ACADEMIA DE STUDII ECONOMICE

BUCURETI
FACULTATEA DE ADMINISTRAREA AFACERILOR
cu predare n limbi strine

Decathlon Baneasa
Business Continuity Management
Prof. coord.: Cantaragiu Ramona

Vlceanu Letiia Gabriela

FABIZ, GRP. 131

Contents
Introduction.........................................................................................................................................3
Critical functions.................................................................................................................................3
Critical resources.................................................................................................................................4
The risks & mitigating them...............................................................................................................4
Interview Questionnaire Comments................................................................................................5
Conclusion............................................................................................................................................5

Introduction
Decathlon is one of the biggest sporting goods retails in the world.
The company was founded in 1976, in France, by Michel Leclercq. Ten years after, it
started to expand in Europe and in the 2000s in Asia. Today, there are more than 850 stores
all around the world, with more than 60000 employees.
The name Decathlon mean 10 sports. This was the number of sports for which the
company provided its products. Now, it has clothing and other equipment for over 70 sports.
Decathlon opened its first store in 2009 in Romania in Bucharest. Currently, there are
19 stores, the last one was opened in Focsani. Decathlon Baneasa, the second largest
Decathlon store in Romania, was opened on the 29th of December, 2015. Has 95 shop
assistants, including the managers and the director. I am one of the first employees working
in this store, being a cashier and a shop assistant for the Universal Health department, which
includes products such as proteins, watches, flashlights and bags, but also I am currently in
the Recruiting Team, dealing with recruiting and selecting new employees for the store.
I decided to make this project about Decathlon Baneasa, because, first of all, I have
direct access to information and, also, my manager helped me by filling in the Questionnaire.
She found the document very interesting and very well structured, covering a large range of
important aspects of our daily activity in the company.

Critical functions
A critical function represents a process or an activity of a company, which interrupted,
the company can suffer economic, financial or legal losses or can cease the existence of it.
The critical functions of Decathlon Romania consist, firstly, in selling sport-related products
to the clients. Thus, to help its clients, the shop assistants are presenting the products and give
advices to the customers in order to choose the best products. To fulfill the activity of selling,
Decathlon has two primary storages, which are the main suppliers for the store in Baneasa.
Another critical activity, this time related to the shop assistants, is to arrange the
merchandise correctly on the shelf, depending on the department and to always put the prices
which coincide to that specific good. Also, is very important that the goods to be in the place
where they are supposed to be and not arranged unorganized.
Besides the selling and ordering activities, Decathlons critical functions also
represent the fact that the employees must keep track of the inventory. Also, one of the sale
assistants duties consist in the fact that some clients may want to reserve products, so the
employee will put it aside, especially for that client. Also, if a client sees a product on our
website and is not physically, lets suppose, in Decathlon Baneasa store, then the employee
will order that product from the two storages, either the one from Hungary or the one from
France and will announce the client that his product has arrived.
Together with the sale assistants, the cashiers are also part of the staff. They deal with
both cashing the products and with reception, meaning writing the bills of the customers and
helping the clients with the refund procedure. Another critical activity is with creating the Tax
Free procedure for the foreigners, who do not live in the European Union, in order for them
to receive the amount of the TVA subtracted from their shopping.
Another critical function is the collaboration with the company ERKA, which helps
Decathlon with all the material regarding commercials, decorations, but with people in case
of low number of employees and during days with a large number of clients.

Critical resources
When it comes to resources, here one can speak about the goods which come by truck
from the two deposits mentioned earlier. For moving the goods, the employees need an
infrastructure (elevators) and machines.
In this section, employees are also part of the resources, starting with the cashiers,
sales assistants, managers and the director. Another category of resources consists in utilities,
such as electricity and water. Other resources which are complementary with the duties of the
employees are laptops and computers, from which they do their tasks and communicate
between each other. Thus, the store needs connection to the Internet in order to facilitate this
type of communication. Besides the electronic devices, one needs stationery products in order
to fulfill certain tasks.
Other critical resources consist in the departments, such as Finance and Online, with
which Decathlon Baneasa collaborates daily for creating bills or online orders for the
customers.

The risks & mitigating them

By analyzing the survey and discussing with the managers, I identified a number of
risks which can create some scenarios. Using the line of events in those scenarios, one can
come up with solutions what to do in case of emergency.
Lets assume that, in case of emergency, the store needs to be evacuated. Every
employee is trained and has a specific role. Depending on the department they are working
on, the sales assistants need to evacuate the clients to the closest emergency door and to take
out some important documents, which can be found at the reception. So, every sales assistant
should memorize the emergency doors that are the closest to their departments and to verify
both the bathrooms and every fitting room, to not leave behind customers. Unfortunate
situations can be avoided by creating constant simulations, so this way, the employees would
understand the risks of this situation in real life and memorize the steps in evacuating the
building.
Another scenario is in case of lack of goods to be put on sale. Solutions exist, to bring
from another store the product, but it is not an optimal one in the situation if many products
are not available. Is important then, for the sales assistants, to learn how to put the
merchandise on sale, and more importantly, how many should be on the shelf and to create
Extra-Inventory (in Romanian, Supra-Stoc), meaning to put few products on the shelf and
to keep the additional goods in the pantry.
Another scenario consists in the lack of stationery products. This situation can be
prevented by measuring how many products of this kind are consumed and ordering them in
a larger quantity to make sure that it will be enough. But, there are some exceptions, when the
orders are coming later, so, the store can compensate the loss by buying from other stores the
products. Unfortunately, there are some products that Decathlon cannot buy from other
stores, but there are critical for executing their activity. So, again, the company can borrow
products from other Decathlon stores, both from Bucharest and from the entire country.
Finally, the human resources are an important part for Decathlon. In the case one
suffers an injury at the workplace, he or she would get hurt and would need time to heal. We
have people in our stuff, who know to give first aid. Also, we have a partnership with
Medlife, which is a private clinic. So, ambulance services are, also, part of solutions.

Interview Questionnaire Comments & Recommendations

Reading the questionnaire, I have decided to come up with some comments and
recommendations for the store.
The questionnaire address is divided on 7 parts. The first part, Governance, describes how the
company deals with planning, developing and writing the Business Continuity Plan. Even
though, there is no official paper with the title of BCP, but there are plans and documents
constructed based on this principle. Also, there are persons, from both the sales assistants and
managerial levels, who constantly review and discuss those plans. My opinion is that the
company should adopt this principle of Business Continuity Plan and to create a special act,
with a well-defined structure and to make accessible to the all employees. This way, the
employees can maximize the efficiency of communication and can spread the information
more easily.
In the second part, Business impact analysis, the manager was asked if the company is
aware of its critical functions and what happens in case of a disruption. I believe that
trainings should be used in the stage, because employees need to understand the impact of the
risk. In the third part, Risk Assessment, the manager was asked if the company is aware of the
risks which it is exposed, for example: loss of important documents, key staff and even
financial risk. The manager said that the company has identified a number of possible risks,
but again, I recommend sharing with all the employees the risks and to create together
measures in order to avoid this type of situations.
In the fourth part, Business continuity management strategy, we discover more about
the training of the people, the premises, suppliers and other stakeholders of the company and
how the company deals with each other in case of a disruption of a critical activity. One can
see that the employees are trained and they have opportunities to learn constantly, that the
company has alternatives for replacing the machinery, but not other suppliers to whom to get
the goods. Like previously mentioned before, the store needs to forecasts the demand and to
order enough to put on the shelf, and enough to create certain reserves of products.
The last three parts, Business continuity response planning, Exercising and
maintaining and reviewing the BCM and Embedding BCM in the organizational culture, talk
about how to incorporate the BCM in the day-by-day activities of the company. In my
opinion, is important, firstly, to create a team and to build from stretch the whole BCM plan.
Before creating the plan, one must discover all the possible risks and make assumptions and
scenarios based on those factors. After the plan is created, is important to raise awareness and
to discuss with the rest of the colleagues about this. The team should not forget to review,
from time to time, this plan, to make changes if necessary and to make sure the company will
recover and continue its normal activity, and, the most important, to continue growing, even
after a disruption of a critical activity.

Conclusion
Even though, Decathlon Baneasa does not uses the term of Business Continuity
Management, the store has created plans in case of disruption of critical functions. Based on
the questionnaire, the company is prepared to recover after a loss, but with the help from
outside the store or with other type of resources, which cannot be found in local stores. I do
believe that the store should conduct its own research and to implement the policy of BCM in
their organizational culture in order to have an homogenous sense of controlling the situation
in case of emergency.
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