It’s just been announced that Rami will join Morrisons as CEO after David Potts stepped down after 9 years in the CEO role.

Rami has been at Carrefour France at a time of huge technological transformation, only rivalled by Walmart. Carrefour has modernised to:

• Create an impressive retai media offering – Carrefour Links – and now Unlimitail in partnership with Publicis Groupe

• Create a marketplace offering

• Invest in Q-com player Cajoo which went on to acquire Flink

While many of these initiatives were lead by the international Carrefour business, it will be interesting to see which of these digital-leading initiatives Rami may well apply to Morrisons. And Rami has huge international experience in Spain, Argentina, Taiwan, Poland, Romania and Turkey.

Morrisons was of course ground breaking in using Ocado Group since 2014 to power it’s e-commerce offering. Then a well-placed gamble in partnering with Amazon to supply groceries has paid off with huge revenues. In recent times, David Potts-led acquisition of convenience chain McColl’s Retail Group strengthens it’s offering and raises interesting opportunities in smaller formats and e-commerce.

Personally, I always loved Morrisons vertical integration approach with produce and it’s Market Street offering, but it seems shoppers don’t care that much about a vertically integrated sausage roll as maybe they once did.

With Morrisons and Asda struggling with the growth of Lidl and Aldi to maintain it’s ‘cheapest’ positioning, it’s time for a new role for Morrrisons. I hope it will be to position Morrisons as an innovator in e-commerce, retail media, marketing places.

What would you like to see happen with Morrisons?