Sainsbury’s Property Division, UK: Saving costs using digital estate management

Sainsbury’s manages an extensive and diverse portfolio of over 3000 assets including Sainsbury’s supermarkets and convenience stores, Argos, Habitat, petrol stations, offices, depots and residential units. The Property Division uses information to manage, maintain and develop a large and fast changing portfolio of buildings, land and infrastructure.

Property activities include daily operations and maintenance, projects and programmes to bring efficiencies, improve or build new stores and contributions to wider corporate strategy. To meet changing retail needs, Sainsbury’s moved away from primarily new build capital projects to smaller frequent interventions in stores. This put pressure on existing systems and processes. Over time, information had become difficult to keep up to date, had been stored in multiple silos or managed by different individuals and third parties. In parallel, information management needed to respond to significant business changes including the acquisition of Argos and Habitat in 2016.