I’m sure we all recall the classic scene in the movie Jerry Maguire where the sports agent, Jerry (Tom Cruise) is on the phone with his client, football star Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.). Jerry is asking Rod what he can do for him as he’s negotiating a new contract and Rod has one request – SHOW ME THE MONEY!
The message is simple and the manner in which it’s presented is so powerful that this iconic expression has become a part of our social and professional cultural fabric.
“Show me the money”, of course, makes us think of energy management systems (EMS) for small commercial facilities. Reductions in energy spending, paybacks in months (not years), and equipment/asset management all mean one thing – improving the bottom line by increasing profits. Sure, energy management is a cornerstone of sustainability efforts for any organization. And environmental efforts are much more than just a nice marketing label on a company’s website. But the fact of the matter is that in most cases, monitoring, controlling and analyzing energy and water consumption is all about the money. And that’s OK because with an enterprise EMS, you can have your cake and eat it too: as you’re seeing the money, you’re also driving sustainability and being good corporate citizens at the same time.
So how does this work and how do finance, operations and facility managers see the money? A robust, full-featured EMS built for small commercial facilities can monitor and control major cost areas such as HVAC, refrigeration, equipment and lighting. The EMS can also provide a cloud-based platform for real-time benchmarking and analytics. Add to that the ability to proactively manage these assets and troubleshoot potential problems before they happen through a preventive maintenance strategy. All in, you now have a system that reduces energy consumption by 10-15{9e9e99e0aa33304967f3b3f95b41a9c8b857afbbbf6b3eae28bf86859e197ae9} on average, providing an ROI as quick as one year or less. And that doesn’t even include the reduced R&M costs through preventive maintenance.
Said another way, imagine a casual dining restaurant chain with 400 locations that can experience, on average, $1,000 per month per store reduction in spend. That’s $9.6 million saved over 2 years. Now that’s showing some real money!
Other small commercial facilities besides quick serve and casual dining restaurant chains can benefit as well. Convenience store and retail chains have many of the same requirements for energy and asset management. This is also true for telecom and other multi-facility entities as well. The common thread is all about monitoring and controlling critical equipment, benchmarking facility performance by comparing facilities and tracking energy use to ultimately reduce operational costs.
Like Jerry Maguire, finance, operation and facility managers can now stand up and shout, “Show me the money!” when it comes to energy and asset management in their small commercial facilities.