The group’s French distributor Auchan, owner of the teaches Alcampo in Spain, suppressed 517 jobs in France as a result of a “reorganization” that will be undertaken in order to “adapt to the new needs and expectations of the market.” The reorganization includes a push-scanning to get the 15% of the company’s business is accomplished outside of the stores in 2022. Auchan, which owns nearly a thousand of hypermarkets and around 1,600 stores in close proximity in 14 countries, lost in 2018, the last year with available accounts, 1.145 million euros, with revenues of nearly 51,000 million, 3.2% less than a year before.
As announced by the company on a note, the workforce reduction will take place with a plan of low volunteers in the framework of a plan of “adaptation of your model, your offering and your organization to the new expectations of consumers and citizens.” The reorganisation, called Project Auchan 2022, should lead to a “recovery margins financial, needed to invest in innovation, digital transformation and corporate social responsibility”, says the document.
Although in recent years there has been an effort by the formats of proximity –Simply, in Spain-, which are from some years ago, the favorite of consumers, Auchan is specialized in large hypermarkets located on the outskirts of the cities, in a format that takes years to losing market share.
Before this, the French group undertook a restructuring that affects a good part of the company, seeking with this to adapt to the new trends in the industry. In terms of the organization, the end goal is increased flexibility and reaction capability, to gain operational efficiency and agility. “The new expectations of the consumers need the company to evolve into a functioning and ways of working more simple, open and permeable to the changes and the constant flow of innovations,” the note said. So, to delete 652 jobs and create 135 new, so that 517 jobs will be suppressed, in the central offices and in the department of products. Consulted by this newspaper, the representatives of the company in Spain refuse to go to have settings template in Spain.
On the supply side, the company will launch a reform of the supply of products, more focused on local and quality, and will refocus the stores to turn them into “local platforms of exchange with the partners or the development of experiences”, a phrase that includes giving room to local players, selected by store managers, to organize workshops, courses, events or sell directly their products and services. In addition, you will develop digital services like lockers for pick-up orders, home delivery, etc The aim, says the note, is in 2022, “doubling the amount of online business power, and to achieve more than 15% of the total turnover outside of the hypermarkets and supermarkets”.
