Reflections on Carrefour to drastically cut jobs in Belgium

February 23, 2010 Leave a comment

Google screenshot "Carrefour" keyword

Google screenshot "Carrefour" keyword

2 of my most visited Carrefour supermarkets will be closed …

The plan calls for cutting 1672 jobs and closing 21 stores in Belgium by end-June, Carrefour Belgium said in a statement on Tuesday. (yes, this is the first sentence on a Google search on Carrefour and I’m so lazy I just copy/pasted it, and that’s why it’s in italics). But the point is, I rarely visit a Carrefour but have 2 of them very close to my place. However, Carrefour has turned out to be my lifesaver: it’s open until 20h! Both of those Carrefour supermarkets are on the closing list. I guess I’ll never see a Carrefour from the inside again.

… my friend in India however will soon meet Mr Carrefour.

Njummie! All that good stuff he’ll soon enjoy!

On that same google page result I noticed the statement of carrefour going into India. I am almost tired of writing, so I quickly want to provide the reader some insights on a possible “why” of this decision.

AFP Carrefour press release

AFP Carrefour press release

Marketing strategy?

    Facts & Figures from Belgium: 10 million inhabitants struggling to keep their wealth as high as in the past, a government that has almost the highest debt rate in the world, etc.
    Facts & Figures from India: estimated population 2010 1,177,424,000, increasing wealth, etc.
    Marketing strategy background: the economic core of the world economy is moving east, it’s over there that money will be made.
    Marketing strategy: “Carrefour will develop its activities in India with the start of cash-and-carry activities in 2010,” the company said in a statement emailed to AFP.

Filed under Business, Economy, Marketing, Society Tagged with ,

Globalization's impact on government's stability

February 23, 2010 Leave a comment

Foreign affairs destabilizes Dutch government

Not so long ago, I planned to have a quiet evening in front of my television. Everything went fine until the evening news announced the fall of the Dutch government. Not being dutch myself however, I was astonished by the story. The government fell because of a dispute related to external affairs. This made me think. It was not just a dispute on external affairs. It was a dispute between two groups of people: the globalization group vs. the localization group.

NATO & the war on terror

The NATO is one of the first “globalized institutions” the world has known. It’s because of the globalized war on terror that the NATO asked for the Dutch to prolong their stay at Afghanistan to battle the taliban regime. Some of the dutch politicians are on the “globalization side” ; others are on the “localization side”. So, one part of the politicians were willing to agree upon the NATO request, others were not. This conflict seemed that deep that it meant the end of a government.

Globalization

Globalization has always meant the following to me: “something that happens deep down in the jungle of Congo has an impact on the way people drive their car in Belgium”. Since today I will explain globalization with an other sentence: “a battle in the war in Afghanistan has an impact on the government’s stability of the Netherlands”.

Filed under Politics, Society Tagged with , , ,

Business as a societal phenomenon

February 23, 2010 Leave a comment

Say whaaaaaaat?

Some call it “Marketing”, others call it “getting market”. I call it “Business as a societal phenomenon” – which transforms the same thing into an even more interesting aspect of contemporary society.

Why I don’t use the word “Marketing”?

Marketing is often narrowed into the creation of a brochure, the creation of a website, etc. Since this is what most people think of when you tell them you do marketing for a living and since this shrinks down the importance of Marketing way too much, we don’t want to use that word to describe our everyday-life activities and reflections.

Why do marketers need to be sociologists?

Well, quite simple: it’s the marketers job to interpret human behaviour. This includes analyzing it within the correct contextual environment(s).

Why do you hear this for the first time?

I assume you never read or studied the work of “Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno”.

Filed under Business, Marketing, Society Tagged with , , , , ,

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