The details behind Carrefour’s major transformation plan | Progresiv
Alexandre Bompard, CEO of French Group Carrefour, announced the details of the company's five-year transformation plan, entitled "Carrefour 2022", on this list being the optimization of headquarters operations, revenue gains from the online area, developing new partnerships in Europe and Asia. 
"I have great plans for Carrefour: to become the world's leading food retailer, offering our customers day by day and in every location quality products and at a reasonable price. To achieve this goal, we need to rebuild our business model, simplify the organization and make new partnerships, invest in store formats, improve operational efficiency, build a performing omnichannel, and last but not least, to develop the portfolio of fresh and organic products, mainly under the Carrefour brand.
The retailer's transformation plan is built around four pillars.
1. Simplified organization
The first pillar aims to "simplify the organization" by "reducing complexity" for several corporate headquarters worldwide. For example, Carrefour headquarters in Boulogne, France, will be closed, and the project to build a new 30,000 square foot office in Essonne will be abandoned, writes LSA Conso. This strategy will also have an impact on staff, Carrefour intends to give up 2.400 employees on the French market, which accounts for about a quarter of the retailer's employees in the mother country. According to Carrefour, this plan is "strictly voluntary".
At the same time, Carrefour announced that it intends to have a "more open policy" towards foreign partners, thus making public a strategic partnership with the Chinese at Tencent. In addition, Tencent and Tonghui will become major shareholders in Carrefour China. The retailer also plans to make more partnerships to take advantage of innovations and best practices from the experience of innovative startups and the power of leaders in some sectors. "This is also the case with the agreement signed with Fnac Darty on the electro area, but also the partnership with Showroomprivé for online private sales.
2. Productivity and competitiveness
The second aspect invoked by Carrefour Group CEO is related to achieving productivity and competitiveness goals. The retailer is looking to implement a plan to save 2 billion euros by 2020. How will it do it? By reducing the assortment by over 10%, but also through negotiations, taking advantage of the group's presence in 30 countries worldwide. The retailer also plans to streamline its non-market purchases by strictly managing spending and specifications, as well as a systematic renegotiation of historical contracts by dedicated teams.
Efficiency also includes the management of the 273 Dia stores, which Carrefour intends to sell in the first phase, but if no buyer is found, the stores will be closed.
Last but not least, the French have more efficient and better targeted investments. Thus, starting in 2018, Carrefour plans to invest 2 billion euros a year to maintain the group's assets and to implement its transformation ambitions. Specifically, the retailer intends to significantly increase its investments in the digital area and to increase its investment in the provision of channels aimed at creating an omnichannel supply by automating the order collection platforms.
3. Creating an omnichannel reference universe
For this strategic pillar, the French are planning to invest in the efficiency and attractiveness of the hypermarket channel on the French market. In order to improve the efficiency of this format, Carrefour will adapt the sales spaces to the potential of the areas. In addition, possible partnerships are also in place to improve their assortment on the non-food area.
For the future, the French will rely on supermarkets and proximity formats, which are the engines of business growth. Thus, Carrefour will open at least 2,000 stores in the next five years and will invest significantly in expansion in major European cities. "Each of these formats will actively participate in the development of the omnichannel universe of the group, being a preparation or delivery center, a point of withdrawal or return for customers", Bompard said.
The group also wants to accelerate the development of the cash & carry format. Thus, Carrefour will open 20 Atacadão per year in Brazil starting from 2018, including 5 conversions from hypermarkets this year. In Argentina, this year there will be investments in the Maxi brand, 16 hypermarkets will be remodeled under this banner. In addition, the declining of these formats will continue in Europe.
A significant 2.8 billion dollars investment will also be made in the development of the company's digital and omnichannel operations. The objective? Sales of 5 billion dollars in online stores by 2022. The French aim to turn Carrefour into a key player in online food trade with a revenue of 5 billion euros for the group and a market share over 20% in France by 2022.
4. Assortment rethinking
The last pillar, but not the latter, is about the assortment. On the French market, Carrefour has set an ambitious target for traditional fresh products, namely an increase in turnover in this segment three times higher than that of all other categories and 1 million consumers by 2022. To reach this goal, Alexandre Bompard spoke about launching an agroecology plan in 2018, capitalizing on local productions, and doubling the number of employees trained in fresh produce.
Moreover, "Carrefour is the leader in the democratization of organic food and wants to move from a turnover of 1.3 billion euros to 5 billion euros by 2022". To this end, Carrefour will generalize areas dedicated to organic food in French stores and expand its ecological range. The group strengthens its online ecological offer by accelerating the development of its Greenweez specialized brand.
Last but not least, Carrefour's own brand products will play a key role in meeting the targets set in this direction, notably through a wider range and greater price attractiveness. "This is one of the priorities of the company's strategy, which justifies duplication of initiatives to create original and high-quality brands." Carrefour makes a profound change, launching a new quality policy that involves in particular the scrutiny of controls and the rapid elimination of all controversial substances”. According to estimates, by 2022, Carrefour should achieve one-third of sales through its own branded products.
Carrefour Romania ended 2017 with a turnover of 2.01 billion euros, up by 7.7% from 2016, according to the company's financial report. This is the second largest increase within the group, after the performance of the French in Argentina, where the retailer added 17.6% of like for like sales compared to 2016. At present, Carrefour owns 317 stores in Romania including 33 Carrefour hypermarkets, 231 supermarkets (212 Market stores and 19 Express Orange stores), 42 Express proximity stores, 10 Contact proximity stores and an online store: www.carrefour-online.ro.
