Four Shopping Centres, One Platform: How a Retail FM Transformed from Inbox Overload to Live FM Clarity

Key Metrics

• 4 Shopping Centres

• 20+ Contractors  

• Weeks To Go-Live

• 1 Centralised System

Key Outcomes

• Email-based FM eliminated entirely: Work orders that were once submitted, triaged, actioned, and closed through a sprawling email chain are now managed end-to-end within a single, centralised platform.

• Single point of failure removed: The entire team can now view all active jobs, assigned contractors, and current statuses - meaning operations no longer hinge on one person being available and across their inbox.

• Hours recovered for higher-value work: Automation and centralised job management have given the Operations Manager significant time back each week, shifting focus from manual administration to proactive, strategic property management.

• Contractor management streamlined across 20 suppliers: With all 20 contractors active in FMI Works, work is dispatched directly from the system - eliminating the need to manually validate accreditations and insurances on every engagement.

• Portfolio-wide visibility achieved in real time: What's happening across all four sites - and with which contractor - is now visible at a glance, from anywhere, at any time, removing the opacity that once came with managing works through email.

About the Customer

Our customer is a family-run Australian property investment and development group managing a portfolio of four retail shopping centres across Melbourne, alongside a number of commercial property assets. Their centres are home to dozens of leading retailers and see thousands of shoppers through their doors every day - making reliable, well-coordinated facilities management a non-negotiable part of keeping the business running smoothly.

Following the acquisition of a fourth shopping centre in 2021, the group made the decision to professionalise their FM operations across the entire portfolio and selected FMI Works as the platform to make that possible.

The Challenge

When the group acquired a fourth shopping centre, they brought on an experienced Operations Manager to oversee FM across the full portfolio - a step up from managing one centre to four, plus commercial assets. It quickly became apparent that the existing approach to managing work orders simply wouldn't scale. Everything ran through email: requests came in via email, were triaged via email, sent to contractors via email, and followed up - you guessed it - via email. Contractor accreditations and insurance documents had to be manually validated every single time work was sent out.

Beyond the inefficiency, there was a more fundamental risk embedded in the process: it all depended on one person. If the Operations Manager was sick or on leave, work stalled. There was no shared visibility, no easy handover, and no safety net. Keeping on top of both reactive and preventative maintenance simultaneously was a constant struggle - and when a major project came up, routine day-to-day works inevitably fell behind. The group needed a system that could match the complexity of their portfolio and eliminate the fragility of their existing processes.

The Solution

Within weeks of signing on, the group was live with FMI Works. The rapid go-live was made possible by a structured onboarding plan and hands-on support from FMI's customer success team, who guided the team through setup, data preparation, and configuration. The process was smooth enough that within just a few months of using the system, the initial operational challenges that had prompted the search for a new platform had already become a thing of the past.

All 20 contractors were brought into the platform, giving the group a single place to dispatch work, track progress, and manage contractor compliance - with accreditation and insurance details stored in the system rather than chased through email each time. The Operations Manager had everything they needed to manage four sites from one screen, with automated reminders replacing the manual calendar tracking that had previously kept the workload afloat.

"I've got no complaints - if there wasn't a fix straight away, there was always a workaround, and the FMI team has been fantastic."
- Operations Manager

The Impact

Time back, focus forward

The shift away from email-based management has had an immediate and tangible impact on how the Operations Manager spends their day. What once required sitting down and manually sorting through inboxes to identify jobs, contact contractors, and track progress now happens in a single system - with work dispatched directly, statuses visible at a glance, and automated reminders handling the scheduling that used to require constant manual attention. That recovered time has created real capacity: major projects can now be planned and progressed without sacrificing routine maintenance, and the team can think ahead rather than simply react.

"Before using the system I would have to sit down and go through a heap of emails to pull out different jobs and then go off and speak to the contractors. Now, everything is in one place, and I can send work out straight from the system."
- Operations Manager

Visibility that protects the business

Perhaps the most significant operational improvement has been the elimination of the single point of failure that previously put the whole portfolio at risk. With every active job, contractor, and status now visible to the full team in real time - across all four sites, from any location - the business is no longer exposed when someone is unavailable. Handovers are straightforward, continuity is built in, and the group has a level of portfolio-wide oversight that simply wasn't possible when operations lived in one person's inbox.

"Having everything in one place - reminders and when things are due - saves me from having to set manual calendar reminders or go through my calendar to work out when things need to happen."
- Operations Manager