1 over the period 20042007 compared to 7

The site is enormous: "re-enchanting" the hypermarket. A close visit Flash r. Monday in Belgium and Spain, to discover three stores test (one in the suburbs of Brussels and two in Madrid), Lars Olofsson, administrator CEO of Carrefour, lifted the veil last night in Ecully (Rhône) on the new concept, Carrefour Planet. It is intended to boost teaches pioneer in France in the 1960s "all under the same roof".

Called early 2009 at the head of the number two global distribution by its new shareholder of reference, Blue Capital, bringing group Arnault, the holding company family of Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH (owner of the "voices"), and Colony Capital, the US investment in Europe by Sébastien Bazin, the former leader of the Swiss of the Nestle food giant, was first to put an end to the slow decline of the large areas of the group in France.

Nuclear heart

Nuclear heart of distributor activity, because first contributor in turnover (22.5 of the total in 2009) and as a result, the French Carrefour hypermarkets have been steadily, since the 1999 merger with Promodès, align disappointing performance from the competition, often punctuated by loss of market share. End of 2009 still, sales of some 230 superstores metropolitan network of the Professor showed a decline of 5.3 in comparable stores, 21,57 billion euros, to a level close to those achieved six years earlier, in 2003, where they had reached 21,36 billion (see chart).

Starting in June 2009, analysts and the press, the new boss of Carrefour was an observation without concession of the performance of the group in "mature" (including France) countries, with a growth rate, average of the sales of 2.1 over the period 2004-2007, compared to 7.6 for the best of its competitors, while the operating result was, a substantial decline of 5.1 , against an increase of 6.9.

Guy Yraeta, yet then to joysticks of French hypermarkets of the group, had stressed the advantages of this formula for sale erosion and loss of competitiveness with the rise of specialists. While stressing the advantages of a format which remains the first distribution network generalist with a penetration rate of over 90 in the population.

Assets today, confirms Gilles Goldenberg, consultant. "The resilience of the hypermarket is strong." Their main advantage is that this format is a true plasticine. "There must be proof of imagination, mark options, send strong messages", he explains to the "echoes". Indeed, added the expert, "they have lost a crucial virtue." This was, formerly, where it was innovation.

"Quarter of an hour in advance.

This is not the least of the challenges of intersection to find this "quarter of an hour in advance. The appointment, in February, at the head of Carrefour France of a British, is coming from its large European competitor Tesco, James McCann, marked a first break. After fifteen days of immersion in the store, its diagnosis is severe: a back-office system not at the level, 200 different ways of doing things in stores because of the independence of Directors (true cultural heritage in Carrefour), good practices absent when they are established for a decade across... "The true knowledge of the client", which he wants to credit the sign, this man to fist intends to marry a "efficiency of procedures" all Anglo-Saxon.

With his French management team, he wrote in two days its plan of action to revive the company. Good pilot and amateur of aerobatic is, James McCann, follower of the checklist, and implemented a system of stores or even an alert on the length of the tails in Fund falling every hour on its "smartphone". The first effects have been of the erosion of the attendance, declining however still 2.7 in the second quarter.

With the opening to the public, this morning, two stores drivers Lyon Ecully and Vénissieux, this time, it is the reconquest that begins.