Doing Enterprise Architecture since the early eighties.
August 2020
Enterprise Architecture is part of Colruyt Group's DNA. But where does that strategic choice come from? And how did it ultimately lead to the foundation of Myreas? We went looking for answers in the history of EA within Colruyt Group. In a first episode, we look back on the 80s and 90s. The years of the first automations and strategic takeovers and acquisitions.
A seat at the table for ‘system designers’
In the mid-80s, the first automations appeared in the Belgian retail sector. Colruyt Group played a pioneering role here. In 1987, it was the first distribution company in Belgium to switch to the use of barcodes throughout the entire supply chain (from goods receipt in the warehouse until store checkout). Supplies, stock management and orders were further automated this way. How do we explain this pioneering role?
A few years earlier, the group decided to structurally involve a ‘system designer’ (‘systeemontwerper’ in Dutch) to support management in translating strategy into projects and priorities. From the start, these system designers were given much responsibility and they reported directly to management. They combined this clear mandate with an alignment between ICT and business. That streamlined cooperation was (and still is) one of the most important beliefs when we talk about EA within Myreas and Colruyt Group.
When EA meets M&A
In the mid-90s, Colruyt Group realized its first mergers and acquisitions. The group expands in 1994 with 5 Droomland stores (later DreamLand), and in 1996 acquires all the shares of the French distribution group Ripotot. The decision-making process behind this growth was driven by ‘conscious operating model choices’. This was about 10 years before Ross and Weil introduce the world to this concept and describe it extensively in their classic “Enterprise Architecture as Strategy”.
In the case of DreamLand, diversification was chosen due to the intrinsically different character of its non-food retail operations compared to the existing food retail. With the acquisition of Ripotot, replication was the driving force because of the advantage of standardizing food retail operations without the need to integrate information between the Belgian and French retail. With that objective the notion of 'uniform systems' was developed: identical copies of application modules and cycles running on separate deployments. It's a vision that has stood the test of time and still clarifies our view of supply chain networks today. A sustainable view of Enterprise architecture, which happens more often within Colruyt Group.
In the next episode of this series, we will look at how the architectural landscape within Colruyt Group has taken on ever greater proportions. During the 90s, it evolved further into a beehive model where every capability was assessed in the light of the expanding group of companies.