CASE STUDYô 




 

ccCarrefour is one of the largest retailer worldwide. Its international operations are located in

three geographical zones namely: Europe and the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. Inspite

of its number one position in Asia, there are more opportunities for it and can face threats that

are as follows. P
 Strong growth potential in different Asian countries , should focus

on joint ventures and acquisition for more expansion, development of superstore and discount

stores, research and development to better understand different Asian market areas,

restructurization of Carrefour's outlets.

 include: fierce competition, entrance of new and

more retailers like Tesco, Wal-Mart, and Metro, changing consumer tastes and preferences,

economic downturn and political instability, cultural gap and changing governmental policies.

A strategy of an industry or a firm indicates the steps and actions it takes to achieve its

objectives and goals (growth, market share, increased customers & profitability). Carrefour's

business and global strategies are innovation, low-pricing and differentiation strategy, quality

execution, increasing agility, competitiveness. New promotions and discounts every day, one

stop shopping and home delivery service. Carrefour has also built GNX online supply platform

with Oracle and Sears, suppliers and retailers can exchange the information via internet and can

increase the flow of merchandize thus decreasing their administrative costs. Globally it opted

joint ventures and acquisition. Carrefour adapts its stores and products to local tastes.

Carrefour entered in
  retail market through partnership with Makro to establish the

hypermarket concept. It established hypermarkets in commercial parks, whole stores in industrial

areas and also built blue stores in residential areas. Rationale behind these strategies was to

capture big and small accounts and growth increase against its rival Makro. In South Korea, it

did restructurization and modernization of its existing stores, introduced a new feature with the

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creation of cultural centers in two stores in partnership with Korea¶s leading newspapers. In

Thailand it did sales innovation that proved successful, redesigned the fresh product concept to

reproduce the atmosphere merchandising style found in street markets. In Indonesia, Carrefour

merged with promodes. Carrefour adopted low pricing strategy in Indonesia. In 2003,

Carrefour¶s strongest competitor in Malaysia was Tesco. To deal with huge ethnic Chinese

community it introduced a separate non-halal store outside its catchment zone. In Singapore

Carrefour carried out several strategies such as dynamic commercial strategy, monthly income

promotions (French week, Wine fair, Japanese week, and Bicycle week). Contrary to it,

Hongkong did not prove to be a good platform for Carrefour due to existence of fierce

competition and bad Asian crisis. It failed to develop hypermarket concept and gaining

significant market share. In china, Carrefour went for joint venture with Chinese companies.

Carrefour¶s partnership with Lianhua (retailer) helped it to build its leadership in China.

Carrefour went for a low price and cost reduction in Japan, but these strategies failed to work in

Japanese retail market because Carrefour failed to understand the Japanese consumer behavior.

Not all but most of the Asian markets have commonalities in terms of business strategies,

economic conditions that can provide a foundation for a regionally integrated strategy.

As the industry competition is becoming intense day by day, so in this situation Carrefour should

look forward towards transnational strategy. Though transnational strategy is difficult to

implement and is a challenging task for the organizations but it can benefit Carrefour in a

number of ways. By adopting transnational strategy, Carrefour can adapt the local markets very

easily, can achieve economies of scale. This strategy has the ability to locate activities in optimal

locations. Thus by implementing transnational strategy Carrefour can combine the benefits of

global-scale efficiencies with the benefits of local responsiveness.

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