FMJ Facilities Management magazine providing industry-specific intelligence to FM and property professionals
THE COMMERCIAL PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT EXPERT’S VIEW
ROBERT GOODMAN,
RETAIL OPERATIONS DIRECTOR, LANDSEC
Towards the end of last year, we announced that we were elevating our retail operating model to help us better deliver our customer-centric, experience-focused, retail strategy.
Under the new model we work directly with specialist facilities management partners across hard and soft services, as well as landscaping, while a newly created in-house property services team has overall responsibility for our operations and supplier management.
We took this approach because we believe that operations are fundamental to the success of our places. Getting this right means that we can deliver maximum value for our brand partners, while going above and beyond expectations for the millions of guests who visit our destinations across the UK. It also allows us to take a long-term, strategic view of operations which in turn has unlocked more opportunities for us to work with our partners to deliver our business strategy and support our customers.
Data and insights underpin our strategy – allowing us to track performance and deliver maximum value for our brand partners. And, less than a year since we implemented the changes, we’re seeing results. With a central team leading a more unified approach to providing the best guest experience, we’re capitalising on the opportunity to further boost the performance of our retail portfolio.
Our teams are better placed to execute key initiatives and deliver against business objectives.
This approach has also brought our teams closer together and allowed us to tailor recruitment to each of our places, creating local jobs so that our destinations better reflect the communities in which we operate.
The security of our places is always our highest priority and our approach to FM enables us to build on our existing robust and flexible process. Working closely with our partners, local and national police and security services is integral to ensure our places remain the welcoming places they’ve always been.
The changes to our retail operations were modelled on our workplace portfolio where a central team has worked with specialist partners to provide best-in-class experiences across our London offices for years. In a competitive market where the quality of space, diverse amenities and stand-out day-to-day experiences are increasingly driving leasing decisions for office customers, seamless operations are more crucial than ever.
