CAFM & IT
RETAIL REVOLUTION
The transformation of the British high street offers many opportunities for FM, suggests James Lavery, EMEA Global Occupier Solutions Marketing Director at MRI Software.
The British retail landscape is going through unprecedented changes in response to rapidly evolving consumer habits, the growth of new technologies and rising business costs. However, as retailers start reducing their number of physical stores and move more of their business online, there’s a huge opportunity for real-estate investors to take advantage of the growing space available on the high street to help reduce the pressure on housing supply in the UK. This will, in turn, create opportunities and threats for their service providers.
Many real estate investors and landlords are starting to embrace the idea of mixed-use developments with an extremely high percentage housing component, which can help rejuvenate the high streets and give it a new lease of life. The growing impetus is demonstrated by major European organisations, such as Intu and Redevco, announcing moves into the residential sector, often making resi the anchor in a shopping environment.
According to an MRI Survey of professionals across the UK property sector, the majority see the future of the British high street as a place to live, work, play – as well as shop; it is estimated that roughly three-quarters of major retail investors are now looking at diversifying developments to feature residential and leisure space as well as more traditional commercial initiatives.
One major result of this evolution of the high street is that the remit of facilities managers and property operators continues to widen, as tenants of all types expect a customer-first focus. Residents seeing great service from other suppliers in their everyday life now increasingly expect it from those managing and servicing their properties. These high demands can even lead to litigious situations if service demands are not met. So, FM’s need to ask themselves: do they have the capability to tackle these rising expectations?
To successfully implement a consumer-centric model with the right tools to more efficiently manage the increasingly complex property portfolios and tenancies of a reinvigorated high street, service providers will need to evolve their digital strategies and take on a data-driven approach. Moving forward, the ability to use data effectively will be critical for businesses looking to stay agile in a rapidly changing retail landscape. Indeed, fundamental to achieving a customer-
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centric approach is specialist technology that improves efficiencies and puts customer experience at the forefront. This also offers the ambitious facilities manager the ability to reach out into other service lines such as handling amenity bookings and payments.
In addition to offering better and extended services, FMs need to address the safety of these growing numbers of residents. The need to adhere to safety regulations and guidance, most notably around fire needs to be top of mind – but the ability to capture and action the requirements while taking not of the ‘residents voice’ is crucial. That means property and FM teams are going to have to tool up for this with tech.
Furthermore, the diversification of former retail space in town centres is resulting in mixed-use developments delivering different and more varied types of spaces and assets to manage, with more communal, leisure and amenity functions for FM’s to deal with – not to mention the ability to show expertise in managing highly connected and smart buildings. Those that can demonstrate the ability to manage outside the norm will also win.
To effectively service properties in today’s time-poor world – where everyone involved in property and facilities management seems to have a never-ending to-do list and multiple stakeholders to report to – it is increasingly important to automate time-consuming tasks and have the digital tools in place to aid collaboration to ensure information can be shared between various parties quickly and seamlessly. We can see the growing importance of property technology in guiding this transition in the results of the MRI survey, with half of the respondents seeing it as critical to growing their business, boosting productivity and tackling regulatory challenges.
As the high streets evolve into more complex and dynamic communities, in-house FM teams and contractors will need property management tools to boost efficiency and help them control workforces, keep growing residents safe and mitigate risks – while also enabling them to engage with residents, landlords, investors, suppliers and sub- contractors in a more in-depth and consistent way in order to achieve mutual success.
www.mrisoftware.com/
twitter.com/TomorrowsFM
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