Migros chief defends plan to merge 10 regional cooperatives

Migros plans to unite its 10 regional cooperatives into a single group cooperative, a major restructuring that president Ursula Nold says will make the retailer faster and more responsive. In an interview with SRF, she said customers would see no immediate changes in stores.

The cooperatives are due to vote on the plan next summer. If even one votes against it, Migros will repeat the vote in that cooperative, Nold said. She said the cooperative would then have to consider its future within the proposed structure, after seeing the other nine approve it.

Nold said the restructuring would remove parallel structures in administration and management, allowing Migros to respond more quickly to market changes and customer needs. She said cost savings were not the goal, and that the retailer wanted to offer affected employees new internal roles using its many vacancies.

Media reports have suggested the changes could eliminate 3,000 jobs. Nold did not confirm that figure. She said the transition would take years and that Migros would have to work on its structures while continuing to develop its day-to-day business. The supermarket strategy would remain unchanged, she said.

Asked why Migros was moving to centralise now, when Coop did so 25 years ago, Nold said competition and shopping habits had changed. She said Migros needed a simpler, more effective organisation to regain an organisational advantage it had lost in recent years.

Nold also rejected the suggestion that price cuts on 1,000 products were symbolic, saying Migros had chosen items people buy regularly, including bread and olive oil. Its range includes as many as 40,000 products.

She said Migros would not cut funding for its Culture Percentage, which receives CHF 140 million a year. Nold said improving the retailer’s financial performance would help it sustain that commitment in the long term.