French retailer Carrefour has entered into a strategic partnership with Meta to support its digital transformation, which seeks to provide more personalised and connected experiences for customers and its 320,000 employees.
The partnership will cover the group's nine integrated countries – France, Italy, Spain, Romania, Poland, Belgium, Taiwan, Argentina, and Brazil.
It will span many aspects of Carrefour’s business, from internal communications and employee experience to customer relations, digital advertising and digitising leaflets, local communications, and social commerce.
It will include multiple Meta platforms and services, such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Workplace.
Elodie Perthuisot, executive director of e-commerce, data and digital transformation at Carrefour Group, said, ”This partnership with Meta embodies Carrefour's strong acceleration in the field of technology and its transformation into a digital retail company.
"Carrefour is evolving to better meet the expectations of our customers, our employees and our partners."
Strategic Partnership
Meta will integrate Carrefour into its mobile experience development programmes to help the retailer build the future of its mobile environment.
The partners will also work on instant and more personalised experiences via WhatsApp and Messenger platforms.
In addition, Carrefour will empower store managers to access local communication tools to activate Meta platforms in their catchment area to support the acceleration of local digital marketing.
Meta will also support Carrefour in the development of its e-catalogue offering using customised tools and innovative formats.
The partners are already working together to digitalise promotions via the WhatsApp Business API.
According to a recent Ipsos study for Meta, the digitisation of leaflets meets new consumer expectations, with 70% of French people preferring digital leaflets to paper.
Read More: Carrefour Sets Sights On Becoming A 'Global Leader' In Digital Retail
Internal Communications Strategy
The retail group will roll out Workplace, Meta's business communication tool, to its 320,000 employees.
It will enable employees to create communities and make use of standard features from social networks in their daily work lives to communicate better across departments, regions and positions, Carrefour added.
Carrefour will also explore opportunities that virtual reality might create for employee training.
Nicola Mendelsohn, vice-president of Meta Global Business Group, added, “This partnership is designed to help Carrefour innovate the way it serves its customers, and at Meta, we know that can’t be done unless your people are connected and aligned - so we’re excited that today’s partnership spans not just our consumer-facing products, but Workplace too.”
