Facilities Management News

When facilities leaders report their budgets, the focus often lands on hourly labor rates or total annual repair spend. Yet these line items tell only part of the story. The real costs of facilities are buried deeper, in overlooked inefficiencies, hidden invoice padding, energy waste, and poor asset lifecycle management. Understanding the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for facilities is now essential for multi-site operators in convenience, grocery, restaurant, and retail.

In the last five years, facility directors across convenience, grocery, and retail have been navigating the most challenging cost environment in decades. Operating expenses are rising faster than top-line growth, labor markets are constrained, and customer expectations are only increasing. While new technology and automation promise relief, the reality is clear: without data-driven facilities strategies, brands will continue to see profits eroded by hidden costs, slow repairs, and poor asset lifecycle management.

Facility leaders managing multi-site operations face a critical choice: continue relying on local providers or transition to a national partner. This guide is designed as a decision-making tool, helping you weigh both models and identify the contract strategy that delivers the greatest efficiency, visibility, and long-term value.

by Nathan Breier

by Kelsey Bliss

Every business wants to adopt and sustain a proactive maintenance agenda. Getting ahead of potential problems typically translates to a longer life for equipment, decreased maintenance costs and a lower risk of downtime. Those are all worthy objectives for any facility. Making the shift from reactive to proactive maintenance involves a complete transformation. 

Understanding the maintenance cost structure of a single facility can be a challenge. Stakeholders first need to uncover where their spend is going and measure the effectiveness of their facilities management program. Organizations with nationwide facilities face a more daunting challenge, as getting visibility into spend per location may be difficult to achieve.

Facilities produce huge amounts of data every day, but it’s not always properly captured or utilized. Organizations with the right plan to track facilities and equipment data can leverage it to better monitor and manage performance while preventing issues from arising.