Metro Cash & Carry opens HOT campus
By Tian Xiuzhen (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-11-04 09:35

Metro Cash & Carry, the world's leading self-service wholesaler, launched its Shanghai Campus of the "House of Training (HOT)" on Monday to facilitate its aggressive expansion plan in China.

"Today this country is at the centre of our expansion strategy in Asia and in 2005, we plan to open 10 new stores here in China," said Hans-Joachim Korber, chairman and chief executive officer of the Management Board of Metro Group.

Following the two campuses in Germany and France, the Shanghai HOT Campus is the third facility Metro has established as a major move to create a global management training network.

The company also plans to launch such a training campus in Moscow in 2005.

Korber said in around five years as a mid-term goal, the wholesaler will open 40 more stores with a total investment of 600 million euros.

The number of Metro employees in China has soared to more than 5,200, serving 2 million commercial customers in the country.

"The HOT campus in Shanghai is a milestone in the development of our sales activities, as we are fully aware that our Chinese staff are the strong base for our expansion in this country," said Jean-Luc Tuzes, president of Metro Jinjiang Cash & Carry Co Ltd, a joint venture Metro Group set up with Shanghai-based Jinjiang Group.

Tuzes said with instructors regionally sourced, the Shanghai campus will train new staff and also customize courses with regional experience and Chinese culture.

Since 1996 when Metro, the first foreign company to obtain a national permit for chain operation, opened its first store in Shanghai, the wholesaler has invested 350 million euros and opened 21 stores in major Chinese cities.

Top Metro executives also revealed that the success of Metro in China is the B-to-B selling concept, which is flexible and pays optimal tribute to the country-specific and regional customer expectations.

To precisely meet the requirements of business clients in various regions, Metro sources over 95 per cent of its goods in China from domestic producers and suppliers.

Metro also directly and indirectly sources around 2 billion euros of goods per year to export worldwide.

"According to our expansion plan in China, these purchases will grow in future," said Korber.

As revealed, Metro is going to endow a professorship to the Chinese-German School for Postgraduate Studies at Tongji University.

It will also institute and support a chair for Innovation and Computer Science in Economics for five years through a partnership with the German Academic Exchange service.

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