Wuming'S Acquisition Of Metro China Will Complete The Independent Operation Of The Equity Delivery Brand.

In the era of full digital, the regrouping of retail enterprises is of great significance.

A few days ago, Metro announced that despite the challenges brought by the epidemic, the equity trading between Metro China and Wuming is still successfully completed in the second quarter. Under the new shareholding structure, Wumart group holds 80% of Metro China and Metro Group holds 20% of the shares.

With Metro China officially usher in a new historical period, Metro China how to make full use of retail channel transformation, and multi-point Dmall digital cooperation and other new progress has also been unveiled.

　　 Metro brand operates independently, and Kant enters the new board of directors.

After half a year, the acquisition was finally completed. Prior to October 11, 2019, Wumart announced the acquisition of 80% stake in Metro China, and multi Dmall became the latter's technology partner.

It is reported that after officially returned to its headquarters, Wumart Group intends to make Metro China continue to operate independently with Metro brand. Metro China will continue to be managed by the existing management team headed by Kant, the current president of Metro China.

Metro official stressed that the transaction had no impact on the staff and management team, nor would it change the existing cooperation relationship with business partners (including suppliers and service providers). Metro China will continue to adhere to strict control over food safety and product quality, and all customers' loyalty plans and interests remain unchanged.

"The new shareholding structure will achieve the organic integration of Metro's widely recognized professional strengths and its powerful resources and capabilities. The organic combination of these capabilities, professional advantages and resources will accelerate Metro's B2B business development and full channel retail transformation and help them to write a successful chapter in the rapidly changing market. Metro China said.

Metro China revealed that Wumart will further invest in Metro China to enhance its operational efficiency and provide customers with better shopping experience.

At present, in the latest board of directors of Metro China, Metro Group will receive two seats in eleven people's board of directors, respectively, from Metro Group chief operating officer, management committee member Rafael Gasset and Metro Group operation partner, operation management committee member Miles Graham. In the other nine seats, Kumi group has been designated as one of the major shareholders of the company.

Since its opening in Shanghai in 1996, Metro Group has 97 stores in China. In a challenging market environment, Metro China showed a better performance than the market average in the 2019 fiscal year, an increase of more than 5%.

　　 Metro China's full channel transformation highlights the importance of Digitalization

At present, Metro China is committed to the retail transformation of all channels, and it is in urgent need of a mature comprehensive digital solution that has been verified by the industry. Since its launch in 2015, multi-point digital solutions have been improving in cooperation with retail giants such as Wumart.

For Metro China, the joint multi point Dmall can not only integrate online, offline, and store, but also store resources in offline stores and supply chains, and improve the online shopping experience of B terminals, especially C end customers. For half a year, the change of Metro China has been imperceptible.

In April 22nd, a number of relevant personages said that after the multi point Dmall became Metro's China technology partner, the cooperation between the two sides at the digital retail system level began to enter acceleration, such as the in-depth docking of commodity system, marketing system, return system and so on.

It is worth mentioning that for many years in China, Metro has been famous for its B end advantages in China's retail industry. It has been designated as food supplier by various important activities, such as the 2008 Olympic Games, the celebration of the founding of the Communist Party 90th anniversary, logistics supplies, 2019 World Horticultural Exposition ingredients suppliers, and 2022 Beijing Olympic winter food supplier qualification. However, the focus of the future retail giant will be tilted to To C.

After announcing the acquisition of Metro's stake in China in October last year, Zhang Wenzhong, chairman of Wuma's founder and multi-point Dmall, has pointed out that the growth rate of Metro To B business has reached 20%, and the future multi points will help Metro To C business grow.

For C end users, the most intuitive sense of digital promotion in the Metro consumer experience of the two business, one is O2O, one is smart shopping.

Taking Metro store intelligent purchase as an example, in order to further improve the experience of Metro members' customers, multi Dmall and metro will optimize the intelligent shopping area in the store, and create a safer, more independent and orderly checkout space for consumers.

In the O2O business, the new crown pneumonia outbreak that broke out in the Spring Festival in 2020 detonated the business of traditional chao chao, which benefited from the advance of digital cooperation with multi-point Dmall. Metro China successfully tested the disease during the epidemic. During the outbreak, Metro has been deployed on O2O in Beijing, and the total number of C terminals in Metro Beijing and Chongqing has increased by more than 60% per month.

Up to now, Metro has more than 5 outlets on the line, including 4 stores in Beijing (Wanquan River store, Shili River store, Lishui Bridge store, Jingshun Road store) and Metro Chongqing south bank store, which has accumulated over 50000 users in the whole channel to the home and the whole channel in Chongqing.

Multi point Dmall revealed that in April, multi-point Dmall has begun testing the Metro's dominant commodity frozen goods. It is estimated that the cold chain test will be completed in the late April, and the ice products will be greatly optimized in the near future, and the seven km distribution service will be realized. This is undoubtedly a surprise for Metro C users in China.

　　 Wumart rapid expansion accelerates China's retail industry integration

In the time of Wuming's acquisition of Metro China, China's retail industry is at an important turning point in the industry. Although the scale of domestic retailing has been very large, from the micro level, it is difficult to achieve efficient growth because of the small scale of retail enterprises and scattered industries. Therefore, the scale of individual retail enterprises needs to be expanded and the industry concentration will be promoted. In this process, Wumart played an important role.

Before acquiring the 80% stake in Metro China, Wumart group has been in a state of rapid expansion, including the acquisition of 70% stake in B&Q China, Lotte Mart, 21 stores in North China, more than 70 neighboring convenience stores, and 45% stake in Chongqing business group.

Among many competitors, Wumart successfully took Metro China as a "historic opportunity". It can be said that in this wave of global retailing reform guided by Chinese enterprises, wumi is not only a pioneer in the industry on scale, but also a benchmark for the retail industry on the basis of comprehensive digitalization. It also needs to learn from the advanced experience of international counterparts to improve the standards of China's retail industry.

In Zhang Wenzhong's view, after the acquisition of Metro by Wumart, the first step is to further improve food safety standards.

Metro has long adhered to the high standard of food safety control and implemented the European food safety standard. It is the only HACCP certified enterprise in the market. In the past 23 years in China, the European food safety standards have been strictly enforced, and the concept of quality life has been advocated, focusing on middle and high-end consumers. Sales of imported products account for more than 16%, and private brands account for more than 12%. It is worth mentioning that Metro takes the whole process of cold chain transportation, sets the right temperature in a targeted manner, and shortens the transportation time as much as possible, so that customers can enjoy the high quality food without worry.

In the view of the industry, Metro's advanced experience lies in strict process, unswerving implementation and persistent training. Metro has an internationally specialized food safety system process and team, and a mature quality management index assessment system. These are valuable experiences that can be duplicated for the beauty of products.

Metro not only strictly controls quality management in various aspects such as supplier selection, logistics distribution and market operation, but also set up a traceability system in China to monitor the complete supply chain of goods.

Established in 2007, Mai Da Da traceability system adopts the international standard of food safety. Through monitoring the complete supply chain, the whole process of information transparency can be realized. Customers only need to scan the traceability code on the packaging of Mai Da products, and we can clearly know the six major information from enterprises, products, processing plants, origin, inspection and logistics. At present, Mai Da Da traceability system covers 25000 farmers and 4500 traceable products.

It is understood that after acquiring Metro China last year, Wumai has embarked on introducing Metro's advanced food safety standards, including the introduction of Metro's Mai Da Da traceability system, which will greatly enhance the quality of products in the retail industry of the United States and China. At present, some stores in Wumart, Beijing, have been able to buy some products traced by Mai da da.

　　 Multi point alliance to promote high safety standards in China's food industry

Compared with developed countries, China's circulation industry is small and scattered, and the future scale space and industry integration space is huge. In the face of great changes and fierce competition, the comprehensive digitalization of business has become an inevitable choice for enterprises, but also makes cooperation between enterprises easier, creating conditions for industry integration. Among them, it is particularly important for the industry giants represented by Wuming to accumulate experience and play a leading role.

At present, the circulation industry has entered the key node of historical integration, and the alliance has become the "just need" of enterprises. Against this background, the multi point Alliance came into being in July 2019. Up to now, the multi point alliance has covered 108 regional retail enterprises including Metro China, covering 10000 stores nationwide, and becoming an important pole in China's retail market.

Multi point alliances explore ways of sharing digitalized tools and platforms with alliances, and establish traditional retail eco alliances, not only technology alliances, member alliances, commodity and supply chain alliances, standard alliances, and intelligent hardware alliances, but also will become a standard alliance for food safety, and digitalization of quality control processes and store operation standards will be extended to more retail enterprises. Work together to create a high standard of safety and quality in China's food industry.

In the view of the retail industry, Metro China, as a member of the multipoint alliance, will promote the upgrading of the multi point alliance standard, directly integrate with the international leading standard, and export to the whole industry and market, and promote the establishment of a new industry standard.

It is reported that for the metro, to further enhance the food safety standards within the alliance, multi alliance is at the six level.

First, strict screening for suppliers, and Metro to achieve high-quality supplier sharing of resources, digital management, effective evaluation of the system, high-risk suppliers directly eliminated. We should speed up the upgrading of quality inspection equipment, foster an internationally specialized internal quality inspection team, and increase investment in high standard laboratories. Two, we should guard against all aspects of procurement, acceptance, storage, processing and sales, and implement food safety risks and measures to all positions. Furthermore, we need to establish a more stringent quality management index assessment system, strictly enforce the process and post responsibilities.

A more important point is that multi-point alliances will set up a traceability system, mark the traceability system, start with their own brands, set up a sourcing source data platform, promote more coverage, monitor real-time records, and process information transparently. Not only that, but also the establishment of an external audit system, the introduction of HACCP certification system, CCIC China Inspection and certification (Group) Co., Ltd., the three party testing agency, headquarters first audit, and gradually extended to all stores.

As Zhang Wenzhong said, Metro's food safety and multi-point digitalization symbolizes the future of China's circulation industry to enhance food safety standards. Through digitalization, it will better integrate, develop and share resources advantages and enhance the management level. The multi-point alliance digitalized the quality control process and store operation standard, and extended it to more retail enterprises to jointly create a high standard of safety and quality in China's food industry.