Large Food Retailers Research Articles

The Evolving Organization: An Interview with Jo Colruyt

This interview explores the story behind Colruyt, a Belgian company that over a twenty-five year period evolved from a one-store-enterprise into Belgium's third largest food retail chain. The company is unique on several dimensions -- its managerial structures and business processes were organized from the very start with information technology in mind. Mr. Jo Colruyt, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of NV Colruyt, presided over the evolution of his original one-store enterprise into a highly profitable food retail chain currently comprising some one hundred twenty stores located throughout Belgium. During this interview Mr. Colruyt, Chairman of the company's Supervisory Board, returns time and again to a single dominant idea - the use of information-technology-based communication to create new possibilities, new organizational structures, new relationships among the firm, and its employees, customers, and suppliers, and to bridge culture differences. The company's success is particularly noteworthy considering local business conditions - stringent and wide-ranging governmental regulations, domination of the retailing industry by well-established large food retailers, paper-thin profit margins, strict hierarchical managerial structures, and worker representation by unions of diverging ideological persuasions with extensive influence at the local and national levels of government. The interview should be of interest to managers and academics who practice or study global business and business process reengineering. The interview was conducted in Mr. Colruyt's office at Colruyt's headquarters in Halle, Belgium by Marius Janson and Tharsi Taillieu. Janson: As you contrast the N.V. Colruyt with other companies, what stands out? How does the N.V. Colruyt differ from other companies? Colruyt: Well, first of all, we opened the first discount store in 1965 with the deliberate adoption of information technology. Our thinking - the eventual arrival of large computers is a certainty and we therefore should organize the entire sales function around the computer. Using information technology in all business aspects required corporate structures that were based on a totally new business rationale and this made us different from our competitors who inserted information technology into already existing organizational structures where it then met with serious resistance if not outright hostility. Information technology in 1965 meant an IBM 360-20 in our headquarters and a tabulating machine in the store. Yet, even this primitive technology had important business consequences on employee selection, customer service, and product assortment. First, the employee we needed did not fit the mold of the traditional lady at the store's checkout because that person would be unable to work with the computer. Second, the tabulating machine at the checkout station made it possible to provide the customer a unique service - a detailed description of his or her purchases. Third, relying on information technology excluded certain products from our assortment - even today we do not sell items to which we cannot affix a bar code. Well, again, we were and still are different from our competition because we organized our business around information technology right from the start. Taillieu: We observed [that stores] post unit price information on an item-by-item-basis. The advantage [of informatization] was that Colruyt could post unit pricing some twenty years ahead of the competition. Was this a fortuitous byproduct of informatization? Colruyt: A fortuitous byproduct? Certainly not, it was a deliberate choice! Colruyt has an information-technology-supported contract with the customer - to be less expensive than our competition, under any and all circumstances and on each and every sales item. We maintain a centrally located data base on the pricing policies and promotional campaigns of every competitor located within a twenty-mile radius of each of the one hundred twenty Colruyt stores. …

Using and valuing accounting information : joint decision making between accountants and retail managers

Using accounting information can be complex and difficult because it requires joint decision making between two groups, accountants and line managers, whose different perspectives may interfere with communication and exchange. Interpersonal tension and mistrust may further intensify barriers to problem solving. Deutsch's theory of cooperation and competition was used to examine the interaction between managers and accountants as they made decisions with accounting information. Thirty-three managers from a large food retailer were interviewed on critical incidents. Structural equation and other results support the argument that cooperative goal interdependence induces an open-minded discussion of opposing views. This in turn results in productive decisions and strong relationships which in turn lead to appreciating and valuing the importance of collecting and using accounting and financial information. These relationships seemed to hold across accounting roles. Results were interpreted as suggesting that developing strongly cooperative goals and the skills of constructive controversy can facilitate productive problem solving between accountants and line managers.

Food retailing opportunities in Eastern Europe

Considers the importance of Eastern European markets to Europe’s large food retailers. Describes and evaluates the international retail activity which has already taken place in Eastern Europe and the impact this is having on retail structures in Eastern Europe. Presents the results of a survey: compares senior retail executives’ perceptions of the opportunities which exist in Eastern Europe with their perceptions of other markets. Discusses the developmental role of Western European retailers in Eastern Europe and considers future prospects.

Tesco – Competitive Management Development

Reports on development of a training and development strategy to meet the challenges of the 1990s facing a large food retailer. Starting with discussion groups to identify how First Class service could be achieved, reports on how this resulted in training to meet the needs of people in each store. The development of a competency framework was also essential to support the achievement of critical success factors.

Quality, safety and profit

In 1992, Sainsbury's achieved the distinction of becoming the largest retailer in the UK. Sainsbury's is also the largest food retailer in the UK, with well over 300 stores trading under the J. Sainsbury name and another nine hypermarkets trading under the Savacentre name. The sales of the company as a group demonstrated significant growth in the last seven years rising from just under £3 billion in 1984, to over £8 billion in 1991. Group sales for the year ending March 1992 were £9.2 billion.

Who Does the Marketing in Retailing? A Case Study of Organizational Selling Behaviour in a Large Complex Organization

Explores the marketing process of a large food retailer, based on in‐depth interviews with 106 senior managers. Finds that attitudes towards marketing are conflicting, that the role is diffused into different functional areas within the organization, and that buyers are highly influential within the organization and play a key role. There are two parallel strands in the development of marketing within the organization. One is the growth of a corporate marketing department with responsibility for advertising, the purchase of market research, and corporate image in the marketplace. The lack of current influence of corporate marketing is reflected in the absence of a chief marketing executive (CME) on the main board. The other element is the role of the buyer and the trading departments. The trading department is found to be highly influential. Buying teams are the marketers in the company dealing with product selection, pricing, merchandising and promotion. Effective marketing depends on an integrated organizational effort. This is clearly not the case here. The study methodology sheds new light on the nature of strategic marketing planning in a large, complex organization.

The Subject and Power

The ideas which I would like to discuss here represent neither a theory nor a methodology. I would like to say, first of all, what has been the goal of my work during the last twenty years. It has not been to analyze the phenomena of power, nor to elaborate the foundations of such an analysis. My objective, instead, has been to create a history of the different modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects. My work has dealt with three modes of objectification which transform human beings into subjects. The first is the modes of inquiry which try to give themselves the status of sciences; for example, the objectivizing of the speaking subject in grammaire generale, philology, and linguistics. Or again, in this first mode, the objectivizing of the productive subject, the subject who labors, in the analysis of wealth and of economics. Or, a third example, the objectivizing of the sheer fact of being alive in natural history or biology. In the second part of my work, I have studied the objectivizing of the subject in what I shall call "dividing practices." The subject is either

The Food Industry and the Food Commission Report

T HERE is no monolithic food industry which is capable of formulating a composite appraisal of the work of the National Commission on Food Marketing. The food industry is retail, wholesale, cooperative, brokers, manufacturers, producers, and I obviously don't speak for all the industry. My comments come from my perspective as an employee of one of the large food retailers and as a lawyer somewhat familiar with antitrust and trade regulation law and policies. Let me say at the outset that there is disappointment with the majority report of the National Commission on Food Marketing. We are favorably impressed by the two very strong minority reports of six Commission members. We have reason to believe that the technical papers are generally well done. The Commission staff worked hard. Progress in understanding the industry has been made. But, as the minority report says,