Vegetables stored in supermarket

Why your change processes need to be tailor-made and not copy-paste

Authors

5 minute read 15 Dec 2023

EY Belgium helped Carrefour develop a change and ambassador strategy to support its employees during digital transformation.

In brief

  • The implementation of ‘Forecasting and Replenishment’ at Carrefour requires a behavioral change and mindset shift from employees.
  • Change processes rely on human feelings and need a step-by-step and tailor-made approach, with various communication moments.
  • Ambassadors can play an important role in creating involvement, together with training and coaching.

People are the heart of every organization. When you change the way of working, you cannot focus only on technology and processes. “During a transition, employees undergo an emotional journey, and you need to provide them with tailor-made support,” says change manager Lynn Mottie. She supervises digitalization projects at supermarket chain Carrefour for EY Belgium.

With more than seven hundred stores and four formats, Carrefour occupies a unique position in Belgium. The retailer has a network of hypermarkets, supermarkets and local stores, supplemented with a diverse e-commerce offering. In line with its vision, Carrefour is strongly committed to digitalization and automation. By doing so, it responds to customer demand while ensuring that employees have more time for customers.

How EY can Help

Trust in human ability

One of Carrefour Belgium's recent digitalization projects is the rollout of F&R, Forecasting and Replenishment. “That is an SAP module for better and automated order proposals,” explains Thierry Michiels, Director Customer & Operational Excellence at Carrefour. “Of course we already had order systems, with F&R we now have a much more powerful and intelligent system, which we are rolling out in the stores in phases. We started with the most difficult group: fruits and vegetables. In the past, it was mainly the department managers who decided what the store purchased. To do this, they relied on their years of experience and customer knowledge.”
 

“Careers have been shorter in recent years, which means we can rely less on that human ability. Moreover, we also want to take into account objective input via purchase and sales figures. Enter F&R, which relies on various indicators to place orders more accurately. The department managers still check, but no longer choose everything themselves. There is 5 to 10 percent leeway, for example to take local events into account,” says Michiels.

A digital transformation can only succeed if employees believe it adds value to their job

Davy Van Ingelgem

EY Belgium Consulting Partner

Behavioral change and mindset shift

The implementation of F&R is a long-term effort for a broadly branched organization like Carrefour, both on a technological and human level. “The store employees have to learn a new way of working, which requires a change in behavior,” says Mottie. “They also experience a loss of control and have to learn to trust a system. They move from managing their own offerings to checking them. That means a serious change in mindset.” The employees also lose a bit of their status”, Michiels adds, “because from now on the computer decides what they should do.”

“Change management is a crucial part of business integration,” confirms Davy Van Ingelgem of EY Belgium. “We first define what can be digitized and then we draw up a plan. The most important thing, however, is to see how the change is incorporated into the organization. A digital transformation can only succeed if employees believe it adds value to their job.”
 

Communication creates support

Mottie warns against implementing change as a big bang. “Change processes rely on human feelings. You have to capture and manage this properly. That is why we always opt for a step-by-step and tailor-made approach. The implementation of F&R was a multi-year process with a long pilot phase. We started with tests in two stores and a limited product segment, and gradually expanded to more people and more products.”

Michiels points out the importance of ambassadors. “Especially in a large organization like Carrefour, you have to start at the top, with the management. Patrons must support the change, from the Service Center to the store managers. A cascade of people have supported this project. Naturally and simultaneously, we started working with colleagues who used F&R first. As ambassadors, they explained to their colleagues what the benefits were for themselves.” To this end, Carrefour and EY Belgium developed a well-thought-out change, stakeholder and ambassador strategy with various communication moments.

You shouldn't wait for implementation to communicate. On the contrary, if you communicate too late, you run the risk of missing support and buy-in from the start.

Thierry Michiels

Director Customer & Operational Excellence at Carrefour

How EY can Help

Michiels was pleasantly surprised that this happened quickly in the transformation process. “You shouldn't wait for implementation to communicate. On the contrary, if you communicate too late, you run the risk of missing support and buy-in from the start, which are precisely the success factors for achieving the desired end results. Unfortunately, we have seen that too often," says Van Ingelgem.
 

According to Mottie, every organization has its own culture, with different types of people with different feelings. So you need tailor-made solutions for successful change and communication actions. You absorb this thanks to the role of ambassadors, who function as bridges between colleagues in the project team and colleagues in the stores, and are a lever for creating involvement. “The message from an ambassador was always: get on board, this works in practice. This was necessary to gather sufficient critical mass.”

 

Training and coaching

Michiels gained experience from several digitization projects in various administrative services in recent years. “We always have to make our processes more efficient, improve communication and make training shorter. Everything has to go faster, but also more efficiently," he says.
 

Copy-pasting from one department to another is a no-go. “We don't have a menu that we can use for everything. On the contrary, since every organization and every person is different and has different needs and emotions, you must first understand who you have in front of you. Every time, you have to start with a broad analysis and work tailor-made,” says Mottie. Van Ingelgem supports her, “It comes down to finding a balance between technological solutions, optimized processes and the people you put at the center.”

Every organization and every person is different and has different needs and emotions. Every time, you have to start with a broad analysis and work tailor-made.

Lynn Mottie

EY Belgium Consulting Senior Manager

Michiels concludes that sponsorship from management is essential, and at the same time he emphasizes the importance of training and coaching. “Colleagues in the store must feel that it is a solution made with the experience of their colleagues from the service center and from the store and that it makes their daily work better and easier.” Mottie supported the design of an extensive training program for F&R. “We make a distinction between the trainer and the coach. Perhaps a strange nuance, but the trainers come and fully explain the tool at the beginning. The coaches – often well-known faces from the region – will return later to see whether the implementation is going smoothly.”

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    Summary

    Carrefour’s implementation of Forecasting and Replenishment, an SAP module for better and automated order proposals, requires employees to adapt to a new way of working and trust automated systems. Such a transition needs a step-by-step and tailor-made approach. EY Belgium helped Carrefour develop a well-thought-out change, stakeholder and ambassador strategy with various communication moments and an extensive training program.

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