Five years in five months: the leap from traditional to digital operations

What you will read here:

• See how a traditional giant was able to work like a startup in just a few days 
• Learn more about digital culture and the discovery of opportunities
• See how IT can be the protagonist of change

With a 45-year history in Brazil, the Carrefour chain has built a solid operation that today has 72,000 employees and 498 stores distributed in 26 states. This makes it the largest food retailer in the country with a strong organizational structure behind it that has been undergoing a major digital transformation in recent years. As partners in this journey, we at CI&T have guided and followed their major initiatives and significant and successful changes towards speed and agility in meeting consumer needs. 

We witnessed this food giant quickly and efficiently in an already uncertain, fast and volatile world, and how it was able to react to the arrival of COVID-19. In just a few days, the company managed to establish everything from structural changes—how to make 27,000 people work 100% remotely and take actions to ensure the safety and comfort of its customers and employees—to new management practices. All of this was possible thanks to the digital transformation process that was already underway, with a growing focus consumers and a culture increasingly focused on collaboration and experimentation in search of delivering more value to customers. 

Carrefour's CIO, Paulo Farroco, discusses their journey in our our podcast (in Portuguese). Farroco chats with CI&T CTO, Bruno Simioni, and CSO , Bob Wollheim. Below are some highlights of the conversation.

Five years in five months

When the need for social isolation and the consequent obligation to close a large part of commerce, services and offices was necessary, the great challenge, both for Carrefour and for most companies, was - and is being - dealing with urgency to have operational structures prepared for the VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous). It was digital knocking on company doors unexpectedly. 
 
Companies including Carrefour had to quickly adapt. Carrefour executives rapidly acted in expanding the number of squads - or autonomous multi-disciplinary teams that work with a focus on solving customers' pains - to address the many new demands that have emerged. These teams immediately took on tasks ranging from improving digital communication and sales channels so that they were able to cope with the increase of orders, to create solutions for stores to continue to function properly. 

All of these actions, as well as the various social initiatives developed by the company - such as making 40,000 masks and preparing basic food baskets for distribution to needy communities - were also the result of the new digital culture of the company. The ideas were born from design practices and rites, in which the discovery of the most pressing needs of consumers and society was the focus. 

Digital culture and the discovery of opportunities

All of these actions, as well as the various social initiatives developed by the company - such as making 40,000 masks and preparing basic food baskets for distribution to needy communities - were also the result of the new digital culture of the company. The ideas were born from design practices and rites, in which the discovery of the most pressing needs of consumers and society was the focus. 

Apart from physical measures, studies carried out by the teams pointed out opportunities for developing digital solutions. For example, in São Paulo, 250,000 elderly people live alone. Aware that this group needed extra support because of their higher risk status due to the pandemic, the squads responsible for e-commerce, developed a feature to prioritize people aged 60 or over, in addition to creating a new type of service in the Contact Center prepared to guide and assist the elderly with their online shopping. 

Technology professionals as protagonists of change

Behind all this, enabling actions and operational changes and supporting cultural transformations, is the use of new technologies. To achieve good performance with the necessary speed, however, IT professionals had to gain prominence at the table where the company's strategic decisions are made. 

Before, acting more to "solve technological problems" in the business, IT professionals took the lead not only with regard to the implementation of tools and solutions, but also in the study of opportunities and action planning. At Carrefour, this movement has been clear since the establishment of the new market scenario, but it is also being evident in all companies. 

And following the forecast of Mark Andreessen, founder of Netscape, who said that in the future, the whole company will be a technology company, at CI&T we understand this moment of great transformations and uncertainties that we are going through as a great opportunity to embark on this future as soon as possible. Thus, we offer the market our learnings and knowledge that can help to cut paths and set the course in their digital transformation processes and we support our customers in accelerating their journeys safely. As a great example of this new vision, Carrefour has already taken the lead and put into practice one of the great teachings of management philosophy that guides us "learning by doing". 

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