Published on 06/30/2016 | Use Cases
Founded in 1934 in the midst of the great depression, Meijer is now a major retailer that operates 228 supercenters and grocery stores throughout Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
As a pioneer of the “one-stop shopping” concept, Meijer stores have evolved through the years to include expanded fresh produce and meat departments, as well as pharmacies, comprehensive apparel departments, garden centers, and electronics. The company also includes manufacturing facilities and captive dairies.
Plus, Meijer’s management recognized that it was getting more and more difficult for personnel to know its customers and maintain the intimacy with them that is so important to the company’s future success. According to Terry Ledbetter, Meijer SVP and CIO, the only way forward was to simplify its systems.
The first phase of Meijer’s transformation journey is deploying software for its finance and purchasing functions, with help from Capgemini. The software is being implemented in a hosted, cloud environment, which will also be used for production, as Ledbetter believes that this is the best way to mitigate project risk and accelerate time to value.
However, if the solutions implemented were only for finance and procurement, that would certainly be overkill. Indeed, this is not a standalone project. Instead Meijer is starting a phased journey that will involve a new IT platform that includes all the necessary components to drive value and support the company’s growth in the foreseeable future.
Meijer and Capgemini are implementing a wide-ranging retail transformation program that covers the entire enterprise. The program is organized around four broad areas: store operations, merchandising, supply chain, and finance/administration. The overall objective is to achieve sustainable improvements in Meijer’s cost structure while maintaining its established quality and market appeal. The company set an aggressive goal of sustained selling and reduction of general and administrative (SG&A) costs.
What’s the intended result? The company expects a number of benefits, including improving its competitive position, taking further cost out of its supply chain, leveraging the talent of its people, and reenergizing the omnichannel shopping experience.
However, as Ledbetter explains, there is one overriding vision that is driving the company’s IT investments.
“When you walk into my store, I want to know what you want and how you like it, and I want to give it to you. That’s very hard to do with millions of people coming through our doors. But I would argue that whoever figures out how to do that will win in this space. That’s what this journey means to us. The only way you can do that is with massive data collection, superior analytics, and by pushing that information into your store directors’ and team members’ hands. And that’s what we intend to do.”
