Trimble announced today the British Heart Foundation (BHF) has selected Trimble’s Manhattan™ Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) to streamline their real estate management of 738 shops and stores across the U.K.

With the BHF committed to supporting the lives of the 7.4 million people in the U.K. living with heart disease, profits from the charity’s retail outlets already account for around a third of the total funds raised by the BHF each year. The resulting cost savings from optimizing its real estate performance with Manhattan will enable BHF’s retail outlets to further contribute to life-saving research.

“After a thorough evaluation, we chose the Trimble Manhattan system to help us to streamline our processes and reduce our property management costs. Manhattan will provide instant access to accurate and up-to-date information about all aspects of our store portfolio. It will even give us a single view so we can manage our properties as efficiently as possible on many different levels,” said Mike Taylor, commercial director at the BHF. “With such a large store portfolio, it’s vital that we keep innovating in order to help raise even more funds for vital heart research.”

Manhattan is a modular, enterprise software solution for planning, managing and optimizing an organization’s real estate portfolio. It is designed for the entire facility lifecycle to streamline processes, improve control, maximize resource utilization and help reduce total costs—from initial planning and negotiations to managing live leases, IASB/FASB compliance, processing maintenance and analyzing performance.

The BHF plans to introduce Manhattan’s advanced functionality and automated process capabilities in phases with implementation initially focused on lease, transaction, maintenance management and reporting.

The software will also allow a more systematic approach to lease management and provide real-time reporting, based on centralized property data and lease information. Manhattan’s broad functionality is expected to be able to cover most, if not all property management requirements going forward. The system’s modular design allows for a flexible approach to changes; modules can be added in phases.

“We are proud that the BHF has chosen Manhattan to support its property management team,” said Chris Cronin, business area director, Trimble’s Real Estate and Workplace Solutions (REWS). “Manhattan has the capability to simplify management processes, boost efficiency, improve strategic decision-making and ultimately, enable the charity’s retail activities to make an even greater contribution to the funding of life-saving medical research.”

Accruent, the world’s leading provider of intelligent solutions for the built environment, has announced that U.S. retailer rue21 has chosen Lucernex Lease Administration and Accounting to manage compliance with the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) new lease accounting standard. FASB Standard ASC 842, passed in 2016, requires corporations and other entities to classify all leases and report operating leases and finance leases lasting more than twelve months on their balance sheets. U.S. private companies must comply with FASB 842 in their first fiscal year beginning after December 15, 2019, unless a recently approved delay is enacted.

According to a 2019 Deloitte survey, 70% of private companies reported that they did not expect to fully adopt the new lease accounting standards by the original deadline. Due to the significance and complexity of the changes, FASB has approved a one-year extension of the deadline for private company lease accounting compliance changes at the request of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). For companies such as rue21, delaying compliance efforts were not an option.

rue21 is a privately held retailer specializing in young women’s and men’s apparel and accessories that is headquartered in Warrendale, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1970, rue21 has nearly 700 stores located in 45 states. rue21 has 700 real estate leases and operates more than 1,500 assets on equipment leases. Because of its large portfolio, rue21 realized that they would be faced with initial lease accounting compliance efforts and the task of ongoing compliance.

When it evaluated potential lease accounting solutions, rue21 had the most confidence that the Lucernex team could meet its needs and deliver the most accurate solution. Their confidence was based on the accounting team’s trust in the Lucernex accounting system and the experience of other Lucernex and Accruent customers that indicated a high level of satisfaction with the solution and the services delivered to support the solution.

“We have a high level of trust in Accruent’s expertise and their ability to deliver the software and services that we need,” said Jim Signoriello, Director of Real Estate Finance, rue21. “For a company with hundreds of locations like rue21, lease accounting compliance is a significant project. Accruent gives us the confidence that our systems will be set up properly and allow us to manage compliance going forward.”

Accruent’s Lucernex Lease Administration and Accounting solution helps hundreds of companies track their leasing obligations to assure compliance with FASB, IASB and GASB requirements, as well as make informed business decisions to maximize the return on lease investments. Lucernex is trusted for real estate and equipment lease management and accounting by many of the most recognizable retail brands in the world.

“Lease accounting compliance is a large undertaking, especially for private companies that have many leases managed by different groups across the organization,” noted Robert Abdul, Vice President of Retail, Accruent. “For a company like rue21, this means working fast to deliver styles that aren’t available elsewhere. Providing them a platform to manage compliance saves them time and resources that allow them to focus on their customers and their mission.”

Midwest retail leader Meijer joined forces with Moovila, a leading software vendor in autonomous work and project management, to successfully implement a major cross-company initiative and human resources (HR)-based technology initiative.

Adopted in Meijer’s early stages of the enterprise-wide Workday Implementation project, Moovila’s award-winning project management platform delivered improved accountability, process consistency, risk mitigation and better resource allocation – all contributing to an on-time, on-budget rollout of the new technology.

The project encompassed every department within Meijer and involved employees, external consultants and vendors. The retailer selected Moovila, named as one of CIOReview’s 2018 10 Most Promising Collaboration Solution Providers, for its breakthrough technology and three-pronged approach to collaboration in work and project management:

• Connectivity – connecting all key stakeholders in a secure environment
• Accountability – clarifying who is responsible for what, and by when
• Predictability – forecasting the probability of on-time completion, and continuously tracking, managing and mitigating project risks

Based on the premise that each collaborative project has its own “critical path” – the sequence of dependent tasks that defines the shortest time for project completion – Moovila’s proprietary Critical Path Engine provides an in-depth analysis of these functions and predicts areas that could potentially derail a project. In essence, Moovila creates a collaborative environment where risks are identified and headed off before they cause delays, individuals understand and commit to their roles, and project status is available at a glance.

“I’m excited that Meijer has realized the benefits of our ground-breaking technology,” added Mike Psenka, President and CEO of Moovila. “Collaboration today requires more than simple communication. It requires tackling the tough critical-path, capacity and accountability challenges that our platform simplifies. We look forward to our continued partnership with Meijer as they embark on their own digital transformation around work management. We see Moovila’s autonomous work and project management platform playing a key role in that evolution.”

Qubit, the leading marketing personalization technology provider, today announced Qubit Start for Peaks. The solution provides retail brands with an expedited on-ramp to build and deliver personalization experiences in order to fully leverage peak holiday shopping periods, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Qubit Start for Peaks includes social proof, urgency messaging and product recommendations that are proven to drive an average of 6% more revenue per customer. In addition, the solution is offered as a four-month package that includes technology integration services to speed the implementation cycle to a couple of weeks and decreases the resource impact on brands. Key features include:

• Gift signposting: Dynamically change the gift badging on your product listing page without the need for IT
• Product personalization: Personalize product content based on whether shoppers are gifting and inspire them to find more relevant items
• Adding urgency: Let visitors know when items are low in stock or at-risk of not being available by Christmas

Urgency messaging is a highly effective personalization tactic that benefits customers by being totally transparent about when products are in-stock and delivery times, driving urgency and boosting conversion rates. Manor AG, one of Europe’s largest department store chains, saw a 9% uplift in revenue per visitor (RPV) through the use of this tactic.

“The holiday season can make, or break, the year for many retailers,” said Leah Anathan, CMO, Qubit. “Qubit Start for Peaks brings together proven personalization tactics to enable retail brands to take full advantage of the season. These strategies combined with a fast implementation period means every retail brand can personalize to millions of expectant customers.”