Issue link: https://resources.tangoanalytics.com/i/1465853
SMARTER STRATEGIES. FASTER EXECUTION. I www.tangoanalytics.com I PAGE .6 Store Lifecycle Management Solutions to manage the store lifecycle have always been fragmented, and over the past two decades we have seen the evolution and extinction of several Store Lifecycle Manage- ment ("SLM") vendors. Many retailers have a combination of point solutions, home grown applications and adhoc databases to manage the process from market planning to site selection, to construction, and lease and facilities management. In the early to mid 2000s, there was a wave of new solutions claiming to solve the point solution problem in retail. It's ironic that SLM solutions that claimed to have been devel- oped to replace disparate point solutions such as lease administration, project management and facilities manage- ment, have themselves failed to evolve beyond point solutions. While SLM brings together all the key areas of store develop- ment execution, the singular focus on execution limits the ability to support a holistic real estate and store develop- ment strategy. Part of the problem is their tunnel-vision focus on transac- tion processing, such as rent payments. The other issue is their lack of understanding of the strategic aspects of retail real estate. All their innovation has been focused on releasing newer versions of their products for back-office processes such as rent accounting, with little to no focus on collabora- tive field deployed strategy and execution processes. This is clearly demonstrated by the sheer number of versions that each of these vendors have released for their lease software, while delivering almost nothing in the areas of strategy, market planning and site selection. Part of the problem is that SLM has become commoditized. Innovation is incremental – measured in inches rather than miles. Almost all of the available solutions have nearly identical features and functionality, and end up competing around the edges to score points, but completely missing the overall strategic picture. The existing vendors really fall into two camps – cloud-based solutions and enterprise on-premise solutions. Cloud based solutions are easy to implement and use, and generally – but not always – less expensive to get up and running. But, they lack the depth of functionality and the rigor to meet the unique requirements of real estate and store development operations. Additionally they are handicapped by the fact that not having any strategic capabilities for retailers means users have to operate in disconnected environments - cloud environments for some execution and on desktops for strategy and analysis. STRATEGIC STORE LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT