Carrefour Group makes digital push as part of 2022 plan, taps Publicis.Sapient

Carrefour Group is making waves in digital as part of its 2022 strategy. With the new strategy, it hopes to reach €5 billion in organic sales in 2022. It also aims to open 2,000 convenience stores in the next five years in major cities, and push for massive investments in digital of €2.8 billion by 2022.According to the company, "Carrefour 2022" will adopt a customer-centric organisation to better reflect the needs and expectations of its customers. The brand will structure itself more around partnerships, in order to take advantage of innovations and best practices, as well as benefit from the experience of innovative start-ups. It will also be launching a single platform in France this year, Carrefour.fr, and target a €5 billion in turnover in food e-commerce by 2022.As it looks to conquer the Chinese market, it is partnering up with tech giant Tencent to grow its online visibility, increase the traffic of its offline and online retail activities and benefit from Tencent’s digital and technological expertise to develop new smart retail initiatives. Alexandre Bompard, chairman and CEO of the Carrefour Group, said the digital transformation and omni-channel strategy is amongst the group's priorities to become a major international player.Tencent will further develop the retail services offered on its social platforms and promote the use of WeChat, WeChat Pay, cloud computing and other services within the Carrefour ecosystem. The scope of cooperation includes key partnership areas such as cooperation on data, smart retail, mobile payment, in-store experience and data analysis to boost Carrefour China’s customer traffic. According to Bloomberg, the brand is investing €2.8 billion over five years.The company added that the potential acquisition of a stake in Carrefour China by Tencent and the signature of a strategic partnership with Tencent paves the way for opportunities for Carrefour in the country, notably in food e-commerce.To drive Carrefour's e-commerce offer, the brand would also create a "unique business platform" in every country in which the group operates. Publicis.Sapient has been tapped to assist the brand in its e-commerce challenges and deploy an omni-channel system of reference for its customers. Following the appointment, Publicis.Sapient will work closely alongside the Carrefour teams to share its expertise and implement efficient and durable digital and technology solutions."The trust placed in our talents and expertise by Carrefour Group and Bompard is a tremendous responsibility. To deeply support the extensive strategic and digital transformation of an international player of this stature is a challenge that the know-how of Publicis.Sapient is prepared to meet," Arthur Sadoun, chairman and CEO, Publicis Groupe, said.Unfortunately, its ambitions will see the departure of 2,400 people from the organisation and reduce the number of DIA stores by 273. The group is also looking to cut costs by €2 billion by 2020 on a full-year basis.The cost reduction plan will focus on four main areas:1) The optimisation of direct purchasing: Revamp of product offering by reducing assortments by more than 10%, negotiations at an international level to take advantage of the group’s presence in more than 30 countries.2) The rationalisation of  indirect purchasing: Strict management of expenditure and specifications and policy of systemic renegotiation of historical contracts by dedicated teams at group level.3) The reduction of logistics costs: Greater focus on operational efficiency of supply chain.4) The reduction of structural costs: Simplification of headquarters organisations.