Sixteen-year partnership with Capgemini brings ongoing stability and efficiencies to French retail giant in Belgium

Ever-increasing satisfaction scores, continued streamlining and low staff turnover are testament to the success of Carrefour’s outsourcing journey

Challenge

Back in 2007, French multi-national supermarket chain Carrefour Belgium decided they needed to refocus on their core business of providing customers with quality services, products and food across all distribution channels. This meant handing over control of their SAP Retail IT implementation to a specialist, an external provider at a fixed, predictable cost, freeing up their internal staff for more business-facing activities.

They turned to Capgemini Belgium to accompany them on their journey from an in-house to an outsourced model. A global leader in partnering with companies to transform and manage their business, Capgemini Belgium used their long-standing SAP expertise, together with their breadth of experience supporting clients across numerous business sectors, to deliver an efficient outsourcing model.

Solution

The initial transformation scope included Carrefour’s Belgium core SAP Retail implementation. This comprised master product data, stock and order management, warehousing functionality and the ESB middleware linking these applications to satellite systems.

The process involved transferring a few of Carrefour’s Belgium internal staff to Capgemini Belgium, some of whom already had significant business and system knowledge that would prove to be hugely valuable in supporting the system in the future.

Beyond standard upgrades and maintenance to align with SAP guidelines, over the years Capgemini Belgium has helped to deliver additional functionalities. These innovations have included a java-based loyalty card system, implementation of a more cost-effective, open-source middleware solution and some new OutSystems low-code applications for use on the shop floor and in operational support services.

Benefits

The outsourcing partnership with Capgemini has provided Carrefour with:

• Fixed, predictable IT costs for ease of budgeting
• Long-term partnership with trusted IT specialist, with breadth and depth of experience across sectors
• Efficient resourcing, with Capgemini team size reducing over time thanks to mutualisation and reuse
• Safeguarding of system knowledge despite major restructuring on the business side
• System training for new staff
• Flexibility offered by onshore model and “One Team” approach

The outsourced solution means that both Carrefour Belgium and Capgemini Belgium can play to their strengths. The retailer can focus on developing their customer-facing offering, while Capgemini Belgium can call upon their wider expertise in numerous sectors, acting as a trusted technical advisor, consultant and ambassador when liaising with third-party providers on Carrefour’s Belgium behalf.

Capgemini Belgium operates an “On Target and Above Client Expectation” concept, where the client chooses parameters on which to base their satisfaction score. As evidence of the success of this long-term partnership, over the period of outsourcing this score has continuously increased.

“Our mission is to be the best possible partner to Carrefour Belgium and the long-term memory for their system knowledge.”

Jurgen De Craeye, Capgemini Service Delivery Manager

Capgemini is trusted by its clients to address the entire breadth of their business needs, from strategy and design to operations. Contact us today to learn how we can help you harness the power of technology while you focus on your core mission.