First Business News

Carrefour Rethinks Its ‘Bigger Is Better’ Strategy

As a top executive at Nestlé, Mr. Olofsson had helped to make the Nespresso coffee business the top in its class, and it was hoped he could bring some of that magic with him. Carrefour helped to pioneer the giant stores known as hypermarkets, but it had stumbled amid a badly coordinated international expansion. Investors applauded Mr. Olofsson’s decision to refocus on West European markets and fast-growing countries overseas, while scaling back where prospects looked uncertain. He also took a risky bet: At a time when the financial crisis was nudging consumers back toward basics and many competitors were taking a hard look at store scale, he championed the hypermarket model, spending heavily to renovate the biggest stores of up to 10,000 square meters, or 108,000 square