Interview with the managing director of Colruyt Group Fine Food, Private Label, CRU & Retail Services

September 2021

Before joining Colruyt Group in 2012, Stefan Goethaert already established an international career spanning 20 years. Today, he combines completely different roles within Colruyt Group - ranging from sea farms over Eco-Scores to training and coaching for vulnerable youngsters in Belgium and abroad via Collibri Foundation - in which sustainability always forms the red thread. This diversity puts him in day-to-day contact with the enterprise architects of Myreas. Reasons enough to meet up with him! 

Looking at all the departments for which Stefan is responsible, enterprise architecture has evolved furthest within Colruyt Group Fine Food. In addition to being one of the ten largest food companies in Belgium with around 1,200 employees, the entire production process is managed in-house from start to finish. "When we started the exercise of a strategic framework for Fine Food, we very deliberately included our group principles. DNA and values are thus at the basis of our architecture and our target operating models."

On the same wavelength

According to Stefan, it is essential that enterprise architecture is primarily strategic but should never completely take over the role of the business. "A strategic exercise always implies change, and in that case the enthusiasm of our people from the business must remain a high priority. So it is a shared responsibility to stay on the same wavelength during the process. And that only works if our management and our people are involved from the very beginning. Something that all architects at Myreas take for granted, by the way."

Exploring new domains

In addition to Fine Food, Stefan is also closely involved in developing the Retail Service Center operating unit. In concrete terms, we are talking about price, product information management and product group management. Bottom line is that we are setting up an organization and system which makes it possible to manage and provide accurate, relevant, and reliable information to the customer. "I think it's great to see a new domain such as product always keeps expanding thanks to our enterprise architects Stan, Koen, Rui and Alexis. It started with Colruyt Lowest Prices, but in the meantime we’re differentiating more and more within the context of the group. I can imagine that this continuous evolution is a great experience from an architectural point of view." 

Stefan also has high hopes for a new activity that recently kicked off: information trading. It involves looking at how insights can be gained from the organizational data within the Colruyt Group ecosystem and assessing the potential value each data type holds for potential partners.

"We can do much more with the enormous amount of information that flows in here every day. We are still only seeing a tip of the iceberg here." 

Balance

Since he is involved in so many different departments and operating units, Stefan witnesses the evolution of Myreas from the front row. "Their growth has been much faster than expected, but they don't compromise on quality. These are all people who know what they are talking about and at the same time fit in well with the DNA of the Colruyt Group." Therefore, a good balance is crucial. That also translates to the impact on the entire organization. "We have already concretized a lot of capabilities and yet there remains a good balance between stability and progress. We are not going too slow, but not too fast either. In this way, Myreas is truly fundamental to the long-term success of our organization."