Carrefour and GB on strike

After Carrefour has announced a job reduction of nearly 1700 and shutting down 21 of their Carrefour and GB markets in Belgium, the unions called today for a general strike.

The photo above shows the GB in Brussel's shopping mall City 2.

Quite frankly, I am not surprised that Carrefour is struggling.
While general service quality in Belgium is very poor - a fact that you would think makes it actually easy to differentiate your business with a little effort and training of your staff - Carrefour hypermarkets in Belgium do not look welcoming, don't stand out with their offerings and it takes you 15 minutes to buy a milk carton: 3 minutes to get the milk and 12 minutes to get out of the place, even if they operate, say, 20 check-out lines.

Even though Delhaize and Colruyt suffer from the same or comparable low service levels, Colruyt for example is very clear about their aggressive price cutting strategy (and everybody agrees you get the best meat there). In contrast, Delhaize is trying to create a pleasant shopping experience, targets people who can pay a bit more than at Colruyt and is ahead of competition in introducing improved services, like self-scanning equipment.

And Carrefour?
Well, faceless somewhere inbetween.

Once more the workforce suffers from poor management. I am waiting for the day that Belgian businesses will understand the value of good service. It might have made the difference for the people who are getting fired now.
I read that apart from laying off people, Carrefour will invest shitloads of money into their remaining stores (good!) but will also cut the wages of the workforce left-overs. Hm, something tells me that this strategy won't come with better service...