Help us improve place management data and decision making for you. New MMUBS research study needs your expertise

Decision-making

How is data informing town-centre decisions?

[If you are interested in taking part in this research then please email Dr Costas Theodoridis for more details.]

Everyday, place managers make numerous decisions of micro and macro level importance. From deciding the optimum time for street cleaning to developing local economic strategy, the job of ensuring a town centre thrives in such a complex environment is a very complicated one.

In a new study, funded by Manchester Metropolitan University and supported by the Institute of Place Management, Dr Costas Theodoridisand Dr Oliver Kayas aim to understand how place managers make decisions by exploring the process and the content of their decision-making. They will explore what data place managers use to inform their decisions and how they transform that data into knowledge that can become intellectual capital for their town centres. In doing so, they will also investigate the analytical skills place managers possess and identify any areas that need supporting, across the sector as a whole.

Finally, the study will identify opportunities for partnership and collaboration between place managers (as data end-users), industry and public sector (as data providers).

Absolute confidentiality is guaranteed – but your participation will help improve town-centre decision making and ensure more evidence is available to support you in the future.


If you are interested in taking part in this research then please email Dr Costas Theodoridis for more details.

 

What different town types are emerging in the multi-channel era?

1200px-Shoppers_on_Dundas,_near_Yonge
By Ian Muttoo – originally posted to Flickr as Alone / TogetherUploaded using F2ComButton, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8808073

by Prof Cathy Parker*

Our ‘Bringing Big Data to Small Users‘ project is funded by Innovate UK, the UK Goverment’s innovation agency,to improve the customer experience of town centres and traditional retail areas, such as high streets and markets. The project will do this by bringing new research and insight directly to key stakeholders in locations – such as retailers and other businesses, property owners, local councils and place managers. The project is led by retail data specialists Springboard, who are the sector leaders in collecting footfall data in retail and other locations.

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Markets Matter: Reviewing the evidence & detecting the market effect

 

Berwick_street_market_1

Executive Summary

At the request of the National Association of British Market Authorities and, as part of the High Street UK2020 project, we have conducted a comprehensive review of the published evidence demonstrating, unequivocally, that markets contribute to the economic, social and political health of towns and cities. We have also conducted analyses of large footfall datasets, provided by Springboard, to show that markets add to the vitality of specific centres. Finally, we show how markets act as important catalysts for change in town and city centres. These are the 25 most important reasons why markets matter, identified in this report.

[You can download the full report from the IPM site]

Continue reading “Markets Matter: Reviewing the evidence & detecting the market effect”