
Visibility into total spend and analytics allowed the Facilities Management team to better tell the story of their needs and performance, enhancing department ROI and solidifying the value of Fexa’s software.
Field teams and store staff, including district and regional managers, benefitted from the automated dispatch system for routine and emergent issues, including flexible workflow configurations and billing requirements on invoices. Having a dedicated customer success manager and responsive call center allowed them to continue training and system optimization while feeling supported.
Because vendors suddenly had access to the Fexa API, their turnaround time sped up and their efficiency increased. Live communication with key stakeholders in the R&M process improved their first-time completion rates. Importantly, relationships improved between stores and service providers. Finance was thrilled by the reduction in administrative costs, too.
All teams felt the benefit of these changes, especially the removal of a layer of internal complexity. Automation improved the speed at which invoices were completed, and data-driven insights were suddenly available to far more internal stakeholders.
Lessons learned from Fexa’s integration with the customer’s processes
Through Fexa's comprehensive CMMS solution, what was once a fragmented and inefficient facilities management operation transformed into a streamlined, data-driven system that saved both time and money.
We combined automated workflows, improved communication channels, and enhanced data visibility to create a ripple effect of positive change. From reducing maintenance costs and improving vendor relationships to empowering store teams and supporting finance with better data, Fexa delivered on its promise to revolutionize this retailer's facilities management.
The end result wasn't just a more efficient maintenance program—it was a complete transformation in how the company approached facilities management, supporting their commitment to providing an exceptional shopping experience in every location.
Key results
- More strategic approach to facilities management
- $4M+ in annual R&M savings
- 11.4% reduction in maintenance spend per store
- Streamlined vendor management through API integration
- Enhanced communication across all teams
- Improved first-time completion rates for maintenance tasks
- Faster invoice processing and validation
- Real-time visibility into maintenance spending
- Better resource allocation for the FM team
- Automated preventive maintenance scheduling
- Strengthened relationships with service providers
- Reduced administrative burden across departments
Customer Benefits
The implementation of Fexa's CMMS solution delivered immediate and substantial benefits across the retailer's entire organization. Most notably, the company achieved an impressive $4 million in R&M savings, with costs per store dropping from $52,000 to $46,000 annually. That’s an 11.4% reduction in maintenance spending!
Beyond the significant cost savings, the transformation brought newfound efficiency and visibility to the retailer’s operations. Facility managers were freed from the burden of constant vendor coordination and could focus on strategic initiatives. Store teams gained real-time visibility into maintenance activities, while finance teams benefited from automated validation processes and enhanced spending analytics.
The automation of previously manual processes created cascading benefits throughout the organization, including:
- Reduced administrative burden through automated PM scheduling and dispatch
- Enhanced communication between stores, vendors, and facilities teams
- Improved vendor performance with real-time API integration
- Streamlined invoice processing and validation
- Better budgeting capabilities through real-time spend tracking
- Increased first-time completion rates for maintenance tasks
- Stronger vendor relationships through improved communication
- Enhanced visibility into asset performance and maintenance needs
- More strategic resource allocation for the facilities management team
- Improved compliance through automated validation processes
By implementing Fexa's flexible CMMS platform, the retailer transformed its facilities management from a reactive, manual operation into a streamlined, data-driven program that delivered both immediate cost savings and long-term operational improvements.
Game Plan with Fexa
When we took a look at this retailer’s needs, we understood that their complexity and scale required more than just a standard CMMS solution. They needed Fexa’s fully configurable and uniquely flexible CMMS platform.
With 858 stores averaging nearly 7,000 square feet each, this global leader in women’s retail needed a platform that could handle their sophisticated workflows while reducing costs and improving efficiency.
By implementing Fexa's flexible, automated solutions, we transformed their facilities management operations from a burden into a strategic advantage, saving over $4 million in maintenance costs while improving communication and efficiency across their entire organization.
How Fexa helped
Here’s what we did:
- Coordinated setup with Sodexo as a new call center partner
- Architected new PM programs to generate automatically
- Built complex logic and smart filters into their accounting exports to eliminate the manual effort
- Built custom approval workflows to meet all approval requirements, including recurring reporting, as required for auditing purposes.
- Streamlined and simplified vendor default assignments and NTEs
See these changes for yourself – Schedule a free Fexa demo today
Ready to reduce maintenance costs and streamline your operations? You can benefit from the same improvements that this leading specialty retail experienced---customized to your specific and unique needs.
See how Fexa's flexible CMMS platform can revolutionize your facilities management. Schedule a personalized demo today and discover the power of automated workflows, real-time analytics, and seamless vendor management.
Learn more about Fexa’s architecture and solutions, or schedule a demo today!
