Smart geodata management for shopping centres
ECE Marketplaces
The Challenge
One of the main tasks of ECE Marketplaces GmbH & Co. KG is to organise and manage the approximately 20,000 tenants who operate stores in the various shopping centres. This results in a large amount of data, sometimes highly sensitive, which needs to be managed efficiently. The data is stored in various tables and databases and contains, among other things, information on the individual sales areas and tenants.
By enriching this basic data with spatial information, real added value is created, both for ECE Marketplaces and for their investors and tenants. For this task, ECE introduced ArcGIS Enterprise to be able to create meaningful maps.
A major challenge was to be able to provide the data, some of which is sensitive, in such a way that only authorised user groups receive the information released for them. A solution was therefore sought that would allow individual access rights to be enforced for the respective map components without the maps having to be individually created and published.
security.manager greatly simplifies the assignment of rights and roles in our GIS applications and ensures that each user is only shown information that is relevant for their project work. This is a particular relief when responsibilities change.
Arne List - Research Manager ECE Marketplaces GmbH & Co. KG
The Customer
The ECE Group is a German company based in Hamburg, which offers comprehensive real estate services and fund management under one roof through the companies ECE Marketplaces, ECE Work & Live and ECE Real Estate Partners.
With around 200 shopping centres and a sales area of approx. 7 million m2 , ECE Marketplaces GmbH & Co. KG is Europe’s leading shopping centre operator. In order to meet the requirements of its customers, ECE Marketplaces has set itself the goal of making its shopping centres as attractive and versatile as possible. Tenants and customers benefit from a sector mix of national and international as well as local and regional concepts that is individually tailored to each location.
The Solution
con terra’s security.manager enables the enforcement of fine-grained permissions for published geodata. This way, all user groups can use the same map and app, but the information delivered is limited to that intended for the respective user group. At ECE Marketplaces GmbH & Co. KG, an asset management team looks after the shopping centres of a particular investor. Using security.manager, only the data of the investor for which they are responsible is displayed for each user. In this way, sensitive data is reliably protected, and security risks and redundancies are avoided. Instead of publishing a separate service per investor for each asset management group, only one service is required. This results in significantly more efficient GIS administration. The system works in such a way that the user does not notice that certain information is hidden from them.
Even switching a user to another team, or changing an investor can be executed very easily. Since the introduction of security.manager, ECE has been able to avoid redundancies in administration, and significantly reduce maintenance efforts.
The Benefit
Customised data provision
Protection of sensitive data through fine-grained authorisation
Avoidance of redundancies and minimisation of security risks
Reduction of effort through more efficient GIS administration
Optimised use of geoinformation
The Technology
security.manager
ArcGIS Enterprise
Summary
As a leading shopping centre operator, it is the business of ECE Marketplaces GmbH & Co. KG to organise and manage various tenants and their stores. In order to minimise effort and maximise efficiency, it supplements its existing GIS technology with security.manager from con terra. This enables fine-grained as well as individual administration and protection of spatial data without redundantly publishing additional maps and apps. In the case presented here, only the information for which each user is responsible and authorised is displayed. In this way, sensitive data is reliably protected, security risks are minimised, and redundancies are avoided.
Barry Masterson