A large international retailer was experiencing a continuous increase in maintenance costs as its store network expanded. The assumption was straightforward: more stores meant more equipment, more service requirements, additional maintenance manpower and higher inventories of spare parts.

The maintenance department was responsible for supporting stores spread across geographies ranging from approximately 500 to 2,000 kilometres. Many of the equipment categories were business-critical—if they failed, store operations could be directly affected. As the network expanded, the department was therefore seeking additional manpower while simultaneously increasing its spare-parts inventory.

CGRBrands began with a detailed diagnostic of the complete maintenance ecosystem. We conducted stakeholder discussions and analysed customer response times, employee deployment, spare-parts inventory, equipment requirements and the cost of servicing different geographical locations.

The analysis identified several opportunities. First, spare-parts inventory was significantly higher than required, with excessive inventory-holding days. Second, alternative sourcing options had never been systematically evaluated. Third, the organisation had not explored establishing a specialised third-party service model capable of supporting approved equipment and spare parts across the country.

We developed a new operating model that differentiated between older and newer equipment. For ageing equipment, critical spare parts were strategically positioned closer to the locations where they were likely to be required. For newer equipment, third-party service partners were evaluated as an alternative.

Rather than automatically increasing headcount with every new store, we recommended maintaining a stable maintenance workforce, strengthening capability through training and increasing productivity. We also compared the economics of internal servicing against third-party servicing at a national scale. While third-party servicing could initially appear more expensive per intervention, a nationwide service arrangement created sufficient scale for a specialist partner to establish infrastructure and operate economically.

The result was a maintenance model that supported continued store expansion without proportionately increasing manpower and inventory costs, delivering estimated savings of approximately SAR 3–3.5 million.

Key insight: Business growth does not always require proportional growth in support costs—provided the operating model is redesigned before capacity is simply added.

A large international retailer was experiencing a continuous increase in maintenance costs as its store network expanded. The assumption was straightforward: more stores meant more equipment, more service requirements, additional maintenance manpower and higher inventories of spare parts.

The analysis identified several opportunities. First, spare-parts inventory was significantly higher than required, with excessive inventory-holding days. Second, alternative sourcing options had never been systematically evaluated. Third, the organisation had not explored establishing a specialised third-party service model capable of supporting approved equipment and spare parts across the country.