OREANDA-NEWS  On 07 October was announced, that METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine presented “Retailing in the 21st Century. Current and Future Trends” book, in which leading industry experts and academic scholars share their knowledge and insights on modern retail and its development in the future. Aleksey Kapusta Publishing House published the book.

"Ukrainian customers become more demanding. High quality standards, freshness and an overall convenient shopping environment are on their mind as opposed to times where it was good enough to have products on the shelves at a good price. These recent developments inspired us to share the expertise of the best retail academics and specialists. To make this book available to the fast growing group of retail professionals and those who would like to work in the retail industry we decided to donate this book to the main Universities throughout Ukraine", - said Axel Hluchy, Managing Director METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine.

The book was presented at Kyiv Mohyla Business School by Aleksey Kapusta and one of the authors - Dr. Gerd Wolfram, Managing Director Metro Group Information Technology (MGI) – METRO Group cross divisional company responsible for the selection, implementation and alignment of the IT technologies with the METRO Groups corporate goals.

As one of the authors of the book provides Dr. Wolfram in his chapters an overview of the innovative technologies deployed in METRO’s pilot “Future store” in Rheinberg, Germany including: personal selling assistants, digital advertising displays, electronic price tags and radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies.

The master class of Dr. Wolfram followed the book presentation. During the event Dr. Wolfram showed in practice the implementation of RFID technology in daily retail operations: from the marking of animals to products sorting at the logistics platform.

For the first time this book was published in English in 2006 with the support of METRO Group. “Retailing in the 21st Century. Current and Future Trends” has three parts: Introduction; Global, Environmental and Market Trends; Trend in Retail Management. The first part provides an overview of current trends in retailing and key drivers of retail success in national and international markets.

The second part examines, in more depth, specific trends in different geographical regions of the world, trends in retailing technology and market trends with respect of retail consumers and channels. The third part covers trends in the management of a retail firm’s human resources, marketing mix and supply chains.

The editors of the book are Professor Dr. Manfred Kraft (University of Muenster) and Professor Murali K. Mantrala (University of Missouri). Both editors are well known retail industry experts.   Professor Krafft is Director of the Center for Interactive Marketing and Media Management and author of many sales management and marketing publications. Professor Mantrala is cofounder of Markdown Management Inc., a consulting firm specializing in fashion retail pricing management. The book was written by 44 industry experts and academic scholars.

More than 500 books will be distributed to the Government retail institutions and Universities.

This is the second book published by METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine in cooperation with Aleksey Kapusta Publishing House. The first one, Retail Compendium was published in Spring 2008. 

METRO Cash & Carry is a sales division of the METRO Group, one of the most important international retailing and trading companies. In 2007, the group reached sales of EUR  64.3 billion. The company has a headcount of more than 280,000 employees and operates about 2,500 outlets in 31 countries. The operating business is performed by the sales brands which operate independently in the market: Metro/Makro Cash & Carry, Real hypermarkets, Media Markt and Saturn – market leader in consumer electronics centers in Europe, and Galeria Kaufhof department stores. More information at: www.metrogroup.de.