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Metro Cash & Carry

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What have been MCC’s key competitive advantages as it has moved into emerging markets?
Metro Cash & Carry´s key competitive advantages were that it was often the first mover as it was the first wholesaler that worked with the cash and carry system, offering a wide range of products and having a non-traditional marketing approach that makes feel the customers as they were a member of a special “club”. For its international expansion the company created skills, especially when entering into emerging markets, to quickly set up in a new country and to adapt to local market demand, which was facilitated by having many local relationships.
When entering into a new market, the company firstly screened the possible countries perfectly, …show more content…

As new relationships had to be built up and local government members were primarily interested in their own careers, negotiations often took months for the company. As soon as entered, it was hard for MCC to be seen different model as Chinese lacked to distinguish between wholesaling to businesses and retailing sales by hypermarket chains. Fierce competition, different consumer tastes across China, difficulty to find talent and increasing land prices lead to a late break-even for MCC in China. Anyhow, MCC learned how to penetrate the Chinese market and contributed to the system by providing a more efficient distribution system, this is offering most of the articles in bulk packages and opening for extra-long business hours to meet their target groups´ purchasing customs.
Russia was initially characterized by having only small and specialized competitors in the wholesale segment and there was no global player operating in the market. Even though Russia was characterized by corruption and bureaucracy, local governments were eager to modernize their cities in order to attract FDI and to achieve further development. Metro got a special invitation by Moscow´s mayor to operate in the country. Despite face the challenge of a poor infrastructure system in Russia, MCC became very successful in Russia and contributed to the development of the

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