Quote:
Originally Posted by bluefox
It's interesting how Sobeys hasn't used the Safeway acquisition to introduce a discount brand in the west to take on Loblaw... it's coming up on four years since the deal was announced and still very little in the way of integration or changes. The only big one was getting rid of Safeway Club.
I wonder how long the shareholders will continue to tolerate these losses.
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Shareholds were not pleased. The CEO stepped down for "undisclosed reasons" about a month ago and the CFO from empire stepped in temporarily. A variety of cost cutting measures were put in place.
Sobeys switched Safeway from an in house developed ERP system to SAP and messed up the implementation. Good financial times article on the topic:
http://business.financialpost.com/news/r...-massive-losses-and-drove-customers-away
Sobeys also switched some of their brands online systems off a an older version of local Mighty+ (
http://www.mightyplus.com/) onto a less flexible platform. Mighty+ is a bit more customer friendly.
The lower prices is a strategy Sobeys has been trying in the west to gain back some of their market share. Between Sobeys, Safeway and Thrifty foods they have the brands that are very similar in the West. None of them are discount oriented.