Meadowhall needs no introduction to Shopping Centre readers. One of the UK's most successful malls, it has recently been refurbished and extended to provide 1.2 million sq ft of retail space.

But Magna may be less well known. As one of the millennium projects, the massive Templethorpe steelworks in Rotherham was transformed into a national science centre, explaining the laws of physics to children and their parents through the themes of earth, fire, air and water.

While many of the millennium projects have foundered - including local projects like the National Centre for Popular Music in Sheffield and the Earth Centre in the Dearne Valley - Magna has gone from strength to strength.

It now attracts 300,000 visitors a year, and corporate and other events have become big business. Its cavernous hall hosted the Arctic Monkeys' homecoming concert in front of 3,000 fans and it has become a popular location for awards events, product launches and the like.

"It's interesting that Magna has survived when other attractions haven't," notes Meadowhall's Dajani. "The lateral thinking that's been demonstrated by the management is very impressive.

"They don't have a blank cheque book so they've had to be very creative in attracting finance."

Managing director Beck insists that diversifying does not mean a departure from Magna's original educational mission. Rather, he sees it as simple financial prudence: the revenue from the events helps keep Magna alive and available as an educational resource.

"We're not cash rich but as a charity we have to make a surplus," he explains. "If we were just a visitor attraction we'd have failed as the others have."

INNOVATIVE THINKING

And this year another attraction has been added, in the form of Aquatec, a £500,000 outdoor wet play area, the largest of its kind in Europe. "It's a paid attraction, designed to counter the perception that we're not a summer destination," explains Beck. And he promises: "We have more new ideas in the pipeline." Already the average dwell time at Magna is five hours, against just two hours at Meadowhall.

Dajani comments: "I didn't realise the sheer variety of what's on offer here. There's a great team spirit and the place seems to run like clockwork.

"For me the benefit has been that it encouraged me to look at my own business as an attraction," he says. "How can we look beyond the shopping experience and understand consumer psychology? In the end it's about attracting people and looking after them."

And he says there could be real business benefits in a closer relationship between Magna and Meadowhall. "Magna is very strong on tourism and we're not. We should be sending a message to tourists that they can visit both in a day. Perhaps we should be looking at joint marketing activity through the Yorkshire Tourist Board."

"I was very impressed with the recycling facilities at Meadowhall," says Beck. "They're absolutely fantastic, and I want all my managers to take that on board." And already the two are looking at sharing their food waste, which accounts for a third of Meadowhall's waste. "At the moment we incinerate it but we've been looking at composting," says Dajani. "By adding Magna's to ours it might give us the volume we need to invest in the plant."

One of the biggest changes that Beck has introduced at Magna is to bring all operations, especially catering, in-house.

"Quality is the main reason," he says. "We refuse to go down the burger route, and instead we do healthier options like hot roast sandwiches. And at the same time we have to give our school parties a healthy meal for £1.50 a head."

remaining in-house

Employing a top chef may have looked like a gamble for a cash-strapped charity, but it's already paying off with increased banqueting business. For instance, this year Magna is hosting the Yorkshire Tourism Awards for the second time.

"It's reinforced my own thoughts about insourcing as opposed to outsourcing," says Dajani. "At Meadowhall we do everything in-house with the exception of maintenance."

But six days after the two managers swapped places, their respective venues were both caught in the catastrophic Sheffield floods, and their management skills were put to the test.

"We operated normally on the Monday," remembers Beck. "But the electricity went off at 9.30 that night when the substation flooded. We made it in the next morning to find water 2m deep across the whole of our basement - an area 200m by 250m."

Dajani, by contrast, was still in the centre when Meadowhall was inundated, ironically through the Oasis entrance which faces the River Don.

He spent the night marshalling shoppers and staff to an emergency muster point in the centre's Debenhams store, from where they were taken to safety by the emergency services. He only took time out to appear live on Sky TV to reassure relatives of those trapped in the centre that they were being well looked after.

Within a week Meadowhall was open and trading, albeit with a large number of the lower level stores closed for refitting.

The water had been pumped out, the damaged stores had been hoarded off and a new marketing plan was swinging into action to convey the message that Meadowhall was open for business.

But Magna, with only limited resources to fall back on, was harder hit. Industrial pumps were brought in to send the water back to the river from whence it had come, but the attraction was closed for a month, missing the key post-exam period for school visits.

"We made the first week of the school holidays our target - we just said to ourselves 'we'll open then come what may'," says Beck.

"A major benefit is that the swap has brought us closer together," concludes Dajani.

Commentary

Shopping Centre's Changing Places features are facilitated by Real Estate Performance Consultant Kingsley Lipsey Morgan. Managing Director Howard Morgan looks at the management style of the two managers.

'United in adversity' summarises the experiences of Mohammed and Matthew during the recent floods. Both managers had never had to manage a crisis on such a scale and both impressed me with the openness and honesty they displayed when talking about the lessons learned.

Looking at their approaches to property management, there are remarkable similarities between their styles. Both come from non-traditional backgrounds, Matthew from a commercial background and now running a not-for-profit venture and Mohammed an architect turned shopping centre director. They both display a love of what they do and a strong single-mindedness to please the customer.

Both have a very wide definition of 'who is the customer' and are actively looking to find ways to involve the local community in their businesses. Not just for altruistic reasons but because it's good financial practice. They place a high priority on generating loyalty, because repeat business is imperative for success.

I was particularly impressed by the way that Magna has adopted an approach founded on performance measurement. It is said that 'what gets measured gets improved' but they pay far more than lip service to this at Magna. I gained the impression that Matthew is as accountable to his trustees as Mohammed is to his commercial bosses. Neither are impressed by fluffy statistics and they want to measure not just commercial revenue and operating costs but also customer satisfaction and repeat bookings. Both are looking at ways to introduce a range of best practices, from quality of food operations to recycling. The fact that Magna has become one of the largest banqueting venues in the North is proof that its mission to educate and entertain is being supported by a clever approach to raising additional revenues.

Both share a commitment to insourcing key services and both recognise the importance of treating colleagues well. They also value winning awards and the impact that this has on motivating staff and suppliers.

Hearing Mohammed and Matthew compare 'tales from the flood', you could not fail to be impressed by their drive and passion for their roles and their mutual respect for the challenges they face.

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