How Charlotte Russe Slashed Costs And Streamlined Operations Across The Company

• More than $1.5 million saved in supply/equipment replacement costs through streamlined procurement process
• 60 hours eliminated weekly through automated invoice processing and EDI integration
• 54 percent reduction in full work order resolution time

Company Overview

Charlotte Russe is a clothing retail chain store in the United States, headquartered in San Diego. Fashions in the stores are targeted at women in their teens and twenties. The company owns and operates 560 stores in many malls/shopping centers across 45 states.

Challenges

Under new leadership, the Charlotte Russe facilities management team initiated a project to identify ways to further expand the usage of the ServiceChannel platform the company had deployed years ago. Previous to this project, the company had been using ServiceChannel primarily as a work order management platform. Some specific operational challenges it wanted to address through this project included:

• Limited visibility and transparency of its operations due to lack of focus on analytics and reporting.
• Slower than expected vendor response times for work orders including deferring the most difficult issues.
• Little to no awareness of the value of ServiceChannel among other departments and stakeholders across the organization.

Goals

Expanding ServiceChannel usage enabled the Charlotte Russe FM team a new way to examine its department goals and provided the means to apply out-of-the-box thinking and innovations to how the team functioned. Specific goals included:

• Use ServiceChannel throughout the company to its full potential by onboarding other departments, e.g., Accounts Payable and Procurement.
• Enforce consistent operations across all of its stores by ensuring all users - including its contractors — were using the platform at every location.
• Implement an FM analytics and reporting process, a company first.
• Hold vendors more accountable through a formal, data-driven performance management program.

Solutions

The project also made it easier for the Charlotte Russe FM team to implement a variety of new capabilities by using additional tools and modules available in the ServiceChannel Service Automation portfolio. These included:

• Daily use of Analytics Standard to capture and track all essential data such as spending by KPI (by work order type, by trade, by store, etc.).
• Updating Contractor Scorecards on a quarterly basis for formal performance reviews with vendors.
• Automating the tracking of contractor compliance and documentation (e.g., certificates of insurance) through Compliance Manager.
• Providing store managers with Location Dashboards to give them an easy way to track work order progress and measure their performance by KPI.
• Formalizing request for proposal (RFP) process through Proposal Manager for all work orders that exceed NTE pricing.
• Streamlining work order management for routine work (e.g. window and floor cleaning) as well as required inspections through Planned Maintenance Manager.
• Enabling District Managers with enterprise mobility through the Mobile App to keep track of work order status at all stores.
• Expanding ServiceChannel usage to other departments for enhanced inter-department collaboration and communications:

• Simplifying equipment replacement order process — e.g., light bulbs — according to well-defined policies (e.g., not to exceed pricing) using Supply Manager.
• Opening new IT tickets as work orders that are routed to the IT Help Desk.
• Simplifying invoicing and payment process for Accounts Payable through a combination of Invoice Manager and electronic data interchange (EDI) integration of ServiceChannel with a Lawson accounting system.
• Mitigating corporate risk by providing Internal Audit and Legal departments with full access to Service Automation to investigate problems, potential issues.

Benefits

Charlotte Russe achieved a number of operational breakthroughs through its expanded use of ServiceChannel across the company such as:

• Comprehensive and consolidated view of operational data for all key stakeholders in one place, which has improved transparency and communications. For example, the Legal department used location notes as evidence to defend the company in lawsuits.

• Single, unified platform to initiate and manage corporate-wide service requests for improved accountability, performance and to mitigate risk.
• Cost savings across multiple departments, e.g. enabling better staffing efficiency by eliminating manual invoice and payment processing.

“ServiceChannel has made our operations more automated, which helps us in so many ways. At first, I think we were using 5 percent of what ServiceChannel was capable of. Today, we’re operating at 90 percent of its full potential with room to do even more.” — Shannon Markwell, Facilities Manager, Charlotte Russe

Results

Expanding ServiceChannel usage at Charlotte Russe has already yielded significant, quantifiable results for the FM and other departments such as:

• Saving more than $1.5 million in a single item, replacement light bulb costs, by enforcing Procurement policies through ServiceChannel.
• Eliminating more than 60 hours per week of invoice and payment processing work to expedite vendor payments.
• Reducing full work order resolution time by 54 percent in terms of average days over an 18-month period, after the company “turned on” ServiceChannel Analytics.

“I don’t understand how people can manage their facilities without a system such as ServiceChannel, especially when you’re responsible for an environment of more than 500 stores across the country. With ServiceChannel, there’s no opportunity to miss anything. Everything is always just there.” — Shannon Markwell, Facilities Manager, Charlotte Russe