When a shopping centre stops
managing
and starts engaging.

The most visible pain point was event management and communication with visitors: fragmented planning, paper forms, unsynchronised updates and information scattered across multiple channels.

Visitors often had no idea what was happening in the centre and struggled to join events. The internal team, meanwhile, was losing valuable time to repetitive tasks.

The push for change came directly from management with a clear goal: innovate not just to simplify processes, but to build an entirely new way of engaging with the public.

The goal was to build an integrated digital ecosystem capable of managing events, communications, promotions and interactions from a single control point.

• a web management system for centre administration
• a mobile app for users and visitors
• an internal app for operators

All coordinated through a central dashboard from which events, news, promotions, surveys and digital content can be managed in a structured and integrated way.

The platform also includes an artificial intelligence component for automatic receipt recognition in loyalty campaigns: the system verifies the validity of receipts uploaded by users and detects duplicates, automating a process that was previously entirely manual.

Development followed a progressive path, analysis, prototyping, development, testing, release, with a team of one backend developer, one frontend developer and one project manager. The client was involved throughout via continuous testing and feedback. The biggest challenge was not technical but managerial: guiding an evolving process through many in-progress revisions, always through direct and constructive dialogue.

The project's perception shifted the moment the Vulcano Buono team began using the platform for real, not in a demo, but in a live context.

Seeing users register and check in via QR code, and operators validate attendance with a simple scan, made the leap from the previous system immediately tangible. It was not just more efficient: it was an entirely different experience.

The following also attracted considerable interest:

• dynamic management of directories, digital totems and announcements, controllable in real time from the dashboard
• in-app indoor navigation of the centre
• the integrated survey system, simple but effective

Within a few weeks the client's attitude had transformed, from initial discovery to active involvement, with spontaneous proposals for new scenarios and uses. An unequivocal sign that the platform had found its place.

The introduction of the platform brought concrete, measurable change with immediate effects on both internal processes and the visitor experience.

On the operational side, the time required to manage events dropped dramatically: tasks that previously took days of manual work and significant paperwork are now fully digitalised and centralised. Less chaos, fewer repetitions, more control. The loyalty point system, which previously did not exist in any structured form, became an automated process accessible directly from the app. Indoor navigation and dynamic totem management were introduced for the first time, bringing flexibility and modernity to advertising space management as well.

On the visitor side, event participation increased thanks to the simplicity of the QR code system. Interaction with the centre became more immediate, more intuitive, more enjoyable. Structured surveys added a listening channel that simply did not exist before.

The platform quickly became a daily-use tool for both operators and visitors. What changed is not just the technology: it is the way the shopping centre relates to those who live it every day.

The project did not stop at launch. Extensions are already in development focused on data analysis: access frequency, user behaviour, interaction with individual features, alongside expansion of the AI components. The direction is clear: more intelligence, further simplified processes, growing centralisation in a single digital ecosystem.

For Generazione AI, this project also represented important growth: we learned to anticipate the client's future needs, to structure more flexible solutions and to guarantee not just tool delivery but ongoing support in its use and adaptation.