Analysis of the main organizational changes in Carrefour and the role of Informational Technology in this organizational change process

Résumé du document

Contrary to their considerable growth in terms of number and value, the operations of mergers and acquisitions reveals, for more than one operation out of two, a failure from the economic and organizational point of view (McKinsey 2000; Mercer Consulting 2001, 2003). The insufficiency of the reasons presented to explain the failures of mergers and acquisitions were largely recognized. The strategic complementarity, although necessary, is not sufficient to carry out expected synergies of such an operation. The human, cultural and informational aspects from now on are used more and more to explain the results (Schweiger & Walsh 1990). It is established today that a great part of the failures is explained by integration difficulties of the methods, management processes and information systems. Thus, the integration stage, once acquisition or merger has been officialised, is the genuine key of success of the operation (Haspelagh and Jemison 1991).

Extraits

[...] So, exchanges and the information flows were simplified at the international level. Carrefour and Promodes had various information systems so, it was essential for the new group to unify them. Indeed, the two systems have not been harmonized immediately after the merger, the problems of out of stock, delivery problems that have forced Carrefour to reorganize urgently its business processes. So, the areas that have been impacted by the transformation of IS are accounting management, which now has a unique and automated system, and the supply chain thanks to the use of Infolog GE, a software that optimizes the storage in warehouses, plans deliveries and track them. [...]

[...] Carrefour was the first company to launch the concept of hypermarket, an expanded supermarket that offers all kind of goods to enable consumers to make most of their shopping at one store. The concept of Hypermarket became a success. This is the beginning of a revolution in the global retail industry. First of all, a little introduction of the group history is necessary to better understand the strategic and organizational changes over the years. Then we will describe the organizational changes that have been performed with this merger. In a last part, we are going to discuss about information systems integration within the new group. [...]

[...] The new Carrefour The merger of the Carrefour and Continent hypermarkets in France took 5 months through a main company project. About 30,000 employees were in charge of this project; they compared all references in order to determine the best process to adopt for the common system. The merger of the Stock and Champion supermarkets was completed in the last quarter of the year 2000. The result is a mix of both Stock stores and Champion franchises under the unique name of Champion. [...]

[...] In 1963, Carrefour invented the hypermarket concept with a new store in Saint-Geneviève-des- Bois (France). This hypermarket offers both food and non-food item and has a floor area of 2500 sq .m. In 1969, Carrefour goes abroad by opening a store in Belgium while Promodes adopts the “Champion” brand name. In the early seventies, Carrefour shares are listed on the Paris stock exchange. Promodes adopts many banner names such as (convenience stores), “Continent” and à Huit”. Carrefour continued its expansion abroad in Spain with Pryca and in Brazil. [...]

[...] They also set up a system named "Startrac" to ensure the traceability of flows from the supplier to the point of sale. Lastly, Carrefour developed a platform with the Sears group called GlobalNetXchange. This new platform enabled costs reduction of supplies. The installation of a decisional information system: Carrefour had established the development of consumer loyalty as a new priority. They replaced the Pass card card launched by Carrefour in 1981), which was only centered on the financial services, by the Iris chart. This new card records all the operations of its holders in order to use the results marketing purposes. [...]