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If you’ve ever wandered through a Best Buy, you’ve probably noticed the sheer number and variety of products on sale. You can find anything — home appliances, computers, televisions, accessories — under a single roof, not to mention display stations where you can try out the latest smartphone before taking it home. This is all stuff you know. But do you know how difficult it is to maintain a space such as this? There’s the front of the store, the storage areas, floors, windows, ceilings, lights, all of which need to be maintained.
Like many large retailers, Best Buy relies on local contractors for its facilities maintenance needs. But managing that work across thousands of locations is a challenge, so Best Buy outsources it to SMS Assist, a Chicago-based company that uses cloud and mobile technology to track and manage facilities maintenance.
SMS Assist’s technology has proven so powerful that the company just announced a $45 million investment from Pritzker Group Venture Capital. This brings that firm’s total investment to a whopping $62 million, Pritzker’s largest investment to date.
“The backing of Pritzker Group means SMS Assist has the growth capital it needs to always provide the highest quality of service to our customers, no matter how much business we add,” says Michael Rothman, SMS Assist’s CEO. “Our customers and potential customers see that we have the financial strength to hire and expand operations, so they feel confident that SMS will maintain its high standard of service during this period of exponential growth.”
SMS Assist fuels its platforms with a network of 28,000 local affiliated providers who perform the services the technology manages. With that many boots on the ground, it’s able to support 50,000 facilities across the country. But it’s not just the provider team that’s growing — SMS Assist corporate is swelling as well.
“SMS is fueled by smart, tech-savvy workers and we are actively recruiting people from the tech community who are motivated to help build a business,” Rothman says. “We’ve hired more than 50 people this year alone and our needs grow every time our business grows.”
A recent deal inked with nationwide retail chain Family Dollar means SMS Assist will be providing its services to the company’s 7,800 locations for the next five years. By taking the burden of facilities management off the company’s back, Family Dollar Senior Vice President-Store Operations Colin McGinnis says SMS Assist will help drive down costs and allow employees to direct their attention to customers instead of maintenance tasks.
Family Dollar and Best Buy aren’t the only national companies who count themselves among SMS Assist’s customers. Office Depot, commercial real estate services company CRBE, Diamond Resorts International, Jones Lang LaSalle and other Fortune 500 companies are also on the list.
So the next time you peruse Best Buy, consider how much time and money it must take to keep a store like that running cleanly. If you were in charge, wouldn’t you be calling SMS Assist, too?
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