The People who make Shopping Malls Rock

Evelyn Loo

By Evelyn Lo

 

The shopping  mall industry in Malaysia is sizeable and growing. In fact, some of our prominent malls  are ranked among the top 10 largest malls in the world – 1 Utama, Sunway Pyramid and Mid Valley.

Everyone knows what shopping in the country is about; as many as one in five people residing in the Klang Valley are at a mall on weekends, especially during the school holidays.

Shopping is known as “retail therapy” but apart  from enjoying  chic designer clothes, an enticing variety of food and popular entertainment outlets, have you ever wondered what makes  shopping malls tick?

Malls have evolved from being merely central  locations at which to purchase merchandise or seek services  and  do weekend errands to being essential to community life.

When malls are in mixed develop- ments as is usual nowadays, they function as a gathering place for a multitude of activities.  They are not  only for retail therapy but also for F&B, entertainment and socialising, services and amenities, one-stop payment, art  and  culture, workouts and relaxation, visiting theme parks and more.

Suitable atmosphere

Malls  may  have  become luxurious, essential places to visit but the onus is on shopping mall managers and  their teams  to make everything  work at the right time in the right place. This happens back-of-house, away from shoppers look- ing for discounts and indulging  in cosy rendezvous at fashionable cafes.

The mall’s team  is involved  in the three major aspects of mall management: Marketing and leasing, operations and maintenance, and administration.

Marketing and leasing personnel are usually  frontliners, meeting shoppers and business owners or operators; they are essential to creating  “experiential shopping”. This means apart from being a place at which to buy, the mall offers a suitable  atmosphere for shoppers to touch,  see, hear and experience goods and  services,  to  contribute to  their well-being and the inclination to linger, if not shop.

The ambience involves well-thought- out,  sophisticated decor  for  festive seasons with  exciting  events  for the family. Mall personnel are under pres- sure to create  something new, unique and identified with a particular mall.

Promotions and discounts must be coordinated among  merchants; this requires detailed preparation.

The marketing department usually includes personnel involved in events, promotions, public  relations, design,advertising and concierge services, which are all closely related.

Any mall management team must be aware of its location – whether it is in the city centre or suburban – and aim astutely for its market,  whether for shoppers of luxury goods, working people,  families or simply being the neighbourhood mall.

With this in mind, leasing personnel interact with potential business opera- tors and retailers,  and are important to achieving  the  right merchandise and tenant mix for the mall’s target market.

Operations and maintenance person- nel, though not frontliners, are a crucial part of the mall’s team.  They keep the indispensable mall air-conditioning at optimally cool temperatures, see to lifts and escalators and ensure lighting and other  equipment are in good running condition.

Other  key  operations personnel take  care  of housekeeping tasks  like waste disposal, washroom cleaning and maintenance, landscaping, car parks anda host of other facilities.

A vital component of the operations team focuses on mall security and safety, which  includes security  patrols,  fire safety and traffic management.

Administrative personnel are no less important as they are key to ensuring ten- ancy and billing documents are in order. They also collect rental and other dues on a timely basis so financial processes will be optimal.

They are essential to human resource functions, seeing  to the well-being  of employees as well as managing any litigation as and when applicable.

Each department head  reports to a central manager or general manager who sets mall direction with the agreement of the mall owner.

There is no education programme through which to learn about managing shopping malls in Malaysia, though our first shopping complex  opened in the1970s and  managing one  was largely on-the-job training for many years.

Those  who come  from this school of hard knocks are hugely experienced and form a core group of mall managers which set up an association to handle common issues.

The association’s role has evolved and,  since  2002, now offers biannual training  courses  for mall employees to boost industry performance.

As living examples are the best way of information-sharing and learning, these sessions  are  conducted by hands-on practitioners.

Experienced personnel

With the growing property market, more and  more  malls are being  developed, particularly in the last five years, with more under construction.

There   is   therefore  a   l ack   of experienced personnel to join mall man- agement teams, so the industry needs all hands on deck to make the malls rock. With so many  malls, competition will be intense, so working in a mall will be stimulating.

Anyone  interested in  joining  the mall industry  should  remember it is an exciting and rewarding career – it gives job satisfaction and  fulfilment  like no other because malls allow us to connect with the desires of thousands of people, every day.

This is why we have been passionate about malls for the past 40 years.


Evelyn Lo is Executive Director of the Malaysian Association for Shopping (PPKM) and Highrise Complex Management