Gala Supply Chain 2018 - FM logistic

Tonight we are going to try to see the future of this supply chain sector through two giants: of course the world's largest Chinese commerce player, Alibaba, and one of the pioneers of omnichannel retail and French online and physical retail with Fnac Darty. Jean-Christophe Machet, FM Logistic, we move from warehouse real estate to the ones who run the operations. What are your expectations? You are present in China, so inevitably there is both what can happen at home and what Alibaba is doing in its market, on its turf. But that's it. I see this a bit as a European speaking in China to see our operations. But my question from Europe is: in the West we have the GAFAs, in the East we have the BATs. Is Europe a neutral playing field that they will try to conquer? And how, effectively, as Didier said, Africa and India are priorities? And how, compared to Europe, where there is already a physical network in place, while Alibaba is creating and developing new solutions and new retail formats, sometimes completely digital and without a team inside? How do they envision a model that will allow strong penetration of Europe if Europe is one of their priorities? And it's true that with India we feel the real match. We will ask the question later to Sébastien Bado. But between an India with a very strong Anglo-Saxon culture, mastery of English, and proximity to China, we see that there is a playing field that is going to be terribly interesting for all these players in the months and years to come. At the same time, imagine that just as each country is thinking about protecting these players—the GAFAs have been somewhat preserved, at least the BATs—we can imagine that the Indians, since we are also in India, will know how to preserve their player, and with the number of engineers they have in India, even if there are 4.3 million graduating each year from Chinese schools, I am sure the Indians will also be in the game and preserve their sectors. Okay, what did you take away from this roundtable? First question, which I will ask each of you: three things.

Three things. First, I learned with some surprise that apparently Alibaba is not making Europe a priority playground. So that is information I did not necessarily expect. It's good or bad news, but I heard they have priorities elsewhere. Second, the customer experience, which Olivier spoke about, is essential and key. Finally, phygital and omnichannel is a new customer experience that is recent, that is obvious today, and the service provided to the customer will most likely remain a differentiating asset. Third, with what was said about Alibaba, I believe more than ever in the physical internet, which is the ability to bring together experts and existing structures that are not necessarily saturated and optimized to create a complex value chain with supervision tools that will allow us to know how the supply chain is managed. And I still have a question that I wanted to ask when I had the opportunity: with the development of omnichannel, we are moving towards order fragmentation on smaller and smaller orders that will reach the consumer wherever they are. How do we manage the congestion of megacities like Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Beijing, Paris?

And that is a challenge that the authorities and we supply chain professionals will have to work on to invent a model. That is the question I was going to ask you, Jean-Christophe Machet, because we have already talked about it here at events like this: it's the last-mile issue. You are working on clean vehicles, on the possibility of reducing noise pollution during deliveries to city-center stores. These issues will be all the more crucial, especially if you have giants capable of capturing a colossal market like Amazon does today in home delivery. But the subject is: what promise do we make to the consumer? I don't have the answer, but is the promise to deliver the consumer in an extremely short time to their home—the last meter, the last stair—is that sustainable if we talk about sustainable development, to which we are committed? Or will we have to invent a highly modern concept: concierge in some form that needs to be reinvented? We need to think: is it possible to deliver every consumer in megacities to their home every day for different verticals, as was said, or will we have to invent concierge concepts, either in the store or in a part of the store or elsewhere, to achieve a sustainable supply chain? Because given the quantities of packages delivered, at some point there could be a bottleneck. Yes, Jean-Christophe Machet, you are leaving for China next week, as we mentioned, and there is also a lot of development in Southeast Asia. How is that going for you? Because it is somewhat the question of this evening: this transition. Europeans when they go to China: is there a culture shock as we feel when the Chinese come to us?

Thank you very much to the four of you: Nicolas, Jean-Christophe, Jean-Charles, and Didier. Thank you for this fascinating roundtable on your activity. I hope you enjoyed it as well, and I wish you a very good continuation of the evening and a very good appetite.