METRO GROUP and Planday partner to transform the hospitality sector

METRO GROUP partners with Planday, the leading European employee scheduling and workforce management solution provider. METRO has committed to acquire a minority stake in Planday, a workforce management solution provider that enables business owners to take employee scheduling from pen and paper to a streamlined, digital process — saving managers significant time and resources. With this partnership, METRO is further expanding its ability to digitally transform the hospitality sector through carefully selected investments into best-in-class digital solution providers. "METRO is committed to offering its customers the best digital tools available, allowing them to run their businesses more efficiently and successfully," said Dr Hansjörg Sage, Managing Director of METRO's digital business unit. "With Planday, METRO can now offer its customers a world class, cloud-based employee scheduling and management system."

"We only select the best suite of tools for the hospitality sector and invest only in companies that have the potential to dominate the markets with their proven business models and products that provide real and lasting value to all METRO customers. Planday easily convinced us that they were the most robust and easy-to-use solution. The platform addresses a major pain point of hospitality businesses and solves an issue that isn’t adequately addressed by other tools: allowing managers and employees to smoothly collaborate and communicate together to create the optimal work schedule and improve the METRO customers' P&L," stresses Dr Patrick Flesner, Director of the investment arm of METRO's digital unit.

Planday CEO, Christian Brøndum, commented on the announcement: "We are determined to help hospitality and retail businesses move away from outdated, complicated, and cumbersome tools and processes. In many of these businesses these outdated tools and processes are what prevent them from realising their full potential. Planday can directly impact the growth of these businesses by ensuring they have the optimal shift plan at all times. This means businesses are sufficiently staffed for busy periods, maximizing sales and customer loyalty, while not over-staffing quieter periods, which reduces unnecessary costs. With Planday, our partners create a schedule in a couple of hours, instead of several days. The time our customers now save using Planday is quite significant. The app gives them much more flexibility when creating the staff schedule. Both, managers and employees, now have a full overview of the schedule, which makes them feel empowered," Brøndum, explained.

With this deal, Planday will further expand its leadership position in Europe beyond the Nordics and the UK.

To strengthen ties between the two businesses, METRO has invested into Planday and Dr. Patrick Flesner will be joining the Planday Board. "Together with our dedicated sales team, we will leverage METRO's large customer base and store network in order to provide METRO customers with access to Planday's value-creating product suite and to help Planday successfully internationalize its business operations," Dr. Patrick Flesner remarks.

Brøndum concludes, "In Metro, we have found a great partner, one that is as dedicated to digitalizing the hospitality businesses as we are. With this new partnership, Planday will effectively be the number one employee scheduling system in the DACH region. Next to our leading positions in UK and in the Nordic region, this deal will cement our position as the clear European leader in our space. We are proud and excited to partner with Metro, as we work toward the common goal of digitizing the hospitality industry, to the benefit of thousands of businesses."

About Planday: Planday builds software that makes it easier for managers and hourly workers to communicate, collaborate, and get work done. We empower businesses by making the relationship between hourly workers and their managers more efficient, transparent, and productive— which leads to better business returns. Planday grew out of a simple idea: scheduling and communication should be simple and straightforward for both managers and employees. Our product has come a long way since then, and we now offer a comprehensive SaaS product that can meet the unique needs of a wide variety of shift-based businesses. In 2014, Planday received investment from Creandum, and in 2015, they received another investment from former global Just-Eat CEO, Klaus Nyengaard. In 2016, Planday received a $14 million series B investment led by Idinvest, Creandum, SEB Private Equity, and Angel Investor Arthur Kosten, co-founder of Booking.com.