MAKRO needed to transform extensive customer data into real business value. While insights existed in Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Colombia, they were fragmented across systems, preventing a unified customer journey and limiting growth opportunities.

20oneC developed a structured approach to unlock this potential. Through analytics and strategic assessment, we quantified a 100 million digit million dollar opportunity and evaluated MAKRO’s readiness to activate it.

We combined customer data analysis with a review of people, tools and capabilities to determine both the size of the CRM opportunity and what was required to build a customer driven operation.

Our work focused on three areas: aligning business goals with data insights to identify revenue potential, creating a lifecycle framework to guide acquisition, engagement and retention, and assessing organisational readiness to strengthen CRM capabilities.

The outcome was a clear CRM business case, supported by data, organisational insight and a regional roadmap to connect MAKRO’s customer journey.

The focus was turning strategic ambition into real organisational change. With full senior leadership alignment, MAKRO endorsed the CRM transformation and appointed a director to lead it.

We helped shape a new CRM organisation. A CRM manager with strong IT and project experience took charge, while employees already experimenting with CRM were reassigned to design and test customer value propositions. Successful pilots were scaled across markets to speed up impact.

On the data side, we built a single source of truth combining customer, transactional and behavioural data for all countries. This foundation was strengthened with ValueTrack, 20oneC’s framework that identifies and measures customer value throughout the journey. Embedding ValueTrack into the data model allowed MAKRO to accelerate analysis and link insights to financial outcomes. During this phase, existing tools and channels continued to support customer engagement, ensuring progress while building toward a fully connected CRM capability.

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During execution, we built a strong test-and-learn capability, enabling MAKRO to continuously experiment, evaluate, and scale what worked. Tests that delivered measurable uplift were expanded regionally, while underperforming initiatives were filtered out. The focus shifted from broadcasting generic product brochures to delivering highly relevant offers tailored to customer needs. To extend reach beyond email, new channels were developed, including a mobile app designed for small store and restaurant owners—busy entrepreneurs who always carry their phones and need instant access to offers. In parallel, in-store onboarding was redesigned to help new customers quickly find relevant products and services. Finally, we implemented a data management platform to integrate behavioural data, enabling smarter targeting and continuous optimisation of customer engagement strategies.

One of the main challenges lay in the organisational mindset shift—transforming MAKRO from a traditionally product-driven wholesaler, focused on bulk purchasing and promotions, into a customer-centric organisation built around relevance and long-term value. This required not only new data capabilities, but also a cultural change in how success was defined and measured. Additionally, aligning multiple countries and teams around shared CRM-goals demanded strong coordination and governance.

The results exceeded expectations across all key CRM KPIs, including uplift, cross-sell, and retention, demonstrating the tangible impact of a customer-centric approach. These outcomes secured full executive endorsement to roll out CRM across all markets, invest in new tools, and further strengthen customer journeys. Within just two years, MAKRO evolved into a data- and customer-driven organisation, where decisions were guided by insight rather than intuition. The transformation had already delivered an additional business value of US$40 million, proving both the financial and strategic value of the CRM initiative.