METRO's turnaround plan

Armed with a more robust model for new stores, Arvind Mediratta hopes to make METRO Cash & Carry profitable soon

When Arvind Mediratta goes to review stores of METRO Cash & Carry, he often walks in with his head looking up at the upper shelves that carry the inventory (cash-and-carry stores stack inventories on top of retail shelves). “Inventory is the new margin,” says the managing director & chief executive officer of METRO Cash & Carry India. 

Mediratta, who joined METRO in February after eight years with rival Wal-Mart, often asks store managers for the lie detector tool, a hand-held device which gives the rate of sales of every article, daily average sale and how much inventory the store has.