Consumer expectations around how, where, and when they shop are evolving. To keep pace, retailers increasingly need to rethink the experiences they provide to both their customers and their employees. In fact, according to one Salesforce survey, 84% of consumers say the experience a business provides is as important as the products it offers. And despite the rise of ecommerce during the pandemic, physical locations are still important to many retailers’ bottom lines. This means that retailers must ensure they’re still providing positive in-store and workplace experiences to consumers and employees in order to manage their brand image, attract and reengage customers, and retain talent. Plus, creating positive brand experiences in your stores can boost online engagement and sales. Nuvolo Connected Workplace is a modern IWMS and CMMS solution that helps you respond to these trends. The following article walks through the six key areas Nuvolo supports when you’re rethinking your in-store experience. Let’s start with facilities repairs and maintenance. 1. Repairs and Maintenance If you’ve ever been to a store and given up on your purchase because the registers were down, equipment wasn’t operational, or it was uncomfortable (e.g., it was too hot or dimly lit), you know how important it is to have an effective facilities management system in place. The Nuvolo Maintenance solution helps you digitize, manage, and measure your facilities and maintenance processes in several ways. You can track all assets (such as lighting, refrigerators, cash registers, HVAC and plumbing systems, or revenue-generating equipment) right from within Nuvolo — from purchase to maintenance, sunsetting, disposal, and beyond. This gives you better insight into the performance of your assets. Plus, you can use the cloud-based platform to manage work requests and automate routine tasks. By automating these processes, store managers don’t have to focus on the small details. They can instead focus on the customers. When everything is managed from a single platform, you can fix equipment more efficiently and forecast upcoming repairs and preventive maintenance needs – ultimately increasing revenue as your customers spend more time in your stores. 2. Vendor Management Large retail organizations often outsource store operation services to hundreds of local and regional vendors. Because of this, it is often difficult to track their performance. However, if your contractors are breaching SLAs, and if your assets (such as in-store ordering systems or smoothie and coffee machines) aren’t functioning, that can impact sales and damage your brand. Connected Workplace streamlines the way you manage your vendors. Whether it is caretaker services, supply contractors, or asset technicians, all vendors use the same platform as your other employees. They become trusted partners, and because they can update work orders, inventory information, and asset history from a laptop or on their mobile device, the data is up-to-date and accurate. Plus, because all vendor data and work orders are part of the same service management platform, you get insight into the performance of all your contractors alongside other critical business data. You can make more informed, data-driven decisions about your vendors in the future. 3. Space and Reservations Most large retailers require multiple corporate office spaces for their administration, research, customer service, and other functions. Well-managed offices help ensure employees can do their best work. In fact, according to the Harvard Business Review, a positive organizational environment has a direct effect on employers, employees, and the bottom line. The Nuvolo Space solution helps you improve your employees’ workplace experience by making it easier to redesign office layouts to create welcoming spaces. You can use features such as drag-and-drop functionality, floorplan visualization, and direct integration with AutoCAD to rethink your spaces. In addition, with the reservation capabilities in the Space solution, you can more easily accommodate flexible and hybrid working schedules. Employees can book the desks, rooms, and equipment they might need, so they’re able to work more efficiently when they’re in the office and not remote. 4. Real Estate Portfolio Management Retailers are increasingly seeking out more flexible lease arrangements to ensure they remain adaptable to changing business requirements (such as moving, expanding, or consolidating locations). However, this also introduces several problems: the shorter the lease, the more regular documentation for renewals and contracts you need. With the Nuvolo Real Estate solution, you can generate alerts using advanced scheduling and automated assignment rules, so you’ll never forget a payment or a critical due date. You can easily keep track of all the details of your complex lease contracts like expenses, lease adjustments, monthly rent, and insurance, while also staying compliant with IFRS16 / FASB Lease Accounting Standards. 5. Capital Improvements and Project Management When you need to make wide-reaching changes across multiple locations, you can use Nuvolo Projects. This includes initiatives such as constructing new buildings—and even re-branding projects where you need to roll out new signage, logos, and redesigned stores across all locations quickly and on-budget. The Projects solution connects to your business operations data, meaning that data is consistent between team members, departments, functions, and business units. This enables you to make more strategic decisions and ensure you’re keeping critical projects on track and on time. 6. Sustainability According to a recent Honeywell survey of business executives, 93% of respondents saw sustainability as a lasting priority for their organization, and 87% viewed it as an investment rather than an expense. Sustainability is also good for your brand: Consumers are increasingly prioritizing shopping at organizations that have sustainability initiatives in place. With Nuvolo, you can track energy data associated with your portfolio, including the energy usage of your stores. You could even evaluate changes (such as trialing doors on fridges) to see their impact. You can also set thresholds for alerts and look at spikes in usage, helping manage energy costs across multiple locations. Connecting People, Places, and Processes Connected Workplace supports your facilities and real estate teams’ digital transformation, so you can focus on elevating your brand and creating excellent employee and customer experiences. Nuvolo is the only complete CMMS and IWMS solution built on ServiceNow™. By connecting all of your business data in one place, you can not only improve operations, customer experience, and employee satisfaction, but the insights you gain can also be used to inform your organization’s real estate strategy. Interested in learning more? Explore how companies like Chevron, Vertex, and other retailers modernized their maintenance and asset management processes. Share
