The expert’s eye – 3 questions from Global Retail News for Jean-Christophe Brindeau, Managing Director of CFAO RETAIL

You worked for 15 years in international positions for the Casino Guichard Group in South America and the Indian Ocean. How was the retail business changed by the growth of e-commerce during the last 20 years?

JCB: In 1999, the retail industry concentrated around 6 or 7 global leaders. Today, (apart from Walmart as the big gorilla), other retailers are functioning in a far more complex environment.
Carrefour has strongly refocused in recent years leaving several countries (Colombia, Greece, China etc.). Both Auchan and Casino are selling subsidiaries to mitigate losses and reduce debts. There is a critical new focus on developing digital businesses, which are very expensive. Top retailers like Walmart are betting massive investments on e-commerce, and the market expects a loss for such projects in the current financial year. However, Walmart is now competitive enough to start tickling Amazon. Successful retailers will unify this omnichannel environment in the next few years, and it should be difficult for those who do not invest and lock themselves into traditional retailing.

How can retailers find added value thanks to e-commerce?

JCB: Today, Amazon is earning money thanks to data and its cloud platform called Amazon Web Services. For digital companies such as Alibaba or Amazon, it does make sense to capitalise on data. For traditional expert in physical retail, it remains difficult to appreciate how profit comes from a customer database.

C-Discount is the 2^nd largest online retailer in Europe but remains unprofitable as its database does not generate value. However, if retailers don’t exploit this, how can they remain profitable, considering the logistics costs and the very expensive “last mile”, particularly where margins are so thin? Data will also help to improve a customer experience. In the future, retailers will have to become more intrusive about the attitude, behaviour and lives of consumers. I think they will have to activate data as GAFAs do. Rather than passively waiting for customers to decide to visit a store, retailers will have to extend their influence and “manage” consumer’s lives, alongside personalised services and marketing.

Which roles will gain importance for retailers within organisations?

JCB: The role of “distribution of merchandise flows”, which consists of managing merchandise flows until the end of the chain, i.e. until the final consumer (via home delivery, or even to a fridge…) will become crucial. To be clear, I distinguish it from the “supply-chain”, which generally operates merchandise flows from warehouses to the stores. Today, I see, within many companies, that many retailers have operational specialists providing skills for in-store operations, alongside a Head of Digital working in senior management. For me, it is necessary to create this type of job, linking all points of contact with customers, encompassing global vision of their customers and how to win business via all channels. Today, I do not see that type of job yet, but I think it will be key in the future.