European Retail Digest articles from June 2002

European Retail Digest archives from June 2002

Building a winning process for volume recruitment.
June 1, 2002... This article is based on a presentation given to the Retail Week Conference on Recruitment & Retention in Retail, February 2002 in London. B&Q is the market leader of UK DIY, with 300 stores, 30,000 employees, 3.5b [pounds sterling]...

Working creatively with the leaders of today and tomorrow.
June 1, 2002... A great challenge for retailers today is to find, keep and develop the talented executives that they need. Templeton College has been involved in education for managers in retailing since its earliest days. Set up in the 1960s as the Oxford...

The retailer's struggle in the battle for talent.
June 1, 2002... Introduction In a business environment of growing complexity, increasing competition and shifting consumer demand, human resources have become a source of competitive advantage. This has caused a fundamental reorientation of recruiting...

Q&A for M&A: value implications of corporate consolidations in European retailing. (European Financial Perspectives).
June 1, 2002... Background Corporate consolidation is a controversial topic. Accepted in finance theory as a primary tool of achieving operating efficiencies and disciplining under-performing managers, it evokes strong passions among advocates and...

Letter / Australia.
June 1, 2002... Dear Reader Shareholder anger may land Coles in the Myer Blue skies and glorious days in the southern Australian states may have turned the leaves on the European trees into a colourful spectacle this Autumn but they have sent a chill...

Letter / Brazil.
June 1, 2002... Dear Reader A Hidden Brazilian Face: The economic opportunities in retailing Quite frequently the first images that flash when someone talks about Brazil abroad are soccer, carnival and rainforests. They are in fact important...

Kingfisher restructuring. (News).
June 1, 2002... "In habits, Kingfishers display considerable diversity" (Newton's Dictionary of Birds, 1893) The Oxford English Dictionary defines the Kingfisher as a small European bird with a long cleft beak and brilliant plumage. The plumage is losing...

The European retail sector: winners and losers.
June 1, 2002... Europe in Context With increasing retail internationalisation and more and more merger and acquisition activity on a European rather than national scale (European businesses merged or acquired in 2000 and 2001 had combined retail sales of...

Global retailing.... a beginning.
June 1, 2002... Evidence that `something is happening' within the grocery retail industry can be found in the relatively recent, and seemingly exponential, increase in the spread of operations by the leading global retailers. However, a key consideration is...

Political football: the European commission as referee.
June 1, 2002... European competition law is designed to regulate "economic power" and further the creation of a Single European market. Until relatively recently, with the notable exception of the Bosman case, the sporting world has been largely spared...

Competition law developments. (European Political Issues).
June 1, 2002... The UK Enterprise Bill At the end of March, the UK Government introduced its Enterprise Bill. The Bill proposes important changes to the existing UK law in relation to mergers and cartels (1). The Bill is timely in view of both the...

Lessons to be learnt from the Dutch private-label scene.
June 1, 2002... Market Share of Private Label As in many other Western-European countries, private labels have become increasingly popular in The Netherlands, and have now reached an average market share exceeding 20%. Consumers may benefit from this...

Bridging the gap between IT and the business: interview with Dick Dijkstra, Chief Information Officer and Eric Polman, Director, IT Strategy & Architecture, Ahold. (Region / Benelux).
June 1, 2002... Ahold is a multi-channel food retailer and food service operator with 35 companies trading under their local brand name, in 28 countries across four continents. The Ahold company network generates considerable synergies in facilities, knowledge...

Benelux: the centre of consolidation in European retailing?
June 1, 2002... Retailers such as Royal Ahold of The Netherlands and Delhaize `Le Lion' of Belgium are poised to lead the ongoing consolidation of the European food-retailing sector. Faced with limited growth opportunities at home, the two businesses have...

Shop-in-store agreements: strategies for long-term profitability.
June 1, 2002... Shop-in-Store concepts appear to offer greater profitability for both manufacturers and retailers. Clearly, the popularity of shop-in-store is reflected in the rapidly growing number, across retail industries. Particularly in the fashion...

Belgium shoe retailer steps out: Brantano rebranding.
June 1, 2002... Brantano is the history of a family--a family that took the risk to evolve the business by moving from shoe manufacturing into shoe retailing. Andre Brantegem founded the Brantano brand in 1953. This article looks at the Brantano success story....

Complacency, indecisiveness and DIY-centres threaten Dutch garden centres' flourishing market position.
June 1, 2002... Introduction In recent times, the Dutch garden retail market has gone from strength to strength. Media attention to gardening and garden design fuelled the public appetite for gardening products with the introduction of TV-shows and...

Food retailing in the Netherlands: large-scale supermarkets are coming up!
June 1, 2002... Introduction The Netherlands has a unique retail-distribution system. Besides supermarkets, there are specialist shops in food, department stores in food and other selling points for food such as street markets. In recent years,...

Conference Review / Global Retail Technology Forum, Le Palais des Congres, Paris, April 2002.
June 1, 2002... The third annual Global Retail Technology Forum was held for the first time in Paris with Carrefour and Galeries Lafayette as the hosts. The event was preceded by a seminar day, with seminars on merchandise planning, XMLCONvergence and CPFR...

Conference Review / The Retail Industry Summit: Defining the role of tomorrow's retailer, London, June 2002.
June 1, 2002... I must begin at the end. There were a series of interesting presentations during this conference, but the final session was the highlight. Sir Brian Pitman (former chairman of Next plc and Lloyds Bank among many other roles) gave a forceful...

Wal-Mart's market entry into Germany from an intercultural perspective. (Feature / Retail People and Organisations).
June 1, 2002... Wal-Mart--Company Information Sales volume for Wal-Mart Inc. at the end of January 2002 amounted to US$ 217.8bn (over cents 240bn) up 13.8%. The U.S. retailer, which is based in Bentonville, Arkansas, operates 3,244 cash and carry (C&C)...

A passionate journey: creating the right culture in a food retail organisation.
June 1, 2002... If You're Not Passionate About It, Don't Even Bother.... Changing the culture of any organisation is a long and difficult journey. It involves unearthing deep-seated values, changing attitudes and behaviours, `changing hearts and minds';...

Editorial.
June 1, 2002... As some retailers seek to establish themselves with greater authority on the European or global stage, it is very timely that the focus of this quarter's European Retail Digest is on `people and organisations'. If retailing has one common,...

Green Paper Review / Department of Transport, Local Government and Regions, Planning: Delivering a fundamental change, London, December 2001.
June 1, 2002... This is an important document, issued by the British Government, for reform of the planning system in England (Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have their own planning regimes although they tend to be similar to that in England). For the...