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“This reorganization will make Dufry even more effective in the marketplace and will strengthen our position as the leading and true travel retailer worldwide.“ |
Julián Díaz CEO Dufry |
INTERNATIONAL. In big breaking news, Dufry Group this morning announced that it is carrying out an internal reorganisation “in order to deliver further sustainable growth and value creation for its shareholders in the future”.
Main changes include the re-shaping of the group’s regional structure with greater responsibilities decentralised to the regional level. Dufry will also merge its current procurement organisation into a single global procurement platform.
Dufry Group CEO Julián Díaz commented: “We have multiplied by five our size in the past eight years and we have grown Dufry’s to become the leading travel retailer with 8% market share.
“The reorganization is a critical step in the further development of the company: We want to continue to grow profitably – in terms of sales and sales per passenger, gross and operational margins while reducing net working capital requirements – and for this we need to reinforce our structure and re-think the way we work.”
Putting the announcement in context, Dufry said that it has developed rapidly in recent years. Since 2003, the group has multiplied its turnover by five and its EBITDA by ten, it said. It has also expanded into 20 new countries and increased its number of retail locations and personnel fivefold.
In 2011, Dufry generated a turnover of over CHF2.6 billion (US$2.7 billion) and EBITDA of CHF371 million (US$386 million) with a workforce of more than 13,800 people across 45 countries.
“The strong growth has turned Dufry’s organization into a larger and more complex one,” the company said.
To sustain its growth strategy, the grouip has therefore reviewed its organisational structure and operating model around three key principles:
1) Empowering business execution by the Regions, increasing business accountability and agility
2) Leveraging Dufry’s global scale in procurement and logistics, as well as its in-depth travel retail and customer knowledge
3) Reinforcing the corporate focus on growth and efficiency.
The new organisation reallocates various senior executives to new functions. All roles are taken up by existing Dufry executives with longstanding experience.
The organizational changes will be effective on 1 July, 2012 and will be fully implemented by 1 September, 2012.
Regional Re-configuration
Dufry’s new organizational structure will be consolidated into four Regions, which will be headed by Regional COOs, all reporting to the CEO:
• Region Europe, Africa and Asia: Xavier Rossinyol
• Region Latin America: René Riedi
• Region Brazil: José Carlos Rosa
• Region North America: Joseph DiDomizio
The role and functions of the Regions will be redefined, enabling the Regional COOs to assume greater P&L accountability for their regions, Dufry said.
Each Region will be structured into Business Units, which will monitor the day-to-day management of the respective operations. In total there will be 15 Business Units.
Changes in the Global Executive Committee membership
The reduction in number of regions will also be reflected in the Group Executive Committee, which will be reduced to eight persons (currently ten) from today. It will comprise:
• CEO, Julián Díaz
• CFO, Andreas Schneiter
• Global COO, José Antonio Gea
• Chief Legal Officer, Pascal Duclos
• The four Regional COOs
New Senior Advisory Roles
Dufry will also introduce a new Advisory President function per region to reinforce local business development, as well as to foster political and institutional relationships. The following people have been appointed non-executive Senior Advisors for each of the Regions:
• Region Europe, Africa and Asia: Dante Marro
• Region Latin America: José H. González
• Region Brazil: Humberto Mota
• Region North America: Mario DiDomizio
Unified Procurement Platform and consolidation of Logistics
As mentioned, Dufry will also merge its current procurement organisation into a single global procurement platform to serve company operations worldwide. “This move will allow maximizing economies of scale and knowledge,” the company said. “Furthermore, the logistics will also be centralized and be structured to match the new procurement setup.
“The simplification of the Procurement and Logistics function should allow to further drive gross margins and at the same time to improve lead times and net working capital.”
Changes in Corporate Roles
Dufry will also consolidate the Corporate Resources’ functions (Organization and Human Resources, Information Technology and Corporate Communications) to ensure the strategic alignment and efficient allocation of the Group’s internal resources. Additionally, Dufry will revise the functions performed by Business Controlling, Strategy and M&A to reinforce business performance monitoring against growth ambitions and risk profile. The following persons have been appointed, reporting to the CEO:
• Corporate Resources: Mr. Jordi Martín-Consuegra
• Business Controlling, Strategy and M&A: Mr. Luis Marín
Díaz commented: “The reorganization is designed to get closer to the customer and landlords by decentralizing the business execution and to centralize where we can leverage our scale, like procurement and logistics. At the same time, we strengthen the business development in the regions to identify and execute new projects.
“I would like to congratulate the newly appointed persons and to thank all executives for their outstanding contribution in the past years. Each of them has been a key player in the development of Dufry and will continue to be in their new functions.
“We are convinced that this reorganization will make Dufry even more effective in the marketplace and will strengthen our position as the leading and true travel retailer worldwide.”
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