In the fast-paced world of modern retail, success is measured in seconds. Every single day, a massive trade network processes thousands of products, coordinates logistical fleets, and handles an endless stream of internal requests. For the Bulgarian family-owned company Fantastico, founded in 1991, growth is a constant. Today, with 47 supermarkets, the Joy Station music club, MegaXtreme bowling alleys, and the SkyCity Mall shopping center, the brand is synonymous with quality and a modern vision.
Behind the sparkle of well-stocked shelves and innovative retail locations lies a complex administrative and operational engine. When hundreds of daily requests regarding maintenance, IT support, logistics, and marketing must flow between stores and headquarters, traditional communication channels fail to keep pace.
Quote
"Digitalization is a daily topic in our company—it is the way for us to be better and more efficient."
To resolve this, Fantastico embraced a comprehensive Enterprise Service Management strategy, utilizing ITIL best practices to transform how internal services are delivered. By building a single, centralized service portal, the company broke down traditional departmental silos and established a standardized way of working across the entire organization.
This unified approach ensures that all requests—whether technical, logistical, or administrative—are handled with the same high level of accountability and speed. Ultimately, advancing their service management maturity allowed Fantastico to scale their internal resources efficiently while supporting continuous business growth.
Furthermore, visual documentation has changed the game. Store staff are required to attach photos when submitting certain maintenance issues, and the technical teams attach a final photo upon resolution. This provides an indisputable, transparent "before and after" record of every single job.
Highlight Cards
The Challenge: Managing the Velocity of Retail Operations
Prior to the implementation, managing internal requests across Fantastico's vast ecosystem relied heavily on scattered communication: emails, phone calls, and manual tracking. For a business with over 400 core system users across dozens of locations, this lack of centralization posed clear operational risks:
Visibility Deficit
It was highly challenging to track the exact real-time workload of technical and administrative teams or pinpoint why certain requests were delayed.
Fragmented Processes
Different departments—from Maintenance and IT to Transport, Warehouse, and Marketing—operated in silos, using localized methods to address store requests.
Operational Strain
Maintenance alone faced a mountain of parallel tasks, making resource allocation and preventive planning incredibly complex to manage dynamically.
Highlight Cards
The Requirements: Mapping the Vision for Change
Before evaluating market alternatives or considering building an in-house system, the Fantastico project team clearly defined what their ideal platform needed to achieve to support their high-volume retail environment:
Intelligent, Location-Based Automation
The system had to automatically route tickets to specific regional or technical teams based entirely on the store location and the issue category selected.
Intuitive and Structured Input
Request forms needed to be fast and simple for store staff to fill out, utilizing dynamic fields that automatically populate user data while capturing critical details (such as mandatory photo attachments for maintenance tasks).
Robust Vendor Management &
Multi-Level SLA Tracking
The platform had to maintain a dynamic registry of external partners, automatically dispatch email notifications to them, and enforce distinct Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with automatic escalation rules for overdues.
Enterprise-Grade Security &
Seamless Access
It required seamless integration with corporate directory structures to handle hundreds of remote users securely, supporting strict identity policies such as two-factor authentication (2FA).
Choosing the Partners: Global Standard, Local Expertise
To satisfy these rigorous requirements, Fantastico selected Jira Service Management—a world-leading ticketing and enterprise service management platform—leveraging ITIL best practices. To secure user access across hundreds of remote endpoints and ensure strict security compliance, they incorporated Atlassian Guard, seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Active Directory.
The decisive factor for a successful deployment was choosing Nemetschek Bulgaria as the implementation partner. As a highly trusted Atlassian Gold Solution Partner, Nemetschek Bulgaria brought deep business analysis capabilities, top-tier technical expertise, and a deeply collaborative approach to the table.
Simple Card
The Transformation: A Unified Service Portal in Under 6 Months
The collaboration between Fantastico and Nemetschek Bulgaria was a strategic partnership in action. The Fantastico team provided meticulous documentation of their existing workflows, categories, and user roles (L1/L2/L3 support). Nemetschek Bulgaria’s experts then took these requirements and seamlessly translated them into optimized digital processes based on industry best practices.
The result was the Fantastico Unified Service Portal, a single entry point where store employees can easily log requests. Whether it is a refrigeration failure, an IT issue, a marketing request, or a warehouse delivery inquiry, the portal dynamically guides the user through intuitive, pre-defined fields.
The deployment was remarkably swift. From contract signing to the official "Go-Live" phase, the entire core system was fully operational in under 6 months.
Highlight Cards
The Impact on Operations and Maintenance
The impact on the Ground Operations and Maintenance team was immediate and transformative.
The maintenance division utilizes 10 dedicated mobile technical teams (consisting of two specialists each). Jira Service Management automatically routes incoming tickets to the exact team responsible for that specific store and issue category—whether it involves kitchen equipment, infrastructure, fire alarms, or cooling systems.
Furthermore, visual documentation has changed the game. Store staff are required to attach photos when submitting certain maintenance issues, and the technical teams attach a final photo upon resolution. This provides an indisputable, transparent "before and after" record of every single job.
"Jira Service Management allows us to effectively prioritize tasks and manage the large volume of maintenance requests across our locations. Following the implementation, the real workload of each team became clearly visible. This allowed us to identify imbalances and redistribute store assignments in a fairer, more efficient way."
Highlight Cards
The Results: 30,000 Tickets and Data-Driven Insights
After the first full year of utilizing Jira Service Management, the metrics highlight a massive leap in organizational agility:
Over 30,000 tickets
successfully processed within the first 12 months alone, with the highest volume handled by the Maintenance and Operations directorate.
100% automated routing and escalation workflows
established, drastically cutting response times and eliminating manual intervention between departments.
Dynamic SLA enforcement
integrated into vendor management, automatically alerting external contractors and internal managers before contractual deadlines are breached.
Looking to the Future
For Fantastico, this digital evolution is just the beginning. Encouraged by the rapid ROI and high internal adoption, the company is already working with Nemetschek Bulgaria to onboard new business processes into Jira Service Management. Future expansions include "Observations" (a structured digital form for auditing and evaluating overall store conditions) and a streamlined portal for handling customer appliance warranty claims.
"This was a properly structured and executed project delivered on time, within scope, and on budget," concludes Krasimir Alexandrov with a smile. "For me as a Project Manager, it was an absolute pleasure to participate in this implementation alongside Nemetschek Bulgaria. It is a project that delivered rapid added value almost immediately after going live."
