Carrefour Swot Analysis

Carrefour’s story started in 1959 in France and for the first ten years it was solely a French retailer until its first international expansion into Belgium in 1969. In the past 40 years, Carrefour kept expanding globally and is now operating in 34 different countries securing its representation in three major markets; Europe, Latin America and Asia. In these markets, Carrefour has over 15,000 stores, employing on average 469,666 people and in 2009, Carrefour incurred Net Sales of 85,963 billion Euros. Part of the success comes from Carrefour’s six successful store models; the hypermarkets, supermarkets, hard discount stores, convenience stores, Cash & Carry, and E-commerce. But one of its main sources of success is its commitment to local

A hypermarket is a “Vast self-service warehouse-cum-retail outlet that combines the features of a supermarket, department store, discount store, and specialty store in one location.” Carrefour also invented another concept when it came up with the idea of “Produits Libres” meaning “free products”. These are unbranded products that are cheaper but the same quality as branded goods.

Carrefour has succeeded in exporting a strong concept, i.e. the hypermarket, which is well-suited to the start-up and development phase in developing countries. It is through the use of an adaptable strategy on the store level that French-style hypermarkets are currently expanding in southern Europe, South America, Asia and increasingly in central and Eastern Europe (Colla, 2001). The French retailer states that it has a dream for its business. Carrefour’s dream is to be a business that is recognized and loved by its customers because it assists them in the best way it can. It further dreams that by providing its customers with high quality products it can ultimately increase its customer’s quality of life. To ensure the realization of this dream the company makes sure that every day it

Mexico es una sociedad moderna occidentalizada, con un amplio gusto por el consumo. Hofstede’s model of culture dimensions is appraised. Mexico is categorized by having a very high score of 97 in “Indulgence” dimension, by which people are vulnerable in trying to control their impulses and desires. Meaning Mexicans are relaxed, positive people, and direct their impulses to enjoying life, rather than being restrained and controlled. In “Uncertainty avoidance”, Mexicans prefer to avoid uncertainty, which leads to preferring having rules, even though these aren’t necessarily followed. However, in the “Long term orientation”, Mexico’s lowest dimension is categorized as being a normative society: Mexicans prefer to maintain traditions as well as norms, and focus on what is happening at the moment, rather than worrying about the future (The Hofstede Centre, n.d.).

To have a business practice with Mexicans, it is important to point out that they prefer to focus step by step on a meeting; and rules should be assigned since the beginning to make negotiations clear. Business environment is relaxed and friendly, but Mexicans are also structural in their traditions, so it is important to know about their background first, also accentuate factors that are occurring at the moment, and let future facts for next