Kickstarting the second day of ISCF 2014 was international expert, Christian Olofsson, President, Megabangna and Regional Business Head, Ikano Pte. Ltd. (IKEA’s franchisee in South East Asia), with a masterclass on “The Role of the Centre Management Team–What do Tenants Expect of you as a Landlord and How to Turn Visitors into Returning Guests.”
Christian started with putting great emphasis on the value proposition on asset management–an approach that uses all of a shopping centre strengths, both tangible and intangible, in order to achieve the landlords stated objectives.
Speaking about what makes successful shopping centres, he said: “A successful shopping centre is positioned correctly to provide maximum shopping convenience to its target customers and maximum exposure to tenants for driving their sales.” He added that what tenants want is a structured environment that drives retail. For operators the number one customer is the tenant and visitors is the tool that drives the tenants to the shopping centre.
To the centre management team, he said that their main objective must be to increase the value of the shopping centre, which is driven by successful teamwork.
Moving on to tenant relations, Christian said that what tenants want is high awareness amongst the general public, successful marketing campaigns that drive spending, but most importantly healthy occupancy cost ratio–value for what they pay. “A well maintained and functioning centre is another important expectation of the tenants from the shopping centres,” he added. Tenants want and expect trust, approachability, easy feedback mechanism, performance indicators, etc.
Christian, has 17 years of Retail, Project Management and Real Estate experience. He has been in leadership roles with IKEA since 1998 and worked for IKEA across Sweden, Canada, Russia and Thailand. Christian is skilled at securing expansion of IKEA stores and complementing businesses (shopping centres and other mixed use developments) to strengthen the IKEA brand in South East Asia.
Megabangna is the second largest shopping centre in the portfolio of ‘Shopping Centres Anchored by IKEA” (60 centres in 19 countries). Ikano Pvt. Ltd. is a franchisee of Inter Ikea Systems B.V., currently owning and operating two IKEA stores in Singapore, one IKEA store in Kuala Lumpur and one IKEA store in Thailand.
For a detailed coverage and intensive interactions with our key speakers, watch out for the next issue of Shopping Centre News.
