Commercial Construction & Renovation helps our subscribers design, build and maintain better commercial facilities by delivering content to meet the information needs of today's high-level executives.
Issue link: https://ccr-mag.epubxp.com/i/190248
Looking up "We're already looking to 2014 and planning out what stores will open when. …We're getting site surveys ordered, getting designs done and getting bids from general contractors and architects." – Jacqui Lee, Cassidy Turley industry. But that's my biggest challenge and focus. Just learning how to cross that line. Susan Foster-Goodman, Parex USA: I think the theme remains with time management. It's about helping my team and prioritizing the demands that we have. We are moving to a new electronic system because we have more than 2,000 active projects today, which we are managing through all of your cycles. You need certain things during certain phases of the design process, and then as you get down the pipeline you might have to change everything. We're trying to manage all that data while the company over the last 10 years has grown by merger and acquisition. We have six brands in different niches of specialty building materials, so trying to manage that information and make sure we're providing effective integrated solutions for the builds along the way. We want to keep the teams in sync. We pride ourselves on having so much to offer that we really can be fexible and adaptable. Debby Kasmir, Total Wine & More: We will have 103 stores at the end of this year. Last year our big project was implementing software to manage all of our facilities repairs, scheduled maintenance – things like that. I have a very lean staff. I have one person with two and a half years of experience that manages all of my facilities work and someone right out of college who works for him. Over the past year, I took over supplies procurement, so I'm the one who supplies toilet paper, paper towels [etc.]. I have revamped that to implement 56 a fairly robust procurement program with a large supplier and we're starting to see some cost savings there. At the same time, we have a refresh program that I'm just finishing up with 10 to 11 stores. We also have a corporate relocation program, which will double the size of our offices. I'm working with architects and engineers that will be relocating to our data center. There are a whole host of challenges, coupled with the day-to-day retail. I teach. We spend money on education for our people. We want to make that investment because we don't want them to leave. Melanee Jech, Icon Identity Solutions: One of the challenges we think about is staying in front of the technology. There has been a big challenge with rebates and the LED technology. We want to make sure we're offering the ROIs because rebates change every single day. An energy company can offer a rebate that starts at midnight tonight and by 12:31 the $15 million they had in rebates are already accounted for. It goes really fast, so you have to stay in front of it. The other thing is visibility. We brand spaces, and often times, the branding is the last thing before merchandising, and so time gets crunched a little bit. We kind of laugh about that fact that you can't push a wet noodle; you have to pull it. They talk about the glass being half full, but when you're looking at it from a half empty perspective, you have to fgure out what to do to fx it. CommerCial ConstruCtion & renovation — September : OctOber 2013