DELHAIZE

By Tom Brown

Delhaize was then in the 1990s a $20 billion retailer with its main operation in Belgium and another operation, Food Lion, in the Southeast US and then a operation in the Northeast, Hannaford.  It is a family controlled operation in the fourth generation.

I first met the CEO, Guy Beckers, at an industry meeting in Berlin, in the early 1980s, where he explained the logic of buying Food Lion in the US.

Then I was invited to give a speech in the late 1980s to the same industry group but this time in Madrid.  The subject was buying and inventory management.  The speech dealt with the logic of buying and inventory management and was well received.  A man came forward and introduced himself as Charlie DeCooman, the family member of Delhaize in charge of buying and inventory management.  He liked the concept that I presented and asked me to visit him in Brussels.  I did so in a few weeks, made a presentation to his people, looked at the operation, which I judged to be a good candidate for our approach and wrote a proposal.

He quickly replied that he wanted to do it, but could not start immediately due to budget limitations, but would be in touch.  He contacted me in December and said he would need to see it in use.  I offered a visit to Affiliated Grocers in Arkansas and he accepted.  The visit went well and he agreed to start in April.

All of the interfaces to our software were worked out and we delivered the system in October and November.  There were some issues in getting initial output that were successfully dealt with.  Also I was starting Tom Brown & Company and Delhaize agreed that I could complete the installation and training with the resources of my new company.  My former company, Case, was paid for the software and had agreed to make an exception to the non-compete agreement for my continued work with Delhaize.

We completed the installation and training in about a year.  The attitude and approach of Delhaize was striking.  Everybody was committed to making the system deliver results.  They did not insist on perfection, but rather a system that made acceptable purchase orders that were better than with their old approach at least 90% of the time.  I visited each month and listened to their issues and  suggested resolutions to them.  They totally “owned” the concept!

We were retained for another year, to continue improving their buying performance and to better integrate buying, transportation and warehousing.  We monitored deliveries from suppliers to see if the trucks were full and efficiently loaded so as to unload more easily and have lower transport cost.  We taught the buying and warehousing staffs to work together and even make visits to supplier facilities to negotiate better methods of ordering and filling trucks for the benefit of both parties.

At the end of the year they had a champagne reception for us at lunch time.  They announced that the system had saved money as promised, thanked me, and said that they would be in touch.  They did not call for a year.

When they did call it was regarding the organization of the perishables warehouse and handling of returnable bottles.  We made recommendations for new methods, layouts and transport scheduling  that were mostly accepted , implemented and successful.

This led to a study of forecasting and reordering.  We developed an approach that was programmed  by the IT staff with some very innovative screens.  We offered a new version of the buying system that would work for perishables.  They accepted the offer and installed it.  However the buyers of perishables did not want a computer generated order so the system languished and faded away.

The last engagement was a short one to survey user needs for the totality of IT support.   I had gotten good at talking with users, often in French, in a non-intimidating way regarding their needs, which IT was not always able to do.

Soon Charlie DeCooman announced his retirement, so that the Delhaize assignment was more or less over.  We remained friends with Delhaize and stayed in touch with different management people.

Delhaize was a great success.  They owned the projects, decided what would work and what would not, and then made it happen.  They trusted us as their consultant totally, not to be confused with blindly doing what I said.

And they gave us extremely well qualified support people.