Background
A retail property management firm, managing hundreds of malls and retail properties, was maintaining a growing number of outdated internal tools for managing staff directories, location data, and mall-specific systems. These systems were difficult to scale and increasingly expensive to maintain.
Objectives
The retail property management firm faced escalating challenges from outdated, siloed tools that were costly to maintain and difficult to scale. Their objectives in engaging Cinchy included:
• Consolidate disparate data sources such as staff directories and mall-specific information into a unified platform.
• Eliminate reliance on legacy systems and reduce associated maintenance and development costs.
• Empower non-technical teams to manage and interact with data directly, without developer intervention.
• Enable rapid delivery of internal applications using low-code tools and reusable data assets.
• Implement robust governance and access controls to ensure trusted data collaboration across business units.
Cinchy’s Solution
Cinchy delivered a Data Platform that replaced legacy infrastructure with a governed, shareable, and low-code alternative. By decoupling data from applications, Cinchy allowed the firm to shift from a system-centric architecture to a data-centric model—accelerating internal delivery and improving operational resilience.
Key Use Cases and Capabilities
Website Backend Modernization
Legacy databases powering mall websites were migrated to Cinchy tables. This transition reduced infrastructure overhead and enabled the creation of automatically generated APIs, allowing updates to be rolled out faster and without additional development.
Unified Staff Directory and Business Attributes
Cinchy consolidated multiple internal spreadsheets and databases into a single source of truth. Non-technical users could now manage directory entries, tenant information, and mall-specific metrics through user-friendly interfaces—no coding required.
Internal Application Development at Scale
Using Cinchy’s built-in UI layer and access control framework, the firm created lightweight apps with spreadsheet-like forms for 260+ users. This enabled secure, real-time collaboration across operations, BI, and support teams while maintaining data integrity.
Governance and Control
The platform’s fine-grained access controls and auditability ensured that sensitive information was only visible and editable by the appropriate personnel. This dramatically improved trust in the data and simplified compliance requirements.
Impact
The implementation of Cinchy delivered measurable and strategic benefits across the organization:
Cost Savings
Eliminated the need for costly custom frontend development and redundant database maintenance by leveraging Cinchy’s reusable data assets and built-in UI.
Accelerated Application Delivery
Business users and IT teams could rapidly launch internal applications across multiple departments—reducing development cycles— with a low-code framework and pre-built governance features.
Operational Efficiency Gains
Centralizing mall-specific data and staff directories improved data accuracy, eliminated duplication, and streamlined workflows for operations and BI teams.
Enhanced Data Governance and Control
With fine-grained access controls, audit trails, and schema governance, Cinchy enabled secure collaboration across over 260 users. Data stewardship responsibilities could be clearly distributed without sacrificing oversight.
Improved Business Agility
By decoupling data from applications, the firm became more adaptive to organizational change—able to respond to evolving business needs and integrate new data sources without costly rework.
Conclusions
By implementing Cinchy, the retail property management firm achieved its core modernization goals while unlocking new capabilities:
• Eliminated technical debt by retiring legacy systems and avoiding the development of custom internal tools.
• Increased agility with reusable data assets and instant application creation, speeding up internal project timelines across departments.
• Reduced operational costs through platform consolidation and decreased reliance on developers.
• Empowered business teams to own and manage data confidently and independently.
• Established a foundation for future innovation by adopting a data-centric architecture that scales with business needs.
The firm now benefits from a modern, governed data environment that not only meets today’s operational demands but also sets the stage for future digital transformation initiatives.
Platform