INTERVIEW
SM Supermalls looking to create 'smart cities' SM CEO shares plans for integrating shopping malls into more communities.
W
hen the Philippine government ordered the shutdown of malls and asked workers to stay home in March 2020, SM Supermalls president Steven T. Tan knew he had a problem. The easy solution was to do nothing, but for Tan there were opportunities in this crisis. Perhaps nowhere else in Asia are shopping malls as important to the people as the Philippines, and with SM’s Mall of Asia being the largest, they are certainly super scaled. In this interview, Tan shares how he and his team sprung into action: by repurposing laid off jeepney drivers to do deliveries, by establishing a 1 million Viber social community channel, by allowing customers to pick-up their orders curbside—all whilst working with tenants to keep commerce flowing and keeping all employees on the payroll even if they were ordered to stay at home. From the start of the lockdown, SM already knew that the changes it had to take would not stop on corporate and tenant needs alone. Customers had to be up the priority list, whether they be from commercialized cities or in far-flung areas. SM focused on developing its omni channel retail efforts in order to meet the new demands and needs of its customers. Curb-side pick-up, home delivery, and personal shopper services were immediately made available in its shopping malls. SM also tapped into third-party applications like GrabFood and LalaFood to make their tenants reach a wider market amidst the pandemic. “[We] fast-tracked our omni channel retail efforts so that whether you want to buy anything from the malls or have it delivered to your home or you just want to pick it up on curbside, [you] can actually call a personal shopper to do your errands for you or you order from the countless third-party application apps that we partner with,” Tan shared. Displaced drivers as delivery service In far-flung areas where these third-party applications are not available, SM partnered with displaced jeepney and tricycle drivers to deliver orders. Aside from the corporate working class who lost their jobs during the height of the pandemic, public transport drivers were also out of business as most public transport operations in the Philippines were halted by the government whilst the lockdown was in full swing. “There are a lot of places where third-party apps are not yet available…we used displaced jeepney drivers or tricycle drivers that were not allowed to take passengers to facilitate delivery of orders for the mall, for the shopping centre,” Tan explained. He shared that by doing so, many jeepney drivers were able to learn and adapt in providing a more sustainable transport 16
REAL ESTATE ASIA | Q1 2021
SM president Steven T. Tan discusses how they adapted mobile channels to reach their customers amid the pandemic (Photo by SMSupermalls.com)
service through deliveries. “They cannot even ply the road or take any passenger, so what they did was they also pivoted. They also transformed their business from a jeepney driver taking on passengers to a delivery service for the shopping centre, to deliver goods for the people,” he said.
SM focused on developing its omni channel retail efforts to meet the pandemic-era demands and needs of its customers
Adapting to the ‘new normal’ SM Supermalls also had to adapt and turn to mobile channels in order to reach their customers. During the lockdown, movement was restricted for everyone who were not considered essential workers. This resulted in the majority of Filipinos switching to now-giants in e-commerce Shopee and Lazada in order to fulfill their shopping needs. Other online sellers outside these two platforms would also opt to deliver their goods via Grab, Lalamove, or other delivery or courier service. This spike in online retail shopping introduced a new change to local buying and selling trends in the Philippines. Tan said the very next day the first lockdown was imposed, SM set up its own Viber community. From having 100,000 followers overnight, it now has millions. “[Our] Viber community is the biggest Viber community created. We created that Viber community the following
