The retail landscape is rapidly evolving, driven by shifting consumer demand, increasingly immersive in-store experiences, regulation, and further digital transformation. As a result, Facilities Management (FM) teams are often asked to deliver changes, enabling retailers to compete for customer attention.
 
Think—needing a well-maintained HVAC system to ensure customer comfort, managing atmospheric lighting that aligns with the brand, or fitting out a new omnichannel offering such as buying online and picking up in-store.
 
As such, while cost remains the main factor for many retailers, the quality of service is increasingly being evaluated when implementing FM solutions. Below, we explore five areas of focus for FM teams and how good procurement can ensure organizations remain profitable and have the means to invest in new initiatives to stay competitive.

Cleaning and maintenance

Technology advances present retailers with more intelligent solutions for store cleaning and maintenance. Smart technologies can monitor usage, plan cleaning, and offer automation (robots) designed to act quickly and improve customers’ in-store experience.

Leveraging data to optimize maintenance schedules can create efficiencies through procurement. A recent industry study found that as much as 95% of building management system (BMS) data in the UK is not currently utilized for maintenance. This type of predictive maintenance prevents overloading schedule requirements and equipment failures, avoiding potentially significant costs. 

energy and sustainability

As organizations continue to pursue decarbonizing their operations and supply chains, it falls to teams within the organization to implement and drive the required change, including FM. Proxima’s recent Scope 3 Maturity Benchmark Report revealed that organizations that utilize resources across the business are making more significant strides toward their sustainability targets.

Retailers worldwide, including the UK, US, and Europe, are also subject to more sustainability regulations than before. Managing utilities and energy consumption in a way that aligns with, for example, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG) will be a crucial requirement of FM teams (and one relatively new to navigate).

As such, sustainability needs to become interwoven with FM procurement strategies to ensure that decisions are both future-facing and short-term.

Recruitment challenges

Corporate leaders anticipate open FM-related positions to remain at a significant 54% across all levels of the organization this year. While wage inflation persists, with the potential to impact service quality, many organizations focus on fostering a culture that goes beyond wages and improves staff retention through incentives and support initiatives.

Retailers will need to consider this within their supplier management processes. Consider the risk this poses within your FM supplier landscape, how you can mitigate it, and how you might manage the relationship to support that retention and subsequent service level.

The challenge is finding the time to do this alongside BAU when already balancing competing business priorities and challenges. To deliver cost savings at pace, consider standing up a SWAT team with either your existing team, sharing across pockets of capacity, or calling on external experts to inject capacity and capability that can not only drive results but also do so at pace and efficiently.

So, assume you prioritize those projects that will provide cash in the short term – for example, some retailers are clawing back price surges experienced during COVID – and a key question is raised: what do you do with the savings?

Omnichannel evolution

Whether it be picking up online orders in-store or offering additional in-store services such as cafés or interactive changing rooms, retailers are adapting to attract customers. Proxima’s recent Retail Evolved Report explores how retailers retain the current generation of consumers and attract the new generation, with Omnichannel shoppers spending 1.5x more than their single-channel counterparts.

Increasingly, online brands are toying with physical stores, with big names like Gymshark and ASOS launching dynamic physical stores under a ‘plug and play’ model. FM teams must embrace this movement to acquire prime retail space on flexible terms – ensuring retailers can continue to adapt with a more agile approach to commercial leasing.

Smart security

AI and smart technologies are revolutionizing security in the retail sector, and FM teams will be at the forefront of implementing the right solutions for their stores. A leading retailer in the US is using AI to analyze security footage and detect potential shoplifting incidents in real time. Elsewhere, high-end luxury retailers are implementing AI-powered video analytics to detect unusual behavior and body language to prevent theft.

Machine learning algorithms also support fraud detection in transactions. This is an example of where the FM and technology teams will need to intersect to ensure the right solution, on the right terms, is implemented.
 
So, how equipped are your FM teams to deal with evolving requirements in the retail sector? Are you managing suppliers in a way that provides access to the latest innovations? Are you effectively collecting the correct data to inform critical procurement decisions and save costs? FM will continue to enable the trends that flow through retailers. Procurement has a prime opportunity to contribute to the customer experience while protecting (and improving) profitability.