Singapore's largest retailer uses Nakisa's lease management software for seamless data flow from Real Estate to Finance to SAP, enhancing operational efficiency and ensuring twice-as-fast month-end closing.

NTUC FairPrice Co-operative Ltd is Singapore's largest retailer and a cooperative of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC). The company operates over 500 outlets, including supermarkets, convenience stores, pharmacies, and food services. Dedicated to moderating the cost of living in Singapore, NTUC FairPrice serves shoppers since 1973.  

For this case study, we interviewed Lyn Kok, Project and Change Management Lead at NTUC FairPrice. With 26 years of experience, Lyn Kok works in the Finance Shared Service Center under the Transformation Office. Her role involves planning and developing project ideas to transform and automate manual processes. 

We come from Singapore - a different area, different culture, and different ways of doing operations. Despite all that, Nakisa works perfectly for us without customization. The system adjusts to our needs, and Nakisa’s team has been very understanding and open.

Lyn Kok

Project Lead @ NTUC FairPrice

Challenges before Nakisa: recurring audit points and lack of operational efficiency

Since opening its first shop in 1973, NTUC FairPrice has grown significantly, resulting in more premises to manage. Before adopting Nakisa’s lease management solution, the company faced several challenges due to the lack of a standardized system. Here are those challenges: 

• Relying on basic tools (Excel + email) required extensive manual intervention. Before Nakisa, NTUC FairPrice used Excel sheets for lease management—one managed by Real Estate and another by Finance—which required manual reconciliation and often led to communication challenges. Interaction between the finance and real estate departments occurred primarily through emails or phone calls, resulting in inefficiencies and the potential for information to be overlooked.  

• Data inconsistency led to missed critical dates and audit points. The absence of a unified system and advanced software resulted in inaccurate data and missed critical dates, causing further compliance issues. Due to this, NTUC FairPrice even got repetitive major audit points.

• Time-consuming and high-effort operations hindered team efficiency. The lease accounting team spent a significant amount of time gathering, validating, and calculating data. A single error due to a missed email or call from the real estate team required recalculating the entire document, resulting in longer month-end and year-end closing times. 

The need for a more robust system to improve data accuracy, avoid audit points, and ensure work efficiency became evident. That’s why NTUC FairPrice began searching for a reliable SaaS provider of retail lease management software. 

To find the perfect software match and build the new system for FairPrice, a project team led by Lyn Kok was assembled. With key stakeholders from Finance, Real Estate, and Compliance, the team outlined all requirements for the lease management software and evaluated multiple vendors. After reviewing potential solutions and attending numerous demos, the team selected Nakisa. Let’s hear from Lyn why this choice was made: 

As Lyn mentioned, here is what sets Nakisa apart from other vendors: 

• Highly configurable solution: Most lease management software lacks the flexibility to meet the specific requirements of different countries or regions, providing only a standardized operational flow. As NTUC FairPrice is based in Asia, it operates in a different operational context and prefers handling leases in a manner different from companies in other countries. While basic features such as lease compliance, lease creation, and renewals were necessary, there were many specific requirements for how the software needed to function to align with NTUC workflows and operations. For example, differentiating between retail stores and outlets was crucial for NTUC FairPrice, and not many vendors offered this capability without costly customization. Besides essential lease management functionality, Nakisa stood out by allowing NTUC FairPrice to configure the system to reflect its operations and context accurately.  

• Thorough preparation and expertise. Lyn noted that Nakisa’s team always came to demos well-prepared and included relevant consultants. For instance, Zeina Dabbagh from the Solution Engineering team offered valuable insights into Nakisa's SAP integration, which was crucial for understanding the integration process, and provided essential information for the SAP project team member from NTUC FairPrice. 

• Open mindset and client care. Lyn highlighted that the Nakisa team was consistently attentive to their pain points, both before and after the implementation. Nakisa demonstrated a commitment to resolving issues by offering immediate workarounds and planning for long-term strategic enhancements. 

In order for us to have this long-term relationship, there must be trust. Both parties must have an open mindset. We are looking for a partner who understands our needs.
Nakisa’s team and our CSM Luis Ruivo not only know the Nakisa software but also understand our system. They are always there to help and provide us with the expertise.

Lyn Kok

Project Lead @ NTUC FairPrice

The solution: end-to-end lease management and seamless data flow from Real Estate to Finance to SAP

With Nakisa software, NTUC FairPrice has built streamlined lease management processes from end to end, covering both real estate lease administration and lease accounting. The process begins with the real estate team, who negotiate with landlords and create or renew leases. They input all lease information into Nakisa, establishing it as the single source of truth. This information is then automatically transferred to the finance department for review and validation. Once validated, the data is posted internally in Nakisa and externally to SAP, generating financial statements and disclosure notes.

If any contractual changes occur, the real estate team updates the system and the finance team receives instant notification with the updated information. This smooth collaborative flow wasn’t possible before Nakisa. 

Another important aspect is that NTUC FairPrice has two SAP entities and Nakisa’s retail lease management software perfectly integrates with both, ensuring that they remain up-to-date and synchronized. 

Once we went live and got used to the system, it became very easy to integrate with our two SAPs and do SAP postings. Nakisa is very professional in handling two SAPs at the same time, and it gives us flexibility to change the platform easily.

Lyn Kok

Project Lead @ NTUC FairPrice

The results achieved: elimination of recurring audit points and faster month-end closing

By implementing Nakisa, NTUC FairPrice significantly enhanced its lease management processes, allowing both the company and end users to better meet their goals.  

Here are the key benefits highlighted by Lyn Kok: 

• Elimination of recurring audit points and reduction in audit observations: For the fiscal year, the major recurring audit points present before Nakisa were finally resolved. This was positively acknowledged by the CFO during the external audit sign-off.  

• Accurate data thanks to automated data management: Nakisa's automation significantly reduced human errors and data inconsistencies by minimizing manual intervention, leading to more accurate and reliable data management. 

• Faster month-end closing: With accurate data, NTUC FairPrice significantly reduced the number of manual mistakes causing work duplication and recalculation. Before Nakisa, month-end closing took NTUC FairPrice 7-8 working days. With Nakisa, the process is twice as fast, saving the company 50% of man-hours in month-end closing. NTUC FairPrice now also benefits from a faster year-end audit.

• Increased efficiency for end users: End users can now focus on more value-added tasks instead of spending time chasing the real estate team for information. This shift has led to greater productivity and efficiency across the board.

I can see that end users do more value-added jobs now. They don’t need to chase the real estate team for lease information or perform manual data entry. Instead, they validate data and close efficiently. For example, month-end closing is now twice as fast with Nakisa, saving 50% of man-hours.

Lyn Kok

Project Lead @ NTUC FairPrice

Future horizons for NTUC FairPrice and Nakisa partnership

NTUC FairPrice and Nakisa have come a long way together, valuing the open-minded approach from both sides. During our interview, Lyn Kok expressed her appreciation for the strategic meetings held every six months. These meetings help facilitate alignment on future projects and exploration of new functionalities, such as AI lease abstraction and energy management, which could add further value to NTUC FairPrice. Both organizations look forward to continuing and expanding this successful partnership.

Looking for lease management software for large enterprises?

Nakisa’s lease management software is tailored to the complex needs of global enterprises, offering support for multiple languages and compliance with IFRS 16, ASC 842, and local GAAP standards. 
Our software delivers unparalleled scalability and configurability through its innovative cloud-native architecture, leveraging the latest technology stacks. We provide our clients with seamless bidirectional integration to multiple ERPs of various natures (SAP ECC, SAP S4/HANA, Oracle), ensuring data accuracy and integrity.  

Nakisa’s comprehensive solution optimizes and automates lease administration for diverse assets, including real estate, vehicles, equipment, and machinery. Learn more about our lease management software or get a free demo with our experts to discuss your specific needs today!