Essay About Largest Supermarket Chain And Main Points

Carrefour Business Proposal
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Client (Company): Carrefour
Chosen target country: Norway
Product/ Service: The Carrefour group has four major formats of stores:
supermarkets, hypermarkets, and both convenience and cash & carry stores.
Which goods and services are sold depends on the format and the customer
needs and local conditions of each market. There is no golden rule for
companies like Carrefour that every format fits in every area.
Number of Pages: 28
Team Members:
Name Country Did not Participate
James Malzi USA
Alan Dods Ghana
Andrew Filar USA
Fabricio Lopez Equador
Liu Bizhu China
Marc Andres Lithuania
Executive Summary
Todays third largest supermarket chain is the French company known as Carrefour.
Carrefour is a growing company that specializes in Hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience
stores and cash and carry stores. It is ever expanding and looking for emerging markets to
enter. As a group we examined what country would be profitable and successful to enter into
their marketplace.
After research and examination of many factors, Norway was chosen as the country of
choice. 10 main points were examined including the organization itself, product or service
that is being offered, Market Opportunity Analysis, basic characteristics of Norway, overall
economic environment, political and legal environment, including government, cultural
aspects of Norway, how we would approach entering the market, staffing needs, and
marketing strategy. Each point will be discussed in length of Carrefours plans to enter
Norway.
The Organization
One of the most popular French global players in the world is Carrefour. The
Carrefour group has over 9.500 stores in 4 continents. The sales inclusive tax under banners
was more than 102.000 billion Euros in 2011. 410.000 employees in over 30 countries spread
across Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa are currently acting for Carrefour1.
The story of success has started in 1959 where the idea of a retailer company was
created by both Fournier and Defforey families2. In 1960 the company opened its first market
in France. Three years later both families developed a new kind of supermarket, where not
only food was sold but also convenience necessities. From day one of its history Carrefour
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was interested in emerging markets and new ways of selling their goods to customers. As a
result they started to enter the Spanish and Brazilian market in the early 1970s.
Simultaneously Carrefour invented the convenience store and the hypermarket concept. The
company has been the pioneer in respect of the hypermarkets. Common supermarkets at this
time were usually small with narrow rows and mostly not leaded by big companies. It was
Carrefour which thought that its time for a change in this sector. As a result they built huge
shops with a lot of space for goods and customers. The next big goal in matter of entering
new markets was the Taiwan market where they opened their first hypermarket in Asia in
1989. In 1999 Carrefour and Promodés – at this time the two biggest retailer in Francemerged
together to create the largest European food retailing group.
Nowadays the Carrefour group is headed by CEO Georges Plassat and still the largest
retailer in Europe and it has grown to become the second-largest retailer in the world. 4 major
store formats have stood the test of time – hypermarkets, supermarkets, and both convenience
and cash & carry stores3.
The main competitors are either domestic companies of the particular markets where
they are performing or other global players like Wal-Mart, Aldi or Tesco. Wal-Mart for
example is the worlds largest retailer in the world and of course there is a bitter struggle
between these two global players – always searching for new markets and future possibilities
to sell their goods and services.
Strength of the firm is the long experience with hypermarkets – both customer needs
and satisfaction included. The idea of selling a huge amount of goods in one store is an
appropriate way to satisfy the consumer needs for saving time and purchase everything in one
shop. Another strength but also a weakness, is their size. On the one hand their supply chain
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is big enough to handle the distribution of goods and services all over the world. But on the
other hand, due to the large scale Carrefour has to perform obligations for customers and