Shopping Mall Management 2023:The Power of Digital Facility Management

Published by    Dr Daniele Gambero on   June 23, 2023

The Evolution from Traditional to Digitalized Mall Management

In the fast-paced world of retail, shopping malls have always been at the forefront of providing a diverse and immersive experience for customers. Over the years, the management of shopping malls has evolved significantly, with traditional methods gradually giving way to digitalized solutions.

One such transformative tool that has revolutionized the way malls are managed is the facility management digital platform. In this article, we will explore the numerous benefits of adopting a digital facility management platform for shopping malls, and how it enhances the overall customer experience while easing the work of the mall management team. Watch this webinar recording, recently uploaded in ServeDeck's YouTube channel, for a deeper understanding of the traditional-to-digitalised transitional journey of shopping mall management and the highlight of all the benefits linked to it.

Streamlined Operations and Efficient Maintenance

One of the great benefits of implementing a digital facility management solution is the ability to streamline operations and enhance maintenance efficiency. In the traditional approach, managing a shopping mall involved massive paperwork, plenty of manual processes, and inefficient communication channels often mono-directional.

With the adoption of a digital platform, mall managers can easily centralize their operations, automate routine tasks, and gain real-time visibility into various aspects of facility management directly from their desks through an omni-comprehensive dashboard.

By digitalising maintenance processes such as work orders, task assignments, and asset tracking, shopping mall management can significantly reduce response times and enhance the overall efficiency of maintenance operations.

The right digital solution provides automated notifications for preventive maintenance tasks, ensuring that potential issues are addressed before they become major problems. This proactive approach minimizes downtime, improves facility performance, and enhances the overall shopping experience for customers. Finally, enhancing efficiency will result in considerable cost reduction.

Enhanced Cost Management and Resource Optimization

The right digital facility management platform enables shopping mall management to effectively monitor and control costs while optimizing resources. By having a centralized platform that integrates data on maintenance schedules, energy consumption, and resource allocation, mall operators can identify areas of potential cost savings and make data-driven decisions.

Good CMMS solutions provide energy benchmarking capabilities enabling shopping mall operators to compare energy performance across different facilities, locations, or periods. Benchmarking helps identify areas of improvement and plan realistic energy efficiency goals.

Well-developed CMMS will allow shopping mall managers to define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) related to energy consumption and track progress towards their achievement.

Real-time monitoring of resource usage enables the identification of inefficiencies, leading to better resource allocation and cost optimization. Furthermore, the platform's analytics capabilities can generate comprehensive reports and performance indicators, providing valuable data for strategic decision-making and cost management.

Collaboration between all stakeholders with sharing of documents, schedules, and task assignments reduces response times, and enhances overall productivity, ensuring a well-coordinated effort in providing a unique customer experience.

Proactive Engagement with Tenants and Contractors

With the adoption of a digital facility management platform integrated with a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS), shopping malls can achieve streamlined and cohesive engagement with tenants and contractors, leading to improved operational efficiency and tenant satisfaction.

Through this platform, tenants can easily submit maintenance requests, submit application forms (such as work permits, fit-out, extension of operation house, etc.), report issues, and track the status of their requests in real-time. The CMMS component of the platform automatically generates work orders, assigns tasks to contractors, and tracks the progress of each job. Mall Management can easily schedule tenant premise’s inspection and compliance submission, or issue violation record to the tenant in case of non-compliance with the mall’s house rules. Checking the validity of contractor’s permit also becomes an easy task as the work permit application is integrated with the mall’s visitor management system.

This streamlined process ensures that tenant applications, requests and concerns are addressed promptly, minimizing any disruptions to their businesses, and enhancing their overall satisfaction.

Additionally, a digitalised facility management solution goes beyond the above benefits. It provides a comprehensive view of the mall's maintenance history, enabling proactive planning and scheduling of preventive maintenance tasks. Mall management can analyze trends and patterns to identify recurring issues, optimize maintenance schedules, and allocate resources more effectively.

Moreover, the platform's reporting and analytics capabilities provide valuable insights into maintenance performance, contractor performance, and overall facility operations. Mall management can track key performance indicators, such as response time, resolution time, and cost analysis, to drive continuous improvement and make data-driven decisions.

Through the adoption of the right digital solution, shopping mall management can enhance operational efficiency, improve tenant satisfaction, and create an exciting experience within a well-maintained environment for visitors, shoppers, and businesses alike.

The Next Level of Customer Experience

In today’s digitally driven society, everything is about making the customers, visitors, tenants, vendors “experience” an unforgettable one. A digitally enabled facility management platform plays a crucial role in enhancing the overall customer experience within a shopping mall. By efficiently managing maintenance operations, the platform ensures that facilities are well-maintained, clean, and functional, creating a pleasant environment for shoppers.

Improved Communication and Collaboration

Efficient communication and collaboration are key factor to successful shopping mall management. A digital facility management solution, including a total productive maintenance app serves as a centralized hub, connecting all stakeholders involved in mall operations such as property managers, maintenance staff, tenants, vendors and even visitors. By providing seamless communication channels, reporting issues, track progress, exchange information in real-time and rate the quality of services becomes an easy daily routine.

Prompt resolution of maintenance issues, thanks to the platform's automated notifications and streamlined processes, minimizes inconvenience for customers and boosts their satisfaction.

Additionally, a well-developed digital solution's ability to analyse data on customer footfall, purchasing patterns, and preferences enables mall management to tailor the shopping experience to individual needs. By leveraging this data, personalized promotions, offers, and services can be provided, resulting in improved customer engagement and loyalty.

Tenants will appreciate it and the mall will keep on getting rental enquiries making occupancy an issue of the past.

A Digital Transformation Future for Mall Management Excellence

Digital facility management solutions (CMMS) have emerged as game-changer in the management of shopping malls. By streamlining operations, enhancing maintenance efficiency, optimizing costs, and improving communication, this digital solution empowers shopping mall management teams to provide exceptional customer experiences.

As the retail landscape continues to evolve, embracing digital transformation becomes imperative for shopping malls to remain competitive. By adopting a robust facility management digital platform, which includes a total productive maintenance app mall operators will not only optimize their operations but also, manage their budget and cash flow towards higher profitability, elevate the overall shopping experience, ensuring continued success in the dynamic world of retail.

ServeDeck has been for years a leading provider of fully integrated digital solutions for shopping mall management and our clients are the best referral of our success. Major Malaysian malls that have been adopting ServeDeck have been achieving all the main points pictured in this article and, from a collaborative relationship point of view, are contributing with strategic inputs to its continuous improvement!

Step into the digital transformation journey of mall operations with ServeDeck, you will not walk alone!

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The opinions expressed in this article are solely of the author, Dr Daniele Gambero.

Dr Gambero has been an expatriate to Malaysia from Italy, since 1998 and has more than 35 years of real estate experience. He is the co-founder and group CEO of REI Group of Companies, the Co-founder of Propenomy.com and the president of the Malaysia Proptech Association.

In the past 10 years Daniele, as international and TEDX speaker, has engaged several hundreds thousand people talking about Property, Economy, Propenomy, Digital Marketing and Motivation. He is also a bestselling author and columnist on several magazines and main stream media. You can reach him directly through his LinkedIn page here.

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