Carrefour vs. Wal-mart: The Battle for Global Retail Dominance
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Carrefour vs. Wal-mart:
The Battle for Global Retail Dominance
“La Commission Européenne autorise la fusion CARREFOUR-PROMODES qui donne
naissance au 2éme distributeur mondial.”1 The words virtually screamed across the screen
of Carrefour’s webpage on January 25, 2000 as the European Commission finally ruled on
Carrefour’s friendly US$16.6 billion takeover bid for its rival Promodes.
Only one year after winning the Soccer World Cup, France was offering Europe another
champion. With around 9,000 stores in 21 countries and combined net sales of US$49.2
billion, the new Carrefour was Europe’s top retailer, vaulting over Germany’s Metro AG,
the continent’s former number one (Exhibit 1 provides a list of the top European retailers).
The bid took analysts by surprise as Carrefour and Promodes, the fifth and seventh largest
European retailers respectively, were better known for their long history of vigorous rivalry.
The deal was seen by many as a defensive move by the French retailing establishment after
the world’s largest retailer, Wal-mart, boosted its presence in Europe with a US$10 billion
take-over of Britain’s ASDA in June 1999 (Exhibit 2 provides a brief description of world’s
top grocery retailers). The marriage was clearly an externally driven affair. “I am convinced
that if we had not moved, somebody else would have it done for us,” declared Luc
Vandevelde, Promodes’ CEO.
Wal-mart discretely entered the European market in 1997 through the acquisition of 21
warehouses from the German chain Wertkauf GmbH. In 1998 it acquired a further 74
warehouses from Spar Handels AG. But it was only after the acquisition of ASDA that
French retailers took the American threat seriously. When Wal-mart started approaching
top French retailers looking about for potential acquisition opportunities, including,
interestingly, both Carrefour and Promodes, French retailers soon began to recognize that
their world had changed dramatically and they needed to adjust their strategies accordingly
and quickly.
This case was written by Alexandre Holtreman, MBA, under the supervision of Professor Timothy
Devinney, as a basis for class discussion and not for the purpose of illustrating either the good or bad
handling of a specific management situation.
© 2000 by the Australian Graduate School of Management.
1
“European Commission clears the merger of CARREFOUR and PROMODES to create the world’s second
largest retailer.”
1Faced with the potential threat of a hostile take-over from Wal-mart, the two rival
French chains decided that a joint effort was their best defense. Apart from reinforcing
their defensive position in Europe, the merger widened Carrefour’s impressive lead in
several Latin American and Asian countries as well. Together, the two companies
generally held first or second position in all the markets where they were present.
Some of these markets, like South America, were already facing direct competition
from Wal-mart (Exhibit 3 provides a summary of Carrefour’s and Wal-mart’s
geographic distribution of stores). Also, the skill mix of the two firms was
complementary. Promodes brought to the union a reputation for solid inventory and
distribution systems, an area where Carrefour had long lagged behind Wal-mart.
Carrefour was looked upon as a customer-retailing innovator, an area where Promodes
was generally weaker and Wal-mart had near legendary status.
Carrefour was set to challenge Wal-mart around the globe. “We’re creating a world-
wide retail leader,” said Carrefour’s CEO Daniel Bernard. In its approach to the
European market Wal-mart knew it faced fierce competition from local players.
However, it could never predict that because of its own actions it set about creating its
most feared competitor ever and had done so on a global scale. A war of titans was
about to take place.
The Discount Retailing Industry
The discount retail industry emerged in the United States in the mid-1950s.
Americans, accustomed to the supermarket concept and better informed, as
manufacturers intensified TV advertising after World War II, took the concept of self-
service to heart. The basic discount concept relied on charging gross margins that
were 10 to 15 percent lower than those found in department stores for general
merchandise. To ensure profitability with the lower margins, operational selling costs
were kept to a minimum: fixtures were distinctly unluxurious, in-store selling was
limited, and ancillary services, such as credit and delivery, were scarce.
The growth of the industry was nothing short of spectacular. In the United States, the
growth into the 1970s cranked ahead at compound annual rates averaging around 25
percent. Such opportunity attracted many players at the local, regional and national
level. Throughout the 1970s the industry continued to grow but at the much slower
rate of 9 percent per annum. By the 1980s this had slowed further to around 7 percent
per year. As the competitive landscape filled up, the industry players were under
intensifying pressure to push costs down, increase store-selling areas and widen their
market coverage. This led to a flurry of mergers and acquisitions aimed at increasing
profit from the scale economies resulting from aggregated purchase power and the
spreading of operational fixed costs. Between 1986 and 1993 concentration increased
substantially, with the top 5 retailers accounting for 62 percent of the sales in 1986 and
72 percent in 1993.
2In Europe the discount industry concept lagged American developments. Carrefour
invented the “hypermarket”2 concept in the early 1960s, with many players following in
its footsteps by increasing the surface area of their existing supermarket chains and
diversifying into non-food items. Due to the fragmentation of the European market and
the lower liquidity of its capital markets, the concentration of European retailers was
much lower than in the US. As late as 1998, the top 5 retailers accounted for only 20
percent of the total of the market with the top 20 holding only 51 percent of the
market.
The smaller size of the individual European markets drove discount players to move
abroad as early as the beginning of the 1970s. To succeed and grow in this
environment, European players had to adapt their operations to different cultures, and
this naturally led to a more decentralized approach to the business. Furthermore,
although Europe, in total, was the biggest retail market in the world, the lower levels
of concentrations and the decentralization of European players made it difficult for
them to achieve the same level of benefit from economies of scale as their American
counterparts.
As the discount retail industry developed, the formats found operating became more
structured. Nowadays, the market has coalesced into five formats worldwide:
hypermarkets, discount department stores, hard discounts, category killers and
warehouse clubs and cash & carry.
Hypermarkets are identified by their size and product mix. They range in sales area
from 5,000 sq .mt. (55,000 sq. ft.) to 15,000 sq. mt. (165,000 sq. ft.) and possess a
50/50 split between food and non-food products. In both general categories the
assortment is large—in terms of the number of product categories one can find—and
deep—in terms of the number of the brands within any specific category.
Hypermarkets are fresh product oriented and this is considered to be one of its sources
of differentiation that generates client loyalty. The atmosphere is one of cleanliness
with sophisticated presentation and customer oriented merchandise. The service is
considered the best amongst the four formats and the promotional effort is very high,
with promotions focused, in the majority, on food segment products.
The discount department store format is similar to the hypermarket. It can be
distinguished by a 30 percent space allocation to the food products (with a
consequential lower depth in each food category assortment); a no-frills atmosphere;
lower service levels (identical to that of a category killer but superior to that found in
warehouses clubs and cash & carries); and an every-day-low-price policy. Promotions
rarely number more than one a month equally split between food and non-food
categories.
2
According to the Libre Service Actualites, a hypermarket could be physically distinguished by a
sales area of at least 27,000 sq. ft., a large variety of food and general merchandise, self-service and
payment at central checkouts, and a car park with a minimum capacity of 1,000 vehicles.
Furthermore, hypermarkets operate on lower unit margins, are built on cheaper land and have lower
operating expenses per unit sold than a traditional supermarket.
3Hard discounting is a concept initiated in Germany in the early 1960s, aimed at
achieving the lowest possible costs. Hard discount stores are characterized by a sales
area ranging from 500 sq. mt. (5,500 sq. ft.) to 1,000 sq.mt. (11,000 sq. ft.). They sell
a limited food assortment offering only one size of one product per category of
product. Private labels represent 85 percent of the assortment and, for each category,
clients will find either the private label product or the national brand product, but not
both. As a result of assortment simplification, hard discount operations have between
500 to 1,000 SKUs (compared to an average of 30,000 SKUs in a hypermarket).
Contrary to other formats goods are served from palettes. Not a cent is wasted on
service with shoppers having to pay for shopping bags and payments are only acceped
in cash. The resulting concept allows hard discounters to sell goods at 30 percent
below nationally branded products.
Category killers are operationally very similar to discount department stores but focus
in a single category (e.g., Toys ‘R’ Us in the toys category). Category killers offer the
widest and deepest range of products within the category. Normally they do not offer a
significant price advantage, but do offer enough so as not to lose clients to other
discounters. Their broad product offerings at competitive prices are possible through
logistical and operational specialization and by favorable terms with suppliers.
Warehouse clubs and cash & carries are very similar concepts but they do possess
slight differences. Cash & carries allocate more space to food departments and,
consequently, the depth of the food assortment is superior. About 70 percent of their
promotional efforts focus on food items. Both formats are business oriented (normally
through membership cards) and can be differentiated from the other formats through
their lower level of service and lower prices.
The Companies
Carrefour
The second largest retailer in the world after Wal-mart, Carrefour had humble
beginnings. The first store, a 650 sq. mt. (7,000 sq. ft) basement operation in a
Fournier department store in Annecy, France, was opened by Marcel Fournier and
Louis Defforey in the summer of 1960. This was followed quite quickly by the first
Carrefour “hypermarket”, which was established at the intersection of five roads
(Carrefour means “crossroads”) in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois outside Paris. The store
was a first of its kind; it covered 2,500 sq. mt. (27,000 sq. ft.) and provided parking for
450 cars. It was an initial test of the one-stop shop formula where consumers could get
almost all of their shopping needs satisfied at one location. The store provided self-
service grocery shopping at discount prices and stocked items such as clothing,
sporting equipment, auto accessories, and consumer electronics.
French consumers were enthusiastic in their acceptance of the Carrefour hypermarket
concept and the company grew rapidly. Between 1965 and 1971, sales growth
exceeded 50 percent per annum with non-food items accounting for about 40 percent
of the total volume. Starting in 1970, Carrefour opened the first of its “commercial
centers”, colossal operations with piling areas as large as 25,000 sq. mt. (270,000 sq.
ft.). By the end of 1971, the company was operating 16 wholly owned stores, had an
equity interest in 5 stores operated as joint ventures, and had franchise agreements with
7 additional stores.
4With a move into Belgium in 1969, Carrefour began its internationalization and by
1999, after the merger with Promodes, it had 681 hypermarkets, 2,259 supermarkets,
3,124 hard discount stores, and 1,921 convenience stores and other formats selling
under its banner. The stores were located mostly in France but also throughout
Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
The Hypermarket Concept and Strategy
The hypermarket concept was invented by Carrefour. Carrefour’s hypermarkets
averaged 10,034 sq. mt. (108,000 sq. ft.) and were usually located within a commercial
center. The firm’s location strategy was to place stores outside towns in areas where
highways provided easy access and land could be acquired inexpensively. The company
also favored simple facility construction. This gave it a total investment per square
meter of selling space in a fully equipped store equal to about one-third that of
traditional supermarkets and department stores.
The high degree of consumer acceptance that fuelled Carrefour’s growth stemmed, in
large part, from factors such as convenience and price. Almost any product a consumer
could think of purchasing more than once a year could be bought at a Carrefour store.
The company even operated discount gasoline outlets at many stores. Indeed,
Carrefour operated 5 of the 10 largest volume gasoline stations in France.
Although convenience was undoubtedly a strong factor in Carrefour’s growth, so too
was price. Carrefour’s prices averaged 5 to 10 percentage points under those of
retailers in traditional outlets. Gross margins on food and non-food products differed
somewhat, but Carrefour operated on an average gross margin of about 15 percent,
which, in 1998, translated into a 4.5 percent operating margin after SG&A (Exhibit 4
provides a financial summary of Carrefour).
As competitors picked up the concept, Carrefour felt the need to differentiate itself and
to better respond to client needs. Differentiation for Carrefour meant developing a
local products purchasing base and selling private labels. Purchasing locally was one of
the Carrefour’s key strategies, both in France and internationally. This was seen as a
way to please local authorities and to meet local customers needs. Buying locally
supported Carrefour’s specialization strategy, which aimed to position it as the leader
in every fresh product department (butchery, bakery, delicatessen, etc.)
Private labels provided customers with a value-for-money offer over national brand
products. The private label program was started in 1976, and by 1993 Carrefour
offered almost 4,300 lines of its own branded products. This line was so extensive that
in some countries there were only Carrefour products in certain categories. The
proposition was a good one for consumers since technical quality was equivalent to
national brand products and the prices normally ranged between 15 to 35 percent
lower than that of national brands. Although Carrefour’s overall pricing was heavily
promotional, with frequent sales and special discounts supported by weekly circulars,
its private label offering had a fixed price all year round.
To further increase its responsiveness to local needs, Carrefour decentralized
management. Each store manager operated a store with almost complete freedom in
5decision making. One Carrefour store manager (who incidentally was paid FF12,000
per month versus FF2,500 two years earlier when he was a store manager in a smaller
competing supermarket chain) made the following comment: “My previous job was
demoralizing. It took a month to get authorization to buy something for the store that
cost FF14. Now I am free to make all of my own decisions. I can hire 10 people, buy a
new refrigeration unit, or hire a band for a parking lot festival.”
The decentralized operations were later recognized as a key success factor underlying
Carrefour’s national and international achievements. The ability to react to local
conditions had enabled the stores to thrive in such diverse locations as Taiwan and
Argentina, and in erratic economic circumstances, like the hyperinflationary period in
Brazil.
Headquarters and Control
Initially, Carrefour was divided into two levels, headquarters and stores. The head
office in Paris contained the “Direction Général”, which dealt with long-term strategy
and policy, financial and technical matters, and provided advice when requested. It also
acted as a source of “intellectual capital” in terms of information and experience. One
of major responsibilities of the headquarters was the selection of new store locations.
As the complexity of controlling the stores’ marketing efforts and integrating the
company image and operations as a whole, while keeping a decentralized structure,
increased more levels of control were added over the years. For example, for a country
like Spain or France, each store would report to a regional headquarters, which would
then report to the national headquarters and this national headquarters would then
report to the European officer. The European officer jointly with other world region
officers and the CEO would constitute the Executive Committee in charge of managing
Carrefour’s operations globally. Initially this committee was physically located in Paris
at Carrefour’s global headquarters, but after 1998 each world region officer was
deployed to live in the region s/he was managing. (Exhibit 5 provides a structure of
Carrefour officers and Exhibit 6 provides operational indicators by division.)
The financial control function was held at the regional headquarter level, although a
great degree of freedom was given to store managers in terms of formulating forecasts.
Forecasts were prepared at the department level in each store and would include both
sales and margins. These were then negotiated with the store manager and, when an
agreement was reached, the forecast was sent to the headquarters’ controller (normally
before mid-December). The controller, jointly with the store managers in the region,
would then vet the forecasts for consistency with previous performance, company
strategy and the expectations developed from similar forecasts from other stores. The
store manager had the final word on the forecast.
Store managers were judged on whether they met their forecasts and on profit
performance. Individual store’s monthly performance figures were often used for
benchmarking and were then sent to all store managers and department heads so they
could compare their performance with other stores. Store managers in the same region
met regularly to discuss budgets and share information and experiences. Store
managers were not paid based on reaching precise results but “good” performance was
rewarded with pay increases and promotions. Due to the subjectivity of these
6performance measures, a store manager in a good region sometimes had faster career
development then a store manager in a bad region, but a store manager unwilling to
manage a store in a bad region would be seen as not “sharing the Carrefour spirit”.
Store Operations
Store managers and department heads were the key people in the stores. The store
manager and his/her department heads had nearly total responsibility and control over
their store. The store manager allocated the area for each department within the store
and was in charge of general advertising and decoration policies for the store. Jointly
with department heads, s/he would decide on the product mix and make sure that all
departments presented coherent positioning. Each department was a profit center, with
its own targets and income statements. The department head had full responsibility
over purchasing, promotion, pricing and motivating and training his/her assistants.
Department heads decided what they wanted to buy and from where. They would buy
centrally through Carrefour’s central purchasing only when the advantages of mass
purchasing outweighed the advantages of local buying. This meant that the range of
products varied from store to store and that a supplier would (at least initially) have to
negotiate with all the stores in order to guarantee the presence of its products in a
certain region or at a national level. In order to leverage its purchasing power,
Carrefour had, over the years, centralized negotiations with some suppliers at the
headquarters level. With aggregate agreements covering all stores, these suppliers
could be confident of their products’ presence in most all stores, both regionally and
nationally (depending on the arrangement). Nevertheless, for many products local
buying was essential. This was especially the case in areas where regional specialties
and highly perishable products were seen as sources of differentiation. Generally,
product mix varied from store to store and local products could represent up to 30
percent of an individual store’s food sales.
Pricing was the complete responsibility of department heads, both for the products
purchased locally and centrally.3 In order to ensure the veracity of its aggressive
pricing policy Carrefour conducted extensive price scannings of all competitors within
5 minutes driving time of any store. These scannings were done 3 to 4 times a week for
the top 20 percent of products, which accounted for 80 percent of sales, and once a
week for the remaining products. Prices were then set either equal to or below the
competitor’s level. Invariably because of its decentralized pricing system, customers at
four Carrefour stores in a large city could find the same product being offered at four
different prices.
Due to Carrefour’s extreme level of store decentralization support areas that were not
directly under store responsibility, such as IT and logistics, were normally treated as
vendors. Over time this led to under investment and the company’s support services
generally lagged behind the market leaders in terms of efficiency. For example,
department heads would order products centrally without caring about economic order
quantity or any other logistic matter. When it came to IT, managers where fairly
parochial. For their needs only cashier operations and basic information on sales and
3
Centralized purchased products were “sold” to all the stores at a transfer priced set by the headquarters.
This transfer price was used as “their” cost by department heads when their department’s margins were
calculated
7margins were of interest. Communications were distinctly low-tech; any transmission
of information with external partners, including with headquarters, was done through
fax sheets. For example, in the budget process, the same figure could be introduced
into a spreadsheet up to four times at the four different organizational levels (store,
regional, national and international headquarters). As a result, operating and SG&A
expenses amounted to 18 percent of sales when compared with the 16 percent
experienced by Promodes or Wal-mart.
Any person, despite his/her formal education, could potentially become the president of
Carrefour. A typical “Carrefour-man” would start from the bottom of the store level
and work his/her way up through dedication and performance. Although this path has
changed in recent years, Carrefour promoted managers internally, hiring from the
outside only when the skills needed could not be found in-house. On-the-job-training
was applied to all the levels in the store. All managers and department heads were
trained in existing stores for at least a year. A prospective store manager would move
through all the departments of the store, and if they were appointed to a new store,
they would be on-site at the beginning of the construction. Each level in Carrefour was
responsible for training and developing the level below.
Model of Expansion: Joint Ventures and Franchises
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Carrefour’s rapid growth was made
possible by the fact that the firm had been able to get two new construction permits per
year. As more firms entered the discount retail market, the competition for permits
became more fierce as many firms and individuals fought for authorization to build in
attractive locations.
In the late 1960s, in order to achieve a more rapid pace of expansion than the firm
could achieve if it were limited to two new stores per year, Carrefour offered to share
its retailing know-how, trademark, and consumer goodwill with potential partners both
in France and elsewhere in Europe; either in exchange for an ownership interest in
stores under construction or franchise fees. Carrefour’s ownership interests in joint
ventures ranged from 10 percent to 80 percent. Under a typical franchise arrangement,
Carrefour received 0.2 percent of total store sales and its central buying office for non-
food products (SAMOD an 89 percent owned subsidiary of Carrefour) received 1
percent of a store’s sales of non-food items. Franchisees were required to use a control
system similar to Carrefour’s and to submit their forecasts and results to Carrefour’s
controller.
Because of increasing competition between Carrefour’s wholly owned stores and its
franchised stores and the failure of some franchisees to operate according to the strict
company policies, all franchise agreements were discontinued in January 1973. These
agreements were either turned into joint ventures or dissolved completely. From that
moment on, joint ventures were the only shared ownership model of expansion used by
Carrefour. As participation in some joint ventures was lower than the legal accounting
consolidation requirement—and hence some of the activity did not appear in the
financial statements—the true expanse of Carrefour’s operations tended to be
underestimated. For example, the firm’s 1999 Annual Report presented sales of
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8worldwide. (Exhibit 7 provides segmentation by region and concept of sales under
Carrefour’s banners.)
Limitations to Growth in Europe
The growth of the hypermarket was not without its political and social consequences.
The hypermarket forced an economic rationalization of the traditional retail sector that
was especially severe for many small shopkeepers. Almost 80,000 of the 203,600 small
retail shops in operation in France in 1961 had disappeared by 1971. These small
shopkeepers represented a significant political force in France and slowing down the
growth of hypermarkets was seen as the way of addressing their concerns. The French
government—and later on nearly every country in Europe—made it difficult to obtain
construction permits to build large new retail stores. This prompted some discount
retailers to offer plans for large commercial centers where space could be leased to as
many as 40 independent shopkeepers. This type of plan allowed small merchants to set
up specialty stores and boutiques and it usually generated some measure of local
merchant support for the issuance of permits.
However, in an attempt to attack the problem in broader terms, the French National
Assembly passed legislation in 1972 to tax retail stores in order to provide pensions for
small shopkeepers who were unable to continue in business. The tax was to be paid by
all retail merchants; the heaviest burden was to be borne by operators of large stores
built after 1962. Carrefour’s tax amounted to roughly 0.15 percent of sales.
International Expansion
The success of Carrefour’s hypermarket concept in France soon drew international
attention as other retailers in other countries sought to learn and duplicate the process.
Carrefour’s international expansion was begun initially through joint venturing with
local partners. These partnerships were seen as the best way of merging the company’s
format and systems with the local knowledge of merchandise preferences, vendor
relationships and human resources possessed by their local partner.
With the French legislation limiting its growth within the country, Carrefour decided to
internationalize its concept and entered Belgium in 1969. As the legislation and
competitiveness became tighter, Carrefour stepped up its international expansion
during the mid-1970s, developing its first operation outside Europe with the opening
of its first hypermarket in Brazil in 1975. By 1985, Carrefour had stores in 10
countries.
Three years later Carrefour decided to export its hypermarkets to the US by opening a
31,000 sq. mt. (330,000 sq. ft.) store in suburban Philadelphia. One year later, Asia
the target with Taiwan being its first choice. In the US, wide aisles, clerks on roller
skates and sixty checkout lanes greeted American customers, but few came because of
scant advertising and limited selection. Competitors cut prices and a local labor union
picketed over wages, benefits, and work rules, eventually reaching a settlement several
lawsuits later. In 1993, a year after opening a second store in New Jersey, Carrefour
closed both US hypermarkets and exited the market.
Regardless of the bad experience in the US, amongst Carrefour managers, the
Taiwanese experience was considered the most challenging in terms of adaptability to
9local needs. The ability to react to local conditions was long seen as the key success
factor in Carrefour’s international accomplishments to date. Appendix A describes the
major issues the management faced in developing the Taiwanese operation.
By 1995 Carrefour had more stores internationally than it did in France, and by the end
of 1999 it was the most international retailer in the world with operations in 21
countries around the globe.
Wal-mart
Wal-mart was founded by Sam Walton and his brother, James “Bud” Walton, in 1962.
The Walton boys revolutionized discount retailing, with the result that by 1989 Wal-
mart was the world’s largest retailer. The Walton’s proposition was simple, deliver a
wide array of merchandise at discount prices topped up by a friendly service. By 1998,
it was servicing more than 100 million customers weekly and had a sales volume of
US$138 billion with an overall operating margin of 5.8 percent (Exhibit 8 provides a
financial summary of Wal-mart Stores, Inc.).
The Walton brothers opened their first Wal-mart Discount City store in Rogers,
Arkansas, after Ben Franklin management—the Walton’s operated a number of
franchised stores from the chain—rejected a suggestion to open discount stores in
small towns. The Discount City store concept consisted of servicing small and middle-
sized towns at prices equal to or lower than prices in nearby cities. In 1972 Sam
Walton took the 30 existing stores public using the proceeds of the offering to build a
warehouse that allowed him to buy large volumes of merchandise at lower prices. Due
to the strategy of covering small towns, virtually ignored by other competitors, the
expansion progressed rapidly without any substantive direct competition until the mid
1980s. However, by 1993, Wal-mart was in 47 states and its expansion led to
competition with Kmart, Target, Sears and J.C. Penney, for which the established
players were ill prepared.
In the 1990s the company moved beyond its rural expansion strategy and began
diversifying into grocery operations (Wal-Mart Supercenters), membership warehouse
clubs (SAM’S Clubs) and deep discount warehouse outlets (Bud’s Discount City). By
this time the company also felt it was now prepared for forays outside the United
States.
Sam Walton led the company until 1988, being a powerful CEO whose philosophy
drove every aspect of the business. He believed in empowering yet controlling
employees, maintaining Wal-mart’s costs and prices below everybody else’s, and aimed
at logistics excellence by maintaining technological superiority.
Empowering Employees
By 1998 Wal-mart was the largest private employer in the US, employing 910,000
associates (employees in Wal-mart terminology). Associates were given responsibility,
recognition and a share of the profits and were expected to be totally committed to the
company and its success. “As Wal-mart associates we know it is not good enough to
simply be grateful to our customers for shopping in our stores—we want to
demonstrate our gratitude in every way we can! We believe that doing so is what keeps
our customers coming back to Wal-mart again and again.” Wal-mart associates strove
10to provide exceptional customer service and everything possible was done to make
shopping at Wal-mart a friendly experience.
Associates were well rewarded for their commitment and dedication. Sam Walton
believed that taking care of his associates—in terms of moral and motivational boosts
in addition to financial rewards—was the first and most fundamental step to taking
care of his customers. Wal-mart was the living embodiment of Sam Walton—it
operated in a fun, unpredictable and interesting sort of way. Financially, managers,
supervisors and store personnel with over one year of employment had incentive
compensations or bonuses based on store profits and were offered stock ownership.
To give associates at all levels a perspective of the total business, training was
extensive and located away from the home office. New associates shared in the
experience and culture of Wal-mart by being trained by assistant managers from other
stores, and store managers received training in the distribution centers to get an
understanding of the internal workings of the distribution network. Suggestion
programs were taken seriously and were not only a good way to involve associates in
the business but were also estimated to be responsible for an annual savings of up to 2
percent of net sales. The typical management team member was a middle-aged
executive who worked in Wal-mart since high school or college.
In 1988, David Glass was named CEO and President. Glass started as executive VP of
finance in 1976 and was known to be as frugal as Sam Walton himself. Like all the
regional VPs, buyers and corporate officers, he spent two to three days a week visiting
stores. Wal-mart did not operate regional offices; instead it owned a fleet of aircraft
and centralized regional VP weekly meetings in the main headquarters. Every Friday
morning, at the weekly merchandise meeting, store and individual product sales were
discussed and, on Saturday morning, management, associates, friends and relatives
participated in an informal information-sharing motivation session. By Monday
decisions taken over the weekend were implemented throughout the stores.
“Everyday-Low-Prices”
Sam Walton’s obsession with keeping prices below competitors led him to check his
and the competition’s stores thoroughly, counting the number of cars in the car park
and going so far as to taking a tape measure and evaluating shelf space. He looked out
for good ideas and was not afraid to copy them. This attitude assured that “Everyday-
low-prices” was a genuine strategy and not just a slogan. Wal-mart offered brand name
products at prices consistently lower—approximately 2–4 percent—than those found
at department or specialty stores.
The everyday-low-price strategy implied that there were few promotions. Although
other major competitors, including Carrefour, typically ran 50 to 100 advertised
circulars per year—spending 2.1 percent of discount store sales on advertising—Wal-
Mart produced only 12–13 major circulars per year—spending 1.5 percent of sales.
Because retail competition was mainly local, the everyday-low-price guarantee
required that each store manager set his/her own prices. They also were responsible for
product offerings and shelf space allocation decisions, all of which were based on
market specific inventory and sales data supplied by advanced information systems. A
11study done in the mid 1980s showed that Wal-mart’s prices were 1 percent lower than
Kmart’s when the two stores were located next to each other and were 6 percent
higher when Wal-mart operated with no Kmart nearby.
Technological Superiority
Technological superiority was seen as a competitive advantage by Wal-mart.
Technology was used not only in setting price and product offerings, but also in areas
such as communication, distribution and the control of supplier relations. Wal-mart’s
information systems expense was estimated to be 1.5 percent of sales compared with
1.3 percent for its direct US competitors.
Wal-mart operated a satellite system that enabled communication and electronic
scanning throughout the store, supplier and distributor networks. The satellite system
allowed requests for merchandise at the point of sale to be transmitted to the
headquarters or to a supplier’s distribution centers instantly. For the most part,
distribution was centralized in Wal-mart’s distribution centers and a system known as
cross-docking4 was used to reduce handling and inventory costs. A study in 1993
estimated Wal-mart’s inbound logistic costs at 3.7 percent of store sales compared
with 4.8 percent for its direct US competitors. Wal-mart’s truck fleet delivered to
stores 24 hours a day and picked up merchandise from suppliers on return trips running
at a sixty percent capacity on backhaul.
To even better manage the supply chain, Wal-mart’s relation with its 3,600 suppliers
was enhanced by an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) system. By the late 1980s key
suppliers were already directly managing Wal-mart’s merchandise inventory. All Wal-
mart’s suppliers received a planning packet with information about the specific
department with which the vendor was dealing as well as Wal-mart’s expectations
from the relationship. Vendor negotiations were centralized and were done in
undecorated standard interviewing rooms. Wal-mart restricted its suppliers to
companies who limited the workweek to sixty hours, provided safe working conditions
and did not employ child labor. No single supplier was expected to account for more
than three percent of the company’s purchases.
Wal-mart was organized into three operating divisions: Wal-mart store division,
SAM’s Club (membership warehouse club), and the international division. The Wal-
mart store division included discount stores (the initial Wal-mart format selling general
merchandise) and supercenters (a combination discount store and supermarket).
(Exhibit 9 provides a structure of Wal-mart officers and Exhibit 10 provides
operational indicators by division for Wal-mart.)
Discount Stores
The discount store phenomenon emerged in the 1950s as the low price alternative to
supermarkets. In order to survive on gross margins that were 10–15 percent below
4
Cross-docking is a method of order replenishment. The supplier picks and palletises for each store
and delivers to the cross-dock facility. The cross-dock facility receives and unloads shipments and
sorts and stages pallets for each store, shipping them when the cut-off point (eg: one full truck) is
reached. An overview of the Wal-mart system can be found in “Competing on Capabilities: The New
Rules of Corporate Strategy”, by George Stalk, Philip Evans, Lawrence E. Shulman, Harvard
Business Review, March/April 1992, 57–69.
12standard retailers’, discount stores cut all possible costs. Frills were non-existent,
ancillary services were unknown and in-store selling was limited. Wal-mart’s discount
stores were no exception in this area. To assure customer satisfaction Wal-mart relied
on the human touch in caring for the customer, like having “people greeters” welcome
customers into the shop.
Wal-Mart stores offered shopping in several departments including family apparel,
health and beauty aids, household needs, electronics, toys, fabrics and crafts, lawn and
garden, jewelry and shoes. Although Wal-mart bet on offering brand name products it
also sold private labels in apparel (25 percent of the product offerings were private
labeled), health and beauty care, dog food, among others. The company also offered a
premium quality private label line under the “Sam’s Choice” brand with a 26 percent
price advantage over comparable branded products. Inventory in stores was kept at a
minimum representing ten percent of store space; the traditional US retailers used 25
percent of their space for inventory. A typical facility covered 100,000 sq. ft. of floor
space and, from the 1980s, stores were constructed only in areas where they could be
expanded (after 1992 nearly 90 percent of the expanded discount stores were
transformed into supercenters).
Supercenters
In 1987, the first Wal-mart Supercenter was opened. Interestingly, Wal-mart, watching
the entry of French companies into the US, also tested its own variant of the
hypermarket concept. Later, as the French threat waned and they exited the market,
this was abandoned in favor of smaller supercenters. A Wal-mart Supercenter provided
one-stop family shopping convenience. The store combined a full line of groceries and
a general merchandise department store under one roof.
Supercenters were designed to save customers time and money by joining grocery
shopping with specialty services like bakeries, delis, photo labs and hair salons—
everything a shopper could dream of in 120,000 to 130,000 sq. ft. These specialty and
convenience shops had two great advantages: they attracted customers and offered
margins of 35 to 45 percent—quite a benefit when basic food retailing was known to
give very low margins (the industry average in 1992 was two percent). Kmart bought
into the concept in the early 1990s and Target in 1995.
SAM’s Clubs
In 1983, Wal-mart opened three Sam’s Warehouse Clubs. Warehouse clubs supplied
members with brand name merchandise at warehouse prices for personal use or resale.
Being dependent on high volume to compensate for the narrow profit margins, they
limited the number of SKUs sold and offered institutional or multi pack sizes. SAM’s
Clubs were not felt to be competing with Wal-mart’s discount stores directly and were
run by a completely different management group.
In the early 1990s, as SAM’s Club’s competitors chose to grow by filling in the gaps in
their existing markets rather then by entering new ones, its management chose a bold
defensive move. Rather than giving competitors any openings into the concept space,
SAM’s Club’s management purposely chose to cannibalize their own sales by opening
additional SAM’s Clubs in many markets. This situation created over capacity in the
market triggering consolidation and a decrease of comparable stores sales for the first
13time. But the strategy appeared to have the desired effect. In 1993 SAM’s Clubs
acquired The Wholesale Club and Kmart’s Pace Clubs, managing to keep its dominant
position in the warehouse segment of the industry.
International Expansion
Although the early 1990s saw Wal-mart operating more than 2,000 stores worth more
than US$73 billion, the stagnant American economy was making it difficult to sustain
the company’s historic double-digit comparable store sales growth. With limited
domestic options, Wal-mart, for the first time, began to consider expansion outside the
US seriously.
Wal-mart’s first external foray was into Mexico where, in 1991, it formed a partnership
with CIFRA, Mexico’s most successful retailer (CIFRA’s 1997 sales were US$5,267
million). The success of Wal-mart’s Mexican expansion was seen by several analysts as
the result of an improved economic landscape; the promise associated with the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); and familiarity and demand for US
products, as many of the middle class population had relatives living in the US or were
under the influence of the “American-way-of-life”.
Wal-mart’s external efforts in Mexico and the move into Puerto Rico and Argentina in
1992 did little to bolster the company’s fortunes. Sales growth was down again in
1993 and the firm’s stock plummeted 22 percent, destroying nearly US$17 billion of
value. For the first time, the giant’s performance was being doubted. However, the
company continued moving offshore. In 1994 it purchased 122 Woolco stores in
Canada and quickly converted their operations to the Wal-mart format. However, to
assuage local fears, the company moved carefully, giving Canadian vendors equal
opportunity to supply their stores.
In 1995, Wal-mart acquired Lojas Americanas in Brazil. Although success in Canada
was expected and predictable, South America was the biggest challenge to date for
Wal-mart. It was the first region where cultural habits were different from those of the
US and where it faced highly competitive and well established competitors, such as
Carrefour. In Argentina, for instance, sales stumbled at first, as Wal-mart was selling
cuts of meat and cosmetics preferred in the US. In Brazil it was selling golf clubs in a
country were golf is an elite game and few consumers have money to care for and
purchase the equipment. However, four years after entering Argentina, Wal-mart
seemed to have learned its lesson as Donald C. Bland, president and CEO of Wal-mart
Argentina suggested, “following our blueprint too closely wasn’t a good idea.” Wal-
mart caught up with local competitors, not only by catering to the demand for locally
preferred items, but also by changing its store layout to integrate French touches, such
as wide aisles.
Wal-mart also discovered that Carrefour was a nimble competitor. “They’re just
relentless, the toughest competitor I’ve ever seen anywhere,” said a retail executive
who watched Carrefour ward off Wal-mart in Brazil and Argentina in the mid-1990s.
To counter Wal-mart, Carrefour slashed prices, remodeled, and even relocated stores.
When a planned Wal-mart store opening in one Argentine city was delayed by
construction problems for four months, Carrefour seized the opportunity to renovate
its closest store. Wal-mart was aware that a Carrefour shopper who stopped to buy
14groceries or a pair of tennis shoes could also get a watch repaired, order mobile
telephone service, rent a car, or book plane tickets and hotel rooms for a vacation.
Wal-mart offered few such services. Carrefour had been an innovator in store design,
softening the look of its warehouse-size buildings by installing wood floors and non-
fluorescent lights in some departments and putting service counters in the food
department, where shoppers can get meat, cheese, and bread sliced to order.
In 1996, Wal-mart made its first attempt at selling in Asia by entering China with a
subsequent entry into Korea in 1998. It entered the European market by acquiring the
German retailer Werkauft in 1997 and followed this up two years later as it went on to
acquire another German chain, InterSpar, and ASDA, a British retailer.
By the end of 1998, with three continents covered and 3,599 stores (715 of them
outside the US) generating sales of US$138,000 million, Wal-mart was closer than
ever to achieving Sam Walton’s dream of “lower[ing] the cost of living for everyone,
not just in America. … [W]e’ll give the world an opportunity to see what it’s like to
save and have a better lifestyle, a better life for all.”
Nevertheless, when compared with Carrefour, Wal-mart took a cautious approach to
foreign expansion, with foreign sales in 1998 accounting for only nine percent of Wal-
mart revenues, against the 44 percent for Carrefour.
Promodes
Promodes was founded by Paul-Auguste Halley and Leonor Duval Lemonnier in
Normandy, France, in 1961. From the very beginning the company diversified into
different concepts within France. The first supermarket opened in Mantes-la-Ville in
1962 and the first cash & carry outlet opened in 1964. Following in the footsteps of
Carrefour’s hypermarket success, Promodes opened its first hypermarket in 1970 in
Mondeville, the present location of its headquarters. As the competitiveness and
construction restriction laws in France tightened, Promodes further diversified into
convenience stores in 1972 and into hard discount in 1979.5
The 1970s also saw Promodes expanding into new geographic markets. The firm
developed in European operations by entering Germany and Spain in 1976, Portugal in
1985, Italy in 1987, Greece in 1990, Turkey in 1996 and the Belgian market in 1998.
The first transcontinental move happened when it purchased Southeastern US-based
Red Food Stores chain in 1980. Through its “Dia” hard discount chain, Promodes
entered Argentina in 1997. The first venture in Asia was in Taiwan in 1996, but in
1998, Promodes decided to sell its position in the Taiwanese joint venture to invest in a
store in Indonesia instead.
Although the bulk of its international investments were successful, Promodes faced
major setbacks in the US and Germany. In the US, Promodes’ attempt to sell both
food and non-food products at its Red Food Stores was unsuccessful and the chain
was sold to Dutch retailer Royal Ahold in 1994. After several years of accumulated
losses, Promodes decided to sell its German hypermarket subsidiary in 1996.
5
The “hard discount” store is different from the former concepts. Hard discounting started in Spain,
not France, and nowadays Promodes’ hard discount operations are number one in the Spain.
15At the time of the merger with Carrefour, Promodes had 62 percent of its sales in
France, 29 percent in Spain and the rest in other countries. Globally it operated about
175 hypermarkets, 535 supermarkets, 2,185 hard discounters and 1,763 convenience
stores. It also supplied institutions and restaurants through its 201 cash & carries.
Hypermarkets accounted for 42 percent of the sales, supermarkets accounted for ten
percent, hard discounters for twelve percent, cash & carries for eight percent and
convenience stores and others for 28 percent.
To manage this diversified portfolio of business, Promodes’ management structure was
organized differently from Carrefour or Wal-mart (which are organized by geographic
areas and store concepts respectively). Instead, Promodes’ management structure was
organized by a symbiosis of both. Under CEO Paul-Louis Halley’s (Paul-Auguste’s
son that took over as CEO in 1971) there were four operational divisions: France,
hypermarket Spain, discount international, and Hard discount international.
Until the marriage, Promodes was considered Carrefour’s major retail rival but its
performance was nowhere near as good. Its diversification into different concepts
translated into lower operational margins—3.5 percent against Carrefour’s 4.5
percent—and lower return on the assets in place (Exhibit 11 provides a financial
summary of Promodes).
The Deal
Wal-mart Takes Europe by Storm
With the purchase of 21 warehouse-sized stores from the German chain Wertkauf
GmbH in 1997, Wal-mart’s entry into the European retail scene was anything but
quiet. German consumers, the most price sensitive in Europe, quickly warmed to the
Every-day-low-[rice slogan as well as the customer service often lacking at domestic
retailers’ stores, much to the consternation of the staid and established German retail
sector. In 1998, Wal-mart acquired a further 74 warehouses from Hamburg-based Spar
Handels AG, a company that posted a pre-tax loss on ordinary activities in 1998 and
predicted no real recovery in 1999 because of increased price competition. As Wal-
mart’s presence in Germany increased, Metro AG—Germany and Europe’s largest
retailer at the time—sped up the takeover of control of its franchised wholesaling
businesses, liquidating businesses totaling one-third of its sales to fund it the
reorganization.
Although Wal-mart’s initial moves were restricted to Germany, the continent’s largest
economy, two acquisitions in slightly over a year caught the attention of other
European retailers as they speculated about Wal-mart’s future moves. “If Wal-mart
was to buy a large competitor, it would create a snowball effect and lead to a more
rapid concentration than what is economically justified… [However,] we see the future
with serenity despite the arrival of big monsters like Wal-mart” said Luc Vandevelde,
Promodes’ CEO, at a breakfast meeting of Belgian company executives.
In June 14, 1999, Wal-mart announced the acquisition of English retailer Asda Group
for £6.7 billion. “It’s going to be a shock to the system,” said a retail analyst. “But it
also suggests that Wal-mart is very serious about Europe. They will go for well
established major players that they can turn to their way of operating while preserving
the best of their successes.” European retailers had long feared the arrival of the
16world’s largest retailer, whose name was synonymous with low prices. With margins
averaging double those of continental European food chains, they had a lot to lose.
With the purchase of Asda, Wal-mart’s biggest to date, the company doubled its
international sales to more that US$25 billion.
Even though Asda’s acquisition was a colossal investment and dwarfed earlier moves
in Germany, analysts believed Wal-mart would further build its presence in Europe
within the year. As an analyst at HypoVereinsbank AG in Munich put it, “Wal-mart is a
latent danger, it will continue to seek take-over candidates in the next few months and
could weaken the position of current market leaders.” A number of British retailers’
share prices fell in the days following the Asda acquisition announcement as analysts’
predicted that Wal-mart could offer retail prices as much as 5 percent below those
being offered by its competitors. Kingfisher, whose plan to acquire Asda was ruined by
the Wal-mart acquisition, saw its share price fall 2.5 percent. Sainsbury’s shares fell
2.2 percent. Boots, the UK’s largest drug retailer, experienced a 1.6 percent decline in
market value. Safeway, whose share price shrunk 32 percent in 1998, was seen as
particularly vulnerable to predators and the countries two largest supermarket chains,
Tesco and Sainsbury, were expected to seek a merger.
Meanwhile, France’s Carrefour, the world’s eighth-biggest grocery retailer and
Netherlands’ Ahold, the number seven worldwide, were expected to accelerate their
global expansion plans. According to Ahold’s CEO Cees van der Hoeven, “things are
happening fast and we want to be part of that consolidation… I am reviewing ten
potential take-over candidates.” Carrefour declined to comment directly on the latest
moves by Wal-mart but spokesman Christian d’Oleon seemed to be throwing down the
gauntlet with his statement that “Carrefour has the means, the people and the projects
to continue alone.”
On June 20, 1999, the edition of the Financial Mail On Sunday noted that if Wal-mart
were serious about entering Europe’s second largest market, it could no doubt do so
by bidding for Carrefour, then valued at £16 billion, Promodes or Auchan. When
contacted about such speculation Carrefour reiterated its previous declarations.
According to Daniel Bernard, “Carrefour has the means to remain independent and to
develop itself.” Promodes’ CEO Paul-Lois Halley, whose family controls the
Promodes Group, said his company was not interested in selling to anyone. Auchan,
also family-controlled, said it did not want to be acquired by Wal-mart, which had
initiated take-over talks with the company approximately two years before.
On August 30 1999, Carrefour launched a friendly ¼ ELOOion bid for rival Promodes,
thereby potentially creating Europe’s largest retailer with a market value of US$48
billion. The deal, which would have to be subject to regulatory approval, would create
a company with annual sales of ¼ ELOOLRQ YDXOWLQJ LW Dbove Germany’s Metro, the
European number one before the bid. The Promodes’ move was seen as the first shot
in a battle for consolidation of the European retail sector. “Carrefour would probably
prefer to buy Promodes than have it snatched up by Wal-mart, giving the US group a
big chunk of its market,” noted an analyst at Paris-based CCR Actions. Furthermore,
the marriage would give the joint company a chance to dominate France’s retail market
where laws limiting the building new large stores had long given favor to small
shopkeepers.
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