Ahold Delhaize

The organisation

Ahold Delhaize is a global food retail group comprising 17 local grocery and e-commerce brands across the Netherlands, Belgium, the United States, Indonesia and other markets, serving around 77 million customers a week through more than 9,500 stores. With an internal user base of over one million people spanning EU and US operations, the group has been investing heavily in unifying its digital commerce experience and modernising the technology governing it.

The challenge

Ahold Delhaize's Power Platform governance had been owned by a single partner, on-site, for more than six years, and the estate had grown far faster than the model meant to govern it. Solutions were scattered across regions and multiple partners, each with its own standards and invoicing, with nobody accountable for the platform as a whole. Governance had become a gatekeeping function rather than an enabler, business units bypassed the process and hired their own partners, and modern capabilities such as Copilot Studio could not be adopted safely into a regulated part of the business with more than ten thousand users because no framework existed to absorb them.

The solution

The delivery team was engaged as Global Governance Architect through one of the largest Microsoft partners, working inside the business alongside platform owners, security, legal, regional IT leadership and the CIO office rather than alongside it as an external reviewer. The first months focused on understanding the real estate rather than the documented one, then rebuilding governance around guardrails instead of gates, tiered solution classification, and named ownership inside the business rather than inside a vendor. Over two years, the team supported the opening of a local Tech Hub now staffed with more than 250 people, of whom over 20 are dedicated Power Platform and Power BI specialists, and helped stand up an in-house solutioning team of more than 20 people with its own delivery lead and product owner, now supporting and modernising every internal critical Power Platform solution. The team led the rollout of Copilot Studio to a dedicated group of over 10,000 users inside a heavily regulated part of the business, treating agents as governed assets from day one with defined authoring environments, controlled knowledge sources and human review. Scattered partner-owned solutions were consolidated into the in-house team, and the engagement closed with a five-year governance and platform strategy signed off at CIO level.

How we ran it

1. 01

   Take the Global Governance Architect seat

   Worked inside the business with platform owners, security, legal, regional IT and the CIO office to rebuild governance from first principles.

2. 02

   Reframe governance around guardrails and ownership

   Introduced tiered solution classification and named accountable owners inside the business rather than vendors.

3. 03

   Stand up a Tech Hub and in-house solutioning team

   Supported opening a 250+ person Tech Hub and a 20+ person solutioning team now running the internal critical estate.

4. 04

   Roll out Copilot Studio safely at scale

   Delivered governed agent adoption for 10,000+ users in a regulated part of the business, and a five-year CIO strategy.

The result

Within a two-year engagement, Ahold Delhaize moved from a six-year-old, gatekeeping governance model to a modern global framework built for scale and AI, applied consistently across EU and US operations. Copilot Studio is now live for over 10,000 users in a regulated part of the business, a local Tech Hub of 250+ people and a 20+ strong in-house solutioning team now own and modernise critical solutions previously spread across external vendors, and duplicated licences and contracts have been retired. The CIO now holds a five-year governance and platform roadmap to plan and budget against.