Our new Strategic
Framework puts
our customers
at the center of
everything we
do and provides
a roadmap for a
winning business.
Why did the Board and the
Executive Committee find it
important to review Delhaize
Group's strategy?
How does the strategy influence
day-to-day management
and priorities of the different
operating companies within
Delhaize Group?
In your first full year at the
company, what did you find
most exciting about Delhaize
Group in 2014? What has
pleased you most in the past
year?
Delhaize Group Annual Report 2014 5
IMI I believe that we have an obligation to
review the strategy every year and, with Frans
on board, this represented a unique oppor
tunity to do a deeper review of our strategy.
It is important to look at our strategy from a
commercial perspective to ensure its contin
ued relevance, to understand the areas where
we can improve, and to ensure our business
is sustainable. One of the benefits of having
worked in the retail industry for many years
is that I have seen strategic plans discussed
and put into action. Putting a new strategy in
place is an ambitious process and with our
new, clear, and transparent strategy, we are
well positioned in 2015 to further implement it
successfully and to pursue profitable growth in
all our markets.
EM As the new CEO I took the opportunity to
lead our in-depth strategic review in order for
us to understand the facts, assess the current
situation, and to build on our strengths, such
as our store network, our people, our fresh
food competence and our private brands. It
also allowed us to identify and further focus on
our core businesses. We had to make some
tough decisions in 2014, but our new Strategic
Framework has helped us to remain focused
on attractive markets in terms of size, growth,
and profitability and be competitive in markets
where we have the capabilities and strengths
to win.
IMI By refining our strategy, we are focus
ing our execution efforts to deliver our core
promises to our stakeholders. We have four
key stakeholders - customers, associates,
communities, and shareholders - and we use
our new strategy to deliver value to each in a
profitable, respectful and sustainable way.
EM Our Promise to our customers is to
provide a great local shopping experience, in
stores and online. With the customer as our
primary focus, we are re-defining the words
used in our Strategic Framework: "preferred",
"local" and "working together". We want to
ensure that, by providing excellent products at
reasonable prices in a compelling and logical
store environment, customers choose us as
their preferred supermarket. We also under
stand that local is important. Customers want
stores that are conveniently located. They want
the store staffed with people from their com
munity - people they know and who reflect
the local culture and values. Finally, working
together means that we want to work as
teams in the stores, across functions within
operating companies, and across the Group
as a whole. We want to continuously share
best practices to ensure that we are operating
our customers' preferred local supermarket.
"Customer focus" is just a buzzword if we do
not measure whether we are delivering on
our Promise. For this reason, we are putting
specific performance metrics in place to meas
ure our success and understand how we are
delivering on our promises. For example, to
measure how our customers perceive us we
will use a Net Promoter Score, which is deter
mined by asking our customers if they would
recommend us to their friends and family.
And we can't deliver for our customers without
the engagement of our associates. There
fore, we will also be using a new Associate
Engagement Survey to measure with our asso
ciates how rewarding their work is, because
we believe that engaged associates will, in
turn, delight customers.
Through these and other key performance
indicators - discussed in more detail on page
13 - we are making ourselves accountable to
our customers, our associates, our communi
ties, and ultimately our shareholders.
IiM What excited me most about Delhaize
Group in 2014 was what I found in meeting
with the various associates and visiting our
stores in the U.S., Belgium and Luxembourg,
Southeastern Europe, and Indonesia. I found
talented associates with strong values and
ethics, strong brands with local leadership,
and excellent front-line management, all com
bining to serve about 20 million customers per
week. After all, it is the people - our customers
as well as our talented associates - who make
our business successful.
I am also very proud of our strong fundamen
tals. We are number one or number two in
most of our local markets. These markets, in
which we have such a strong position, repre
sent no less than 75% of our total Group sales.
Above all, I am enthusiastic about and proud of
our Executive team - Pierre, Kevin, Kostas, and
Marc - and the work we have accomplished
together. With these and the other executives
across the Group, we have deep experience
and a collective knowledge. It is my job to make
sure that we harness and focus this collective
knowledge and experience in service of driving
Delhaize Group's continued performance.
Mats Jansson,
Chairman of the
Board of Directors of
Delhaize Group
