How Fynd's Cortex platform gave Reliance Retail one system to run every new store from site to opening

Opening a new retail store is not just a single decision - it’s a series of many. Real estate teams find the site, business teams validate it, legal teams clear contracts and several other departments sign off before the store opens its doors. 

For Reliance Retail, this process runs across Grocery, Fashion & Lifestyle, and Consumer Electronics formats, with over 100 store openings each quarter across more than 100 formats and 28 states.

Fynd created the Asset Lifecycle Platform (ALP) to bring this entire process onto one system. This replaced a workflow previously managed through spreadsheets, emails and disconnected tools owned by individual functions.

The challenge: A store expansion pipeline nobody could fully see

The process was manual and scattered across tools

Real estate managed site and lead data, business/NSO handled format strategy and validation, EPC managed construction and fit-out status and Legal oversaw contracts. These separate views didn’t sync automatically, so answering cross-functional questions required manual data gathering from multiple teams.

That made the pipeline invisible

Leadership couldn’t get a clear, real-time picture of the store-opening pipeline without manually compiling reports. Tracking plan versus actual progress against the Annual Operating Plan (AOP) was a reconstruction task rather than a live insight.

Approvals done manually, no visibility on bottlenecks

Routing decisions through approval gates was manual and sequential. Projects could stall at any point unnoticed and delays went unmeasured.

Manual work carried financial risk

Some sites involved over 100 contracting parties and tracking obligations and reconciling invoices by hand made it difficult to catch financial leaks early.

The solution: One system of record for the entire store lifecycle

Fynd developed ALP as a single platform managing the entire lifecycle of a store property from initial site identification through feasibility, lease, design, construction, fit-out and handover.

Best-in-class tools unified on one platform

Instead of building every feature from scratch, ALP integrates specialist tools like Sirion for contract lifecycle management, Autodesk Revit for BIM, and RDash for construction project management, all connected through a shared system of record. This allowed for a faster launch while enabling Reliance-specific workflows where needed.

A live pipeline mapped against the plan

The Real Estate Pipeline module tracks every lead through an 8-stage workflow with defined approval gates, giving Real Estate and Business/NSO teams real-time visibility of each property’s status against the AOP replacing a patchwork of spreadsheets.

Access tailored to how the business works

Role-based access linked to single sign-on ensures users see only what’s relevant to their team, state, and format. Real Estate teams view their state, Business/NSO teams their format category, and EPC and Legal teams only see information pertinent to their process stage.

Design and construction connected to a single source of truth

BIM models via Autodesk Revit feed directly into quantity take-offs and cost estimates, catching layout clashes before construction begins. Construction milestones, budgets and quality sign-offs are tracked through RDash, with progress visible on the same platform Real Estate and Business teams use.

Standardized contracts replacing manual drafting

Lease and vendor agreements now run through a template library, supporting multi-party contracts for complex sites. This reduces the manual drafting and tracking effort previously handled by Legal.

The impact: A faster, more visible way to bring a store to life

Site data processing time cut in half

A BIM pilot on two store sites reduced laser-scanned site data processing from 8 hours to 4, enabling design and engineering teams to move faster.

A pipeline leadership can truly see

312 leads now flow through a single dashboard, showing status, aging and AOP context in real time replacing disconnected spreadsheets.

Standardized contracts at scale

17 templates across 4 contract types were developed and refined through multiple testing rounds, replacing contract drafting that started from scratch for each deal.

A workforce ready to sustain the platform

23 people across store operations, engineering and IT were trained on BIM tools during rollout, building lasting capability within Reliance Retail.

Want to bring one system of record to your store expansion? See what Fynd can do for your business.

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