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More sales, more market share, more purchasing power: For many years, everything at Migros depended on the belief in growth. The company has grown in every direction, including its own airline, its own department store chain, Mediterranean hotels, golf courses and specialist shops for every occasion.
Migros’ business motto for years: The more the better.
From multi-domain economy to four-domain economy
For a long time, profit played a secondary role. Mario Irminger, who started the 2023 financial year with a historic mini-plus of 175 million francs, is now correcting this. The company should focus on fewer areas and become more profitable in those areas. Little but concise.
Anything that did not belong to the supermarket’s core business of four sectors – non-food, pharmaceuticals and the profitable financial sector – was removed from the list. In short, moving away from a multi-field economy and towards a four-field economy.
The new boss of Migros is rearranging the entire store, like the nine bosses before him since 1925. It’s time to take a closer look at Migros’ 99-year growth history and its helmsmen. A rapid growth spree achieved by the sales threshold per Migros boss, that is, the total sales achieved at the end of the relevant term of office.
This article was first published on the paid service of handelszeitung.ch. Blick+ users have exclusive access as part of their subscription. You can find more exciting articles at www.handelszeitung.ch.
This article was first published on the paid service of handelszeitung.ch. Blick+ users have exclusive access as part of their subscription. You can find more exciting articles at www.handelszeitung.ch.
Mario Irminger, concentrator
Mission time: since 2023
Migros’ legacy: Irminger has been in office for less than a year. However, it seems that he followed a difficult concentration process. If things go well for Irminger, he will be remembered as a boss who reinvented the core business, strengthened it and made it more competitive.
Acquisitions: The new boss of Migros, who took office in May 2023, did not have much time for corporate shopping. He probably doesn’t want that either. What Irminger wants: to be leaner, leaner, more profitable. A significant part of the Migros Group will be sold, together with the Hotelplan Group, its industrial subsidiary Mibelle and the specialist stores Melectronics and Sport X. Its peculiarity: In the past, Migros almost never sold parts of the company, which dates back to its founder Gottlieb Duttweiler. With the reported sale of Hotelplan, Irminger is breaking this taboo.
Sales volume limit: 32 billion francs
Fabrice Zumbrunnen, healer
Mission time: from 2018 to 2023
Migros’ legacy: Unlike bosses before him, Zumbrunnen started talking about the importance of winning. Emotional alcohol adaptation also occurred during his period. Zumbrunnen will be remembered not as a down-to-earth salesman but as a sophisticated soul. He is also someone who is unpopular and may take drastic measures.
Acquisitions: As a member of general management, he created the healthcare business area.
Zumbrunnen also initiated the first major divestment phase: the sale of the Glatt department store in Wallisellen ZH, the Globus department store group and the Interio furniture chain.
Sales volume limit: 30 billion francs
Founder Herbert Bolliger
Mission time: 2005 – 2017
Migros’ legacy: With the entry of Aldi (2005) and Lidl (2009) into Switzerland, Migros moved from hunting to hunting. The Denner acquisition was, and still is, a bulwark against German discounters. During Bolliger’s time, Migrolino became a leader in the Swiss ready-made clothing business.
Acquisitions: Bolliger initiated two strategically important acquisitions with Digitec and Denner. Discount and digital business combined. During his period, Medbase, an important pillar of the healthcare industry, was also taken over.
Sales volume limit: 28 billion francs
Anton Scherrer, brand man
Mission time: 2002 – 2005
Migros’ legacy: Although Scherrer was at the top of Migros for a short time due to his age, he carried out structural reforms to ensure better corporate governance in the company. The introduction of branded products to the market was also effective: Brands such as Doubt, Nivea, Gillette and Coca-Cola came to Migros shelves in three waves. While this went against the founder’s private label gospel, it brought more customers into the stores.
Acquisitions: With the acquisition of Scana, Migros became one of the most important distribution wholesalers of restaurants, hotels and other large customers.
Sales volume limit: 20 billion francs
Peter Everts, world packer
Term: from 1997 to 2001
Migros’ legacy: The launch of the Cumulus card ushered Migros into the big data era. Today it is impossible to imagine life without a client program.
Acquisitions: With the takeover of Globus in 1997, it was aimed to make Migros not only a great power in food but also an important player in the non-food field and thus open new facilities. This didn’t work. For many years there were only losses; In 2020, Globus was sold to the Signa/Central Group duo. Belair airline started operations in 2001.
Sales volume limit: 14 billion francs
Eugen Hunziker, foreign adventurer
Mission time: from 1991 to 1997
Migros’ legacy: By operating golf courses for the first time, Migros is approaching the essence of the brand: democratizing things normally accessible only to the upper classes. In 1996, the company’s first website, Migros.ch, was launched. In the same year, the low-priced M-Budget series was launched.
Acquisitions: Migros dared to step into Austria. And there he fell brutally to the ground. Cooperation with Consumer Austria broke down, leading to a long-feared write-off of losses worth millions within the company, known as the “Austrian hole”. The first supermarkets in Germany were also unlucky.
Sales volume limit: 13 billion francs
Jules Kyburz, creator of greatness
Mission time: 1984 – 1991
Migros’ legacy: Promotion of department store formats and takeover of shopping malls. For the first time in its history, Migros exceeded the sales limit of 10 billion francs in this period and recorded growth well above this figure at the end of Kyburz’s period.
Acquisitions: In 1989, Migros’ subsidiary Hotelplan took over the world’s largest holiday rental provider, Interhome, a sort of ancestor of Airbnb.
Sales volume limit: 12 billion francs
Pierre Arnold, Monsieur Migros
Mission time: from 1976 to 1983
Migros’ legacy: Arnold, the first Romand to manage Migros, gains an even wider foothold across the country. Arnold, more than other Migros senior managers, saw himself as the guardian of the Dutti legacy and continued to criticize the orange giant’s development even after 1983.
Acquisitions: Arnold’s agenda includes organic growth and clarifying the power of Migros rather than acquisitions. The first Drei-M store is being built in Zurich, and the MGB high-rise is opening on Limmatplatz in the same city.
Sales volume limit: 9.6 billion francs
Rudolf Suter, nephew
Mission time: from 1962 to 1976
Migros legacy: The first MMM large fields opened in 1970. Migros had superiority over Coop for many years. As shopping behavior changed, the Basel rival later moved closer to consumers’ needs with more but smaller stores.
Acquisitions: In 1963, Suter, the founder’s nephew, opened the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute (GDI) and continued to invest in his own industry: new pasta factory, new slaughterhouse, new fertilizer factory.
Sales volume limit: 7 billion francs
Gottlieb “Dutti” Duttweiler, founder and father
Mission time: 1925 – 1962
Migros’ legacy: In addition to the intellectual legacy that has recently diminished in importance, many of Duttweiler’s start-ups are still on the Swiss market. For example, Hotelplan (founded 1935, now up for sale), Ex Libris (1947), Migrol (1954) or Migros Bank (1957).
Acquisitions: At first, Duttweiler began to operate less through acquisitions and more through company founders. Initially there was an assortment in mobile stores, later it was expanded to a fixed network. Own food industry in the fight against branded product companies, expansion of stores into French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino. Sales in 1925, the company’s first year: 778,500 francs.
Sales volume limit: 1.3 billion francs
Source :Blick
I’m Tim David and I work as an author for 24 Instant News, covering the Market section. With a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism, my mission is to provide accurate, timely and insightful news coverage that helps our readers stay informed about the latest trends in the market. My writing style is focused on making complex economic topics easy to understand for everyone.
