Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/462841
M a r c h 2 0 1 5 / S C T 41 here was always much more to being a mall manager than just keeping the stores leased and the concourse polished up. but european managers are saying now that mall management has grown tougher. "the job has become much more challenging over the last 10 years because the competition is rising," said robert heinemann, senior director of center management for hamburg, germany–based ece. "it's much more complex than in the past." T elite mall managers LaNDLOrDS arE SParING NOThING TO rEcrUIT aND TraIN TOP caNDIDaTES TO MaNaGE ThEIr rETaIL PrOPErTIES By Bennett Voyles heinemann should know: ece, which manages nearly 200 shopping centers across 16 coun- tries, has a reputation for producing some of the best-trained mall managers in europe by means of its three-year training program. observers point to several trends that have made life much more interesting for mall manag- ers, among them the rise of e-commerce and the growth of social media — the latter meaning that customer criticism is never more than a few keyboard strokes away. there are other, less obvious, reasons too. government regulators have more to say about how commercial properties are run today than they once did. in particular, managers have to keep a closer eye on environmental regulations now — there are more rules to follow, and mistakes can be quite expensive to remedi- ate, heinemann says. investors are more demanding as well. "today we have many investors who want to know very, very exactly what is going on in their shopping centers," said heinemann, who is responsible for 120 stores in ece's core european markets. one way ece is meeting these challenges is by hiring managers with a more rounded edu- cation. "twenty years ago we hired people from the retail business, and many of them had no academic skills, but today we have many managers from the universities — many have retail ex- perience, but also an academic degree," heinemann said. beyond those diplomas, the company continues to invest in its training program: the ece shopping centre academy, a substantial commitment that heinemann says sets the company back by some six figures for each of the 15 apprentices who complete the course every year. the program, which includes internships