Are we getting what we should get from the mall

Situation Description:
In this topic “Are we getting what we should get from the mall”, ‘the mall’ refers to the City
Centre Mall Nashik Private Limited (CCMNPL). The title of this topic can be broadly
classified into three parts i.e., ‘we’, ‘get’ and ‘mall’. Here, ‘we’ refers to the stakeholders of
the mall business. Visitors, tenants, investors, administration, maintenance team, owner,
event management firms and local statutory bodies are some key stakeholders of the mall
who are associated directly or indirectly with the business. Each and every stakeholder has an
interest or concern in the mall business which is addressed by the word ‘get’ in the title.
Lastly, the word ‘mall’ tells us that interest or concern of every stakeholder is to be confined
within the mall business. Focusing on the title again, the mall may be visualised in multiple
ways from different angles which means every stakeholder sees the mall from its own
perspective which may vary from one stakeholder to another. As the perspective changes
there is a chance of change in concerns also. Therefore, the topic “Are we getting what we
should get from the mall” can be described in “n” number of ways from “n” number of
stakeholders’ point of view. It is not relevant to describe the mall from every stakeholders’
point of view and address their concerns as well. So, let us consider those stakeholders who
are directly involved in the business, who have direct impact in the mall business and who are
highly correlated with each other. Selecting stakeholders based on correlation would help in
identifying common concerns. Also, it would help to align these stakeholders and their
concerns. The stakeholders satisfying these criteria are owner, tenant and visitors.
Now let us describe the mall from the commercial aspect:
Owner:
Shopping mall follows dual market positioning strategy i.e. shopper market and retail market.
In shopper market, the interaction and transaction happen between retailer and shopper while
in retail market, the interaction and transaction happen between retailer and mall
management. Major portion of the revenue comes from the rent and the maintenance paid by
the tenants. There are three types of rent options available for the tenants in the mall i.e., fix
rent, pure revenue share, and minimum guaranty and revenue sharing. In fix rent type, fix
amount of rent is collected from the tenant. In pure revenue share rent type, percentage of
sale revenue is collected as rent. Minimum guaranty and revenue sharing is a type of rent
where there are two components i.e., fix rent and revenue share on percentage basis. Fees
collected from parking is another revenue generating source. 2 types of parking facilities are
available for the visitors i.e., floor parking and the terrace parking facility. There are many
kinds of operating expenses incurred by the mall. Common area maintenance (CAM),
insurance, fixtures, utilities, safety and security, inventories, marketing budget, professional
services, licenses and tax deposits, etc. are some of the key expenses. In City Centre Centre
Mall, the security system and the concern team play a crucial role in keeping tenants, staffs,
visitor, and the property safe. Every visitor coming to the mall must undergo through a two-
step security check i.e., passing through a metal detector and baggage checking. Other types
of surveillance, safety and security systems available in the mall are video surveillance
system, fire fighting system, and emergency exits.
Tenant:
Now let us see the mall from a tenant’s perspective. Tenants of CCMNPL are part of the only
one of its kind mall in the city. They get a large potential customer pool whom they can offer
their products and services. A tenant avails all the sophisticated modern features of the mall
by paying a certain amount as rent. Marketing and promotional activities are done by the mall
management which eventually helps the tenants to endorse their brand and to grow their
business. Overall safety and security is taken care by the mall management. But the is risk of
theft, damage to the properties or any kind of security breach inside the store premises is to be
handled by the tenants. The mall management also handles the operation and maintenance
department. Some key maintenance tasks associated with mall are related to HVAC,
housekeeping, electricity, firefighting, plumbing, pest control, etc.. For any such issues related
to maintenance, the tenants depend on the mall management.
Visitor:
Visitors come to City Centre Mall to enjoy variety while shopping, for socialisation, for
entertainment, and to avail one-stop shopping convenience which save them time. It also
provides wide variety of dining options for visitors. Unlike online stores, shops in the mall
offer customers the ability to touch and feel the merchandise. There are several entertainment
options available in City Centre Mall such as multiplex, game zone, and various rides for
kids. Apart from these, concert, live stand-up comedy shows, celebration of festivals, and
various promotional activities are being conducted regularly by the mall management to
increase the footfall and to keep the visitors engaged. In rush hours, food court remains
crowed. The number of seating places in the food court is limited. During sales or festive
sessions, the mall footfall remains higher than the average footfall. Usually, visitors come to
the mall with their family and friends. People prefer to visit a public place which is safe and
secure.
The above situation description is being described at a macrolevel from the owner, tenant and
visitors’ point of view by using “getting” as a lens. Further study and analysis are required to
get a clearer picture of the mall. This will help to identify the concerns associated with City
Centre Mall. The purpose behind this approach is to identify and eliminate the root concerns
which would eventually solve the node concerns.
The potential of a mall cannot be restricted to only revenue generating activities. There are
also several non-commercial aspects which can be used as a shopping mall’s potential.
Now let us describe the mall from the non-commercial aspect:
Shopping malls draw vast number of visitor traffic. Each mall visitor follows a specific path
based on their shopping goals and impulse created by the layout of the mall. In a mall,
everything starting from the visitors to the business and the activities are so diversified that a
census of mall can create an index altogether. Followings are some key parameters of the
mall index which is derived from the census data of the mall.
Realtime traffic: Counting number of visitors entering and exiting the mall in real time helps
to derive features like weekend traffic, weekdays traffic, time spent per visitor, pick hours,
etc.
Benchmarking: traffic coming to the mall can be used as a performance metric. Which
would help in benchmarking against similar kind of entities or other public places.
Weather correlation: Can it be discovered if the flow of traffic to the mall is affected by the
weather forecast or is there any correlation between visitor traffic and weather condition? The
findings would give various meaningful insights regarding visitors’ behaviour or pattern with
respect to weather conditions.
Evaluation of the attraction: Attention level within the mall can be calculated by comparing
the visitor traffic floor wise and section wise which would help to identify features like floor
performance, popular sections, pick hours (section-wise/floor-wise), time spent per visitor
(section-wise/floor-wise), etc.
Marketing Effectiveness: marketing effectiveness is measured by analysing pre-
events/campaigns and post-events/campaigns scenarios. For example, if the agenda of a
campaign is to increase the footfall on a particular occasion and there is surge in traffic on the
target period then the campaign is considered as a successful one.
Anchor index: Anchor stores occupy a significant portion of a mall’s total rented area. So,
the movement of visitor traffic, shopping trend, time spent per visitor, department-wise sales
inside anchor stores can be treated as sample to describe overall performance of the mall. As
most of the anchor stores has been leased under revenue sharing model, so we can get a
clearer picture of purchase behaviour of the visitors
.