Leasing Management & Support

Simplifying Time-consuming Tasks, Streamlining Communication, and Unifying Cross-Departmental Efforts

Marketing Strategies (1): Engaging stakeholders using a "Virtual tour" tool

Rental Matrix (2): Generating quick progress reports

Lease offers (3): Sales enablement "Rent Simulator" tool

Streamlining Processes

The following carousel chart outlines the Leasing process in which I’ve been involved. The underlined items will be the focus of the upcoming paragraphs.

The Challenges

Presenting a project to retailers involves referring to a variety of documents, software and types of data. From marketing materials to strategies to rental figures, it can be difficult to manipulate large files and provide them with answers to their questions on the spot.

The Approach

I created one master file that links to several sections; this allowed me to easily direct the flow of the meeting in the desired direction.

Below is a demo video showing a "virtual tour" tool that I developed to assist stakeholders in selecting the right location for their brands

Marketing Strategies (1): Engaging stakeholders using a "Virtual tour" tool

Rental Matrix (2): Generating quick progress reports

The Challenges

Larger projectsThe Rental Matrix is a critical first step in the leasing process, laying the necessary groundwork for negotiations with retailers. However, it must remain adaptable as talks progress. Initially, manual methods for updating the matrix sufficed for smaller projects. But as project size grew, I saw the need for a more robust, efficient process to manage frequent changes. This methodology also had to be easy enough for my team to learn and apply consistently.Weighing factors Additionally, there are several factors that determine the allocated price of each shop:

The size (e.g. smaller units have a higher price-per-sqft than larger anchors).
The activity (e.g. restaurants are priced higher than apparel retail)
The location within the mall (e.g. shops on the ground floor typically have the highest footfall, which should be reflected in their rental rate)

These factors can raise or lower the base price of a shop, and calculating the ideal rate requires taking all of them into consideration. As a result, I needed to create a flexible method of calculating this ideal rate automatically, with minimal input from the user.

The Approach

After several iterations, I implemented a rigorous methodology and created tutorials and templates for each item in the methodology. My goal was to minimize the manual input.

Using the dynamic objects and room documentation features of AutoCAD Architecture, the shops are assigned a unique name, designating the floor number and the shop increment, which can be displayed using the annotation tools.

Using the property sets feature of the same software, the shop activity (apparel, restaurant, kiosk, jewelry, etc.) is set into the dynamic object (this is the only manual step in this process), resulting in a color-coded plan

A schedule of areas is generated and exported to excel, noting that any subsequent change in the shops can be automatically reflected in the dataValues are copied and pasted into the Rental Matrix Template.

The next step is to place this data into the Rental Matrix template that I’ve created. Each column has an action guide at the top:

The Rental Matrix template is built with a rigorous set of references; using excel formulas and lookup capabilities, all the relevant values are calculated automatically, and require no user input. More importantly, it allows any user to generate pivot tables and charts and easily produce progress reports.

The Result

Some of the pivot tables and charts that can be systematically generated using the matrix:

Lease offers (3): Sales enablement "Rent Simulator" tool

The Challenges

During negotiations between lease management seniors and Retailers, a typical occurrence is the combination of two or more small/ medium units into a larger anchor space. However, the price of this anchor is not equal to the sum of the small ones (as explained in the “weighing factors” section). In that context, members of our team working on site required remote support on the spot to generate these rental values; this was instrumental to “strike while the iron is hot” when it comes to closing deals.

The Approach

Using the same techniques, I created a “Rent Simulator” tool, which allowed our senior leasing managers to create an offer on the spot, while making sure that the offered price is in line with the values of the matrix.