A few years ago, news reports about malls were full of doomsday predictions: most are facing losses many are shutting down, those that survive are being repurposed for other uses, and online shopping will make malls obsolete. Today, the naysayers have been proven wrong. Malls of a certain size, which offer every single conceivable retail option and entertainment facility under one roof are witnessing tremendous footfall and booming sales.
Spread across a million square feet and with over 200 brands and 50+ food options, Viviana Mall in Thane is India’s largest mall. In a freeranging conversation, CEO Manoj Agarwal gave Mrigank Warrier the lowdown on why some malls work and some don’t, what makes a mall tick with customers, how good housekeeping can change customer experience, how such huge structures are cleaned and maintained, and what’s next in the story for malls and facility management. Excerpts:
Malls arrived in India with Y2K, and soon became a culture. From just three across India in the first year, hundreds sprouted up across the country, many set up by investors who had not studied the field or managed to anticipate future trends. Predictably, several malls shut down; some were even converted to hospitals!
The few malls that continued to struggle were impacted by the 2008 global recession, and downed shutters. Those that remained were malls which had been systematically envisioned, carefully designed and constructed to cater to a well-heeled demographic that wants a plethora of retail options. Small-time players have burned their hands and are staying away; all new malls are backed by serious investors with deep pockets, who are willing to spend and build mega-malls that are a one-stop destination for shopping, dining and entertainment, all under one roof.
A report by Edelweiss Securities Ltd forecasts that India’s organized retail sector is set to catapult to $166 billion (sector revenue) by FY25 from $55 billion in FY16. Favourable indicators like improving consumer sentiments, rising disposable incomes, urbanization and lower penetration of organized retail—are expected to fuel this boom.
The government too has framed policies that encourage the growth of this segment. Relaxing FDI norms in the retail sector over the past few years has reduced entry barriers into the Indian retail scene, motivating overseas retailers to expand exuberantly. This – combined with late mall closing times – has attracted interest from various Private Equity funds; this trend is expected to continue.
Such conducive conditions have led to the mushrooming of malls in recent times; an estimated 34 new malls will come up by 2020, totalling 13.6 million sq ft. ANAROCK Consulting Services has calculated that on a pan-India basis, India’s retail space is set to grow to 120 million square feet over the next three years from 100 million square feet now in the Grade A mall space, which will be spread across 250 malls. Of this total new supply, the top 7 cities have grabbed 72% share; Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad and Bangalore together will account for nearly 34 million sqft.
But the remaining 28% or 18.2 million sqft is slated to come up in tier 2 and 3 cities, which have managed to attract about 58% of the total retail investment of 2019, with Jaipur, Lucknow, Kochi, Bhubaneshwar and Nagpur taking centre-stage. Investors are gradually moving towards ‘development assets’ in remote locations, and they are looking to sow the seed for retail, wherever there is none.
Out of this total expected supply, nearly two-thirds or 40 million sqft will hit the market by 2020-end itself. These new malls will require a multitude of cleaning machines, chemicals and facility management solutions, and — considering their vast areas — vast numbers or amounts of the same.
What makes a mall successful?
Setting up a shopping mall involves assessing location, design, retail-mix, marketing, operations and more – this is both an art and science. Those who have got that mix right have not had to look back, like Viviana. Malls which are not able to focus are bound to face issues. Most malls which you hear about in the media domain all have a good image, good functioning, good sales and good revenue.
The most successful feature of a mall is location and catchment. Whoever has got this right in terms of positioning, access points or analysis of competition, or taken steps to satisfy through various offerings (retail and otherwise) are seeing a good footfall. It’s not enough to just open a mall in the right area.
Will online kill physical shopping?
Online and brick-and-mortar spaces have gotten well defined.
A lot of customers want to get the touch and feel of a product. Generic things can be ordered off the Internet, but if you want to see how a fabric falls on you, or how it fits, or how the screen of a phone looks or how it takes a photo, or what’s the voice quality of a device, and how it compares physically with other models; all this can happen only when you have a number of items of the same category in front of you. The same goes for footwear. You can buy a flip-flop from anywhere, but if you want something that is molded to the shape of your foot, you still need to visit a showroom, because sizes differ from brand to brand. This becomes very complicated if it has to be done online. I believe the online model is good, but not for when you have specific, personal needs.
When online players started, they offered a ‘showroom at home’, where you could order any number of things, keep what you liked and return the rest. Over time, they found out that this is not economically viable, which is why malls are here to stay. Online stores and malls will find their own niches.
Malls as a destination
With more and more retail brands coming into India, and a lot more focus on Food and Beverage options in malls, some malls have even doubled the area they have allocated to food courts and restaurants. While a single retail brand may have a presence in more than one mall in the same region, the F&B options are a major differentiated between malls.
Entertainment options are also increasingly being given focus. Today, malls have large multiplexes with different types of screens and premium seating and large Family Entertainment Centers. FECs are now evolving to be specific to particular age-groups. All this ultimately creates different experiences for customers, and experience is king as far as we are concerned.
Spoilt for choice
If you have neighborhood centers, they are focused only on the exact catchment they are targeting. They may not be a one stop shop, but they have enough options to cater to their clientele. But major malls, by definition, need to offer everything under one roof. Larger centers like Viviana and R-City in Mumbai, Ambiance in Delhi, Lulu in Kochi, or some of the Phoenix malls, occupy an area of approximately a million square feet with 7-8 lakh square feet trading area. With such an expanse, each is bound to be home all categories of retail.
Retailers with presence in malls number between 300-350; if a mall has 250 stores, it will have 60-70% of the brands available across the country under one roof.
Role of housekeeping
A neat, clean and well maintained mall – including washrooms, customer areas and common areas – is given today. It may not be talked about, but it is expected in any good mall. If this is absent, it leaves an awkward taste in the mouth of the customer. It is critical that all washrooms remain dry, all equipment is working and without loud sounds, there are no cracks in the tiles, and HVAC ducts are clean.
What does a mall consist of? An atrium or a number of atria, corridors at various levels, a food court, washrooms, outside areas, parking and basic staff facilities at the back end. All these areas offer challenges in monitoring and supervision, but if the staff is well-trained, things go smoothly.
We work with manpower that is outsourced from agencies which have experience in cleaning malls for the last 15-odd years, so they are well tuned to our requirements.
We work with manpower that is outsourced from agencies which have experience in cleaning malls for the last 15-odd years, so they are well tuned to our requirements.
Division of labour
From a mall’s perspective, 70-80% of its area is leased out to retailers, who maintain their own areas themselves. The mall management is left with 200,000 square feet along with parking and other outside areas, which is still a huge expanse to maintain.
At Viviana, we do support our retailers. We ensure clean store fronts that are not patchy or smudgy, and we assist them as and when required, because ultimately, it is the customer experience that counts.
Mechanised vs manual cleaning
We rely on a huge amount of automated equipment which assists the staff in their work, including ride-on scooters, wet and dry vacuum cleaners, pushalong devices, box sweepers, floor polishing machines, cobweb removal machines, and steamcleaners for washrooms, which allow us to effectively cover the vast area of a mall.
However, wherever there is a specific focus area like an atrium or an entry point or washrooms, which see particularly high traffic and which we know are prone to soiling, there we have more of manual cleaning, with areas being swabbed and mopped constantly. But the general cleaning which goes on around the clock is mostly with machines, all day, with or without customers. Then we have our own night and off-hours cleaning schedules when we do deep cleaning, where we use a single-disc scrubbing machine, or a heavy duty wet and dry vacuum cleaner, or steam cleaners in washrooms, or box sweepers in the parking lot. The major cleaning is done mechanically – particularly during operating hours, to cover more areas in a limited amount of time – but obviously by people who man the machines.
Staff size
A good-sized mall will have between 100 to 140 people on the cleaning team, depending upon the configuration of staff. Each set of washrooms includes one each for men, women and the disabled, and a mother-and-baby room. One attendant each, takes care of the men’s and the ladies’ washrooms, share responsibility for the disabled washroom. The ladies washroom attendant takes care of the mother-and-baby room. If you multiply the number of male and female washrooms by two (shifts), you get the total staff dedicated just to cleaning washrooms.
At Viviana, we have six sets of washrooms, which means we have 24 people in the day, dedicated for washroom cleaning, plus deep cleaning at night. If your staff has 120 people, 15-20% is dedicated just to washrooms.
Expenditure on cleaning
In the operations department, which is responsible for ensuring the mall has the right feel and ambiance, a lot of importance is given to the cleaning budget. That’s not an area where we would cut down on the budget. We would make sure that we maintain out budgets as per our requirements. Of course we make sure that we don’t overspend, but even if we have to overspend a bit, we would still do so, because we want the mall to look fresh, happy, fresh smelling, and attractive. Customer areas aren’t seen from a cost angle, they are viewed from an experience angle.
Digital facility management
We have recently digitized some of our processes, so that any problem a customer faces – leakages, blockages – is immediately highlighted and addressed as soon as possible. We have an information desk where we do some surveys, and we have an effective system to monitor online feedback, where we take pride in resolving all matters on the same day, or within 24 hours, unless it is of a nature that will take time.
Digitization is via an app that is with the staff, which is linked to a cloud-based central server, where complaints get distributed according to the issue at hand.
Organic waste management
We are generating 4-5 tonnes of manure every month. We distribute this free to customers, and take pride in the fact that this is made from the mall’s own food waste and wet waste. We also have some real estate projects in the neighborhood where we supply the manure, and have committed to the municipal corporation to supply a certain amount of manure every year. All of this is done free. It is our way of adding value to the community.
Through this, our F&B retailers get an organised system of disposal where they don’t have to fend for themselves, so it is mutually beneficial. In the 15-16 years that malls have been in public life, the retailers also have settled into a certain way of functioning, and we make sure that we provide them with guidance and easy means for disposal, in the form of trolleys and bags. Segregation is done by retailers; if someone is defaulting, we make sure that we take it up during business review meetings. We also train retail staff for this, on a no-charge basis, in the form of workshops, and it has definitely given us results.
Last year, we had the Nirmalya program which we successfully managed during Ganesh Chaturthi, in which we asked societies for their post-Visarjan waste, and converted it to manure, thus keeping the city clean and using the waste in a more productive manure. We plan to make it bigger and better this year.
The solutions I’m looking for
We are trying to see if some routine tasks can be done by robotic mechanisms. We are just getting into exploring it. Right now, those machines are a bit expensive, but we don’t mind experimenting with them to see if we can use the existing manpower for more focussed tasks, rather than spending time on general work, particularly for areas like parking lots which are large and don’t need much focussed cleaning. We are already evaluating vendors and costs.
We are also trying to ensure that after digitising our facility management, can we make it more elaborate, and start using the tools and analysis to drive better standards and efficiency for everyone, so that customers find nothing is left unattended? When you have a million footfalls every month, there are bound to be some amounts of spoilage and spillage. Digitisation will make sure they do not remain unaddressed for a long period. We would like to reduce turnaround time.
We want to use technology to drive customer experience. We want to understand how customers are moving around a mall, what they like, what they do not. When people are sitting at a food court table and have ordered multiple things from multiple outlets, they don’t know if their order is ready or not. We want to use a tech-driven model to change this.
Expectations from the Clean India Show 2020
I am looking forward to the sharing of some industry best practices, and meeting people from the cleaning and housekeeping industries who could give us ideas about what the future will be like in this industry. Apart from networking, I also expect to meet vendors at the Expo who will be talking not only about today, but also about tomorrow.