Markets Are More Than A Rent Cash-Cow – Some Alternative KPI’s

There has been much published in recent years about the role of public markets and particularly the benefits that flow apart from just collecting rents. And so a debate has formed around how we truly measure the performance of public markets like QVM.

The UK House of Commons published a major study back in 2009 and the US based Projects for Public Spaces has published many articles which examine the significant contributions that markets can make to communities, cities and countries.

Apart from the obvious economic benefits of markets there are five key benefits that we can look at.
   1. Markets provide a sense of place.
   2. Markets are part of a nation’s cultural tradition.
   3. Markets are an important element of the economy, particularly in relation to independant retailing, local employment, and business start-up opportunities.
   4. Markets offer local access to fresh produce and are an important source of healthy eating.
   5. Markets reduce environmental impacts for example unnecessary packaging/waste.

One criticism of QVM management in the past has been the concentration on rental returns to the owners (CoM). Very little has been put back into QVM over the last 15 years or so. The focus provided by a multi-million dollar renewal project is very welcome but in itself doesn’t guarantee that past attitudes have changed. The primary KPI’s (Key Performance Indicator) in the past has been rental returns and visitor numbers. We would like to propose some complimentary KPI’s that will enhance the way we measure the performance of our market.

   1. How many new business start-ups.
   2. Success in filling known gaps in the market’s offer.
   3. Community initiatives delivered.
   4. How many people employed.
   5. Levels of stall presentation.
   6. How much waste is re-cycled.
   7. Customer satisfaction levels.
   8. Profitability of traders.
   9. Market share. (How do we compete with other retail complexes)
   10.Number of ethnic minority managed businesses.
   11.Trader churn.
   Etc. etc. etc.

There are no doubt many more measures of market performance that could be added and you will note that responsibility for those measures could involve each of QVM, CoM, and Traders, or a mix of all three. The future prosperity of QVM will certainly rely on us measuring more than just rental returns.

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