The Carrefour group has one simple ambition:
making Carrefour the preferred retailer wherever it operates.

Being the preferred retailer means having stores where customers are naturally drawn to shop, and to which they are loyal. It means having the trust of customers: trust in product quality, price and service. It means being able to satisfy and anticipate customer needs and giving customers the best special offers. It means respecting producers and the environment. It means earning customer preference through social commitment and action. It means making our staff proud to work for us. Being the preferred retailer means making customers want to visit, and keep visiting, our stores. It means making customers happy by making their lives easier.

The strategy of the Carrefour group is aimed at achieving organic, sustained, profitable growth in excess of the broad market growth rate, and has three levers:

• Client-oriented culture
• Transformation
• Innovation
  

Client-oriented culture: getting to know our customers better in order to serve them better

With 12 million loyalty card-holders in France, but also 7.5 million in Spain, for example, Carrefour group stores have an excellent base from which to forge closer relationships with customers. As a multi-format retailer, Carrefour can offer solutions addressing a wide variety of shopping habits.  In 2009, the Carrefour group is enhancing its knowledge of customers, with the aim of serving them better and improving its brand image. In stores, the Carrefour brand will be conveyed in a way that is closer to the customer and more emotionally involving. By being more competitive, the brand will again become a tool for winning customers, enhancing customer loyalty and distinguishing Carrefour from the pack. In towns and villages, as convergence accelerates, the Carrefour brand will provide its best stores to more customers. In this way, Carrefour will make customers want to come, and keep coming, to its stores, regardless of the format or product offering. By focusing on retailing, Carrefour will become customers' preferred retailer.  
 

Transformation: increasing agility, execution quality and competitiveness

 

Carrefour's success is based on the talent and motivation of its staff. To increase efficiency and competitiveness, and in order to improve as a retailer, the Carrefour group is about to transform itself. It will redesign its organisation, enhance synergies between sales and purchasing, and create new relationships between head offices, countries and stores. Sharing of knowledge and best practice will form the heart of this transformation process, which will be carried out by, and for the benefit of, our staff. Our employees' skills will be developed, and new careers will be offered to them, because as well as being the preferred retailer, we want to be the preferred employer.

Innovation: regaining initiative and leadership

Carrefour invented the hypermarket in 1963, own-brand products in 1976 and "Filières Qualité Carrefour" quality-guarantee systems in 1992. As a result, innovation is in our genes. To serve customers better and form closer ties with them, the Carrefour group will again tap into its pioneering spirit and step up innovation. Hypermarkets, which are a crucial tool in winning new customers, are entering the era of tailored services and adopting new roles. Objective:
to make the store experience exciting again, to win or regain the hearts of all customers. Today, customers visit various types of stores, and so the Carrefour group is making its formats more complementary and introducing innovative new store concepts. In France, Carrefour is opening pilot convenience stores, i.e. Carrefour City in city centres and Carrefour Contact on the outskirts or in the centre of small towns.  In Taiwan, Carrefour has created Carrefour Convenient Buy, a store open 24 hours a day. Carrefour is a multi-format group, and intends to be a multi-channel retailer too, strengthening its presence in e-commerce. The in-store offering will be enhanced with the launch of new product ranges that meet customers' current needs. Together with other innovations, Carrefour will become a multi-service retailer.

The Carrefour group's geographical priorities
France is Carrefour's established home market and the group's main priority. The Group is taking the initiative to regain its leadership in France. The objective is to generate growth, firstly by developing its multi-format model, increasing convergence and giving fresh impetus to hard discount formats, and secondly by enhancing sales growth, price competitiveness and its price image.
The Carrefour group's second priority consists of Spain, Italy and Belgium which, together with France, make up Carrefour's "G4" countries. In these mature European countries, appropriate measures will be taken to maintain growth (Spain) or improve performance (Belgium and Italy).  
Growth markets represent the Carrefour group's third priority. The Group will focus most of its development resources on countries with stronger growth potential. The Group's development in these regions will be based on various formats aimed at building the customer base (hypermarkets, cash and carry etc.).