The Association of Corporate Growth hosted David Dillon, Chairman and recent CEO of Kroger Co. to share the keys to their success. Here is a list based on his insights. These practices have helped Dillon effectively earn 43 quarters of positive sales growth.
Top Seven Takeaways
- Change or Die
- Don’t stick your head in the sand; Value honesty. When promoted to CEO a colleague told Dillon,” Congratulations, you have just heard the truth for the last time.”
- At Annual Reviews, ask Peter Drucker’s question, “What could I change that would help you be more effective?”
- Make decisions from the point of view of the customer
- Part of their strategy was to lower prices to become more competitive. They asked themselves, “What can we change that doesn’t matter to the customer but costs us money?” One example is that they stopped “facing shelves” or moving groceries from front to back every day.
- Define your market to be relevant. They stopped looking at % of share of grocery stores and started looking at % of share of groceries sold which is a broader mix including Walmart and Costco
- Measure strategic progress quarterly. Their Strategy: Our people are great; The customer gets the product they want plus a little; the Shopping Experience makes the customer want to return, our prices are good.
Now it is your turn, what would you say has been your biggest key to success? Please share in the comments below!