Majid Al Futtaim

Written By Rhonda M

Retail, Properties, Entertainment & Lifestyle Group (MENA)

 

The Challenge

 

Operating across 16 countries with over 600 million annual visitors, MAF faced unprecedented disruption during the pandemic, from supply chain breakdowns and workforce challenges to rapidly evolving customer expectations and digital acceleration.

Amid uncertainty, the business needed to stabilise performance, protect customer trust, and design a future-ready experience model that would secure growth and differentiation in a post-pandemic world.

 

The Intervention

 

Our founder led a region-wide transformation to stabilise operations, strengthen digital capability, and define the future retail experience model.

The focus was on addressing immediate operational challenges while designing for future competitiveness and customer relevance.

  • Strategy & Value: Developed and executed a customer improvement plan aligned with business objectives, focusing on friction removal and efficiency across key journeys, from fulfilment and delivery, to loyalty and service. Established a CX governance model linking operational performance directly to customer metrics and commercial results.

  • Experience by Design: Reimagined the future-state customer experience by combining research, customer insights, and emerging retail trends to define the channel ecosystem across physical, digital, and service environments. Led a multi-disciplinary collaboration across design, space planning, and technology to explore how people would shop and interact in the future, ensuring every touchpoint reflected the evolving balance between human and digital connection.

    This work defined the strategic blueprint for flagship experiences across grocery and retail categories, bringing innovation, flow, and service design together under a unified vision.

  • Operational Excellence: Introduced continuous improvement frameworks to identify points of detraction, streamline service delivery, and align investments with measurable customer and financial outcomes.

    Enhanced collaboration across operational, digital, and service functions to strengthen agility and maintain continuity during disruption.

  • People & Culture: Built leadership alignment and cross-functional collaboration through CX governance and performance frameworks that embedded ownership, measurement, and accountability at every level of the organisation.

 

The Outcome

 

Despite global disruption, the business achieved stability in operations and experience performance, maintaining EBITDA and workforce continuity during the most volatile trading periods.

The future-state design program delivered a demonstrable roadmap for innovation, scalability, and CX maturity, positioning the organisation as a regional leader in customer experience transformation and retail innovation.

 

Key Results

 

  • 25% YoY increase in online sales across 16 markets

  • Maintained EBITDA and workforce stability through sustained pandemic disruption

  • Designed and delivered the group’s future-state customer experience model

  • Embedded CX governance and continuous improvement frameworks across the region

 
Rhonda M
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