METRO unveils the ‘store of the future’ with help from Microsoft
Real-time collaboration technology helps managers run a highly efficient operation
Updated: April 6, 2005
At first glance, the Future Store looks like an ordinary supermarket, with wide aisles, bustling shoppers, and counters filled with fresh produce. But this technology-testing grocery store located in the quiet town of Rheinberg, Germany, is helping to define the future of retail.
The supermarket's operator, Germany's METRO Group, learns from the Future Store how to drive efficiency in its retail operations. The key to greater efficiency, they've found, is real-time information-sharing and tighter collaboration up and down the supply chain, says Dr. Gerd Wolfram, executive manager for the Future Store initiative.
Current experiments at the Future Store include intelligent scales that automatically recognize, weigh, and price produce, and smart shelves that count shelf inventory and detect product mix-ups. Another experiment gives employees immediate access to point-of-sale (POS) information, letting supervisors better manage the supermarket and detect possible fraud.
Microsoft offers fresh, powerful solutions
METRO Group's operations generate 50 billion Euros ($66.5 billion US) a year in revenue, making it the world's fourth-largest retailer. The company's brands, located in 28 countries, include: department store Kaufhof Galleria; wholesaler METRO Cash & Carry; Real and Extra in food retailing; Praktiker in home improvement; and Media Markt in consumer electronics.
Microsoft technologies play a large role in Future Store experiments, especially in fostering collaboration. Zygmunt Mierdorf, METRO Group's CIO and executive vice president of human resources, credits Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server, Microsoft BizTalk Server, and the development tools that use Extended Markup Language (XML) standards. He also notes Microsoft as a leader in handling Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Electronic Product Codes (EPC).
"In the new fields of RFID and EPC, Microsoft is offering fresh, powerful solutions," says Mierdorf. "Especially in real-time retail software and in middleware, Microsoft has the building blocks where all of the data coming from the RFID readers will be filtered to discover alert situations and then go out to other applications in real time to react to those alerts."
Microsoft technologies even let customers use personal shopping assistants (PSAs) to locate items and keep tallies of what they've picked. The METRO Group singles out three benefits Microsoft technologies bring to retailing:
| • | Fast development—four to six weeks in many cases |
| • | Easy interfaces that allow access to different inputs and outputs on a variety of devices |
| • | Powerful software functionality |
The role Microsoft technologies play at the METRO Group Future Store is documented in video form. See below for links.
Smart devices put store managers in charge
Microsoft also helped the METRO Group create its Store Manager's Workbench. The Workbench generates graphs showing data from customers, sales, and suppliers. Another productivity tool, the Cashier Manager's Workbench, helps store managers track customer volume and monitor check-out lines. If long lines develop, managers then call for more check-out help. "It's all about real-time retailing, real-time information going to the different positions so that employees can act in a very short time," says Dr. Wolfram.
Technologies proven in the Future Store to benefit customers are then rolled out to the METRO Group's other stores. The Future Store's RFID pilot, for example, is already in four of its six divisions. Chairman and CEO Dr. Hans-Joachim Körber envisions that "10 years down the road, a customer will take the trolley, put in all his merchandise, pass the scanner, and everything is scanned in a second and charged to his account." When that vision becomes a reality, Körber predicts that "we will be in a new retail world."
