Mall Management In India

I haven't written in some time, though I have been working on mall Management Modules for a couple of B Schools. Simultaneously, I have also been thinking about Franchising vis a vis Joint ventures as against FDI entry in retail in India. More on that later. For now, what we have all been noticing is that malls are moving quickly from selling most of their space to leasing all of their space to retailers. And they are increasingly also Zoning the malls in great detail in order to ensure space productivity.

Largely, mall management which has been sketchy as a function so far in India(and has been confused with facility management) is now beginning to be looked at as as a revenue generating function rather than as a support function. That itself give sit the importance it deserves. However, to make it a revenue generator, mall management has to be looked at from the following 2 key elements as strategic initiatives:

• Mall Positioning
  
• Zoning

Positioning to mean that the product categories and prices included are aligned with a particular profile or segment basis demographics, psychographics etc.

Zoning would stand for dividing the mall space into various categories of stores and therefore deriving the tenant mix.

While infrastructure management, which would include managing all kinds of mall facilities like security and housekeeping would be a support function. As an outsider, one could be able to evaluate this just by looking at a mall and evaluating whether or not it has a clear positioning and zoning. Like they say, retail is no rocket science!!