An Operating Board will replace the current Extended Management Board of Metro Cash & Carry with the goal of supporting the development of the national markets with a much more operational focus.
Metro
Cash & Carry will grant its 26 national subsidiaries more
entrepreneurial freedom in the future and has adapted its organizational
structure for this purpose. While the national management will be given
greater responsibility for operational functions, the headquarters is
changing its management structure. In place of the currently nine-person
Metro Cash & Carry Board (Extended Management Board), a team of ten
Operating Partners will be overseeing two to three countries each, so
their day-today activities will be focused much more sharply on the
respective customers and the local demand. The new organizational
structure will be gradually implemented starting on July 1, 2015.
"Value
is created locally, in the markets and with the customers, which is why
we are now giving a further boost to local responsibility and
entrepreneurial freedom,†said Olaf Koch, CEO of Metro AG. "We have
already decentralised decision making in recent years, strengthening the
role of the national managers. As a next step, we want to achieve an
even more powerful structure, with faster decision making channels and,
above all, with national managers who think and act as entrepreneurs,
and who will hold considerably more sway in running their business.â€
An
Operating Board will replace the current Extended Management Board of
METRO Cash & Carry with the goal of supporting the development of
the national markets with a much more operational focus. Heading up this
management group as CEO from October 1, 2015 will be Pieter Boone, who
has been managing Metro Cash & Carry - Russia. Olaf Koch, who has
acted as CEO of Metro Cash & Carry as well as CEO of the Metro
Group since 2013, will pass on the ad interim role of Metro Cash &
Carry CEO to Pieter Boone in order to focus fully on managing the parent
company as CEO of Metro AG.
Olaf Koch said: "We are on the right
track. Thanks to the direction we have set and initiatives we have
introduced over the last two years, we have now recorded like for- like
growth at Metro Cash & Carry for seven successive quarters. The new
Operating Model should accelerate this positive trend. With the new
Operating Model, we take a logical step in giving the national Managing
Directors greater entrepreneurial freedom. While we still want support
from the headquarters,'one-size-fits-all' central directives are not
effective in the local markets. In the future, we will be able to
respond to local demand and special customer requirements much more
quickly and therefore increase our growth potential.â€
The Metro
Group which is one of the leading international retail and wholesale
company is active at roughly 2,200 locations in 30 countries and has
around 250,000 employees.