Project Report

on
EFFI-STORE
(Efficient Store)
At
Decathlon Sports India PVT. LTD.

SIP Project report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the PGDM
programme.

By Neeraj Kumar
201832070

Supervisors:
1. Company Guide: Deependra Pal Singh Shaktawat
2. Faculty Guide: Prof. Rajiv joshi

Institute of Management Technology, Nagpur.

2018-2020

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 Acknowledgements
I feel really honoured and gratified in thanking Institute of Management Technology,
Nagpur for giving me such a wonderful chance of working at Decathlon as an intern and
helping me in applying my learnings at work and learn at field.
I express my sincere gratitude to Mr. Deependra Pal Singh Shakhtawat (Sports Leader and
Coach, Decathlon Sports India, Jaipur) for their enlightened guidance and for providing me
with an opportunity to pursue a project in my field of interest. My special thanks to Mr. Bijay
Bhan Singh (Store Leader, Decathlon Sports India, Jaipur) for his consistent encouragement
and guidance without which this report would not have been possible.
The Project Report was an immense source of learning and a pleasant experience. It helped
me in understanding the professional conduct and the culture that prevails in the organization.
This project would not have been completed without the support of various other helpful
hands. I would like to thank the entire team of Decathlon Sports India, Jaipur for their
constant support and their willingness to answer all my queries which helped me in
understanding the functions and operations of the company.
Most importantly, I would like to thank my faculty guide Prof. Rajiv joshi for his constant
support and help throughout my internship.

Neeraj Kumar
201832070

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Completion Certificate

3
 Tables of Contents

S.No Content Page

No.

1. Acknowledgements 2

2. Completion Certificate 3

3. Introduction &Objectives of the study 5-8

4. Brief Descriptions of concepts introduced in the study 9

5. Company Analysis 10-12

6. Tabulation and Finding Results 13-21

7. Interpretations and conclusion/ Summary 22

8. Recommendations 23

9. Limitations of the study 24

10. Appendices 25

11. Bibliography 26

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 1.Introduction

1.1 What is my project?

My project was EFFI-STORE (Efficient store). In this project I have to understand how an
efficient store works and what elements decide the efficiency of the organisation. Inspired by
the Lean management, the Effi-store program improves the efficiency of in-store operations,
from the receipt of shelf delivery, inventory management, product availability, and rupturing.
In this project I have learnt how to reduce the time spent on each of them, to limit errors, and
to increase shelf availability.
I have gone under efficiency training and learnt the small factors that plays major role in
overall efficiency of store. In decathlon Jaipur different KPI’s has been decided to measure
the efficiency.
I was handed the responsibility of Hiking & Trekking Department. I was given product
training, layout training, customer interaction training, operations training, Online training &
Efficiency training. Quechua is the passion brand for my sport and currently it is No. 1 brand
in hiking. Apart from my project I was responsible for managing layout and stock ordering.
Hiking and Trekking department comes under mountain sports. Mountain sports accounts for
26 to 28% of total turnover.
My duties as a sport leader are to help Users in making their choices and suggesting them the
best suited technical product according to their level of expertise. In decathlon every product
family is divided into 3 levels i.e. beginner, intermediate & advance. The products layout,
information display, promotion, stocks are the daily work of a sport leader. Every action that
a Sport leader takes is based on a good customer service. A Sport Leader shares his passion
for sport with his teammates and Customers.

1.2 Objective of the project

 How operational efficiency improves user satisfaction, teammate satisfaction,
turnover and helps in reducing cost.
 To understand the day-to-day operations of a retail store.
 To have in-depth knowledge about the company and understands how a business to
customer model works.
 Maintain the quality of my layout and analyse the performance of sport department
assigned to me.
 To understand how point of sale (POS) works.
 To understand the factors that impacts customer walk-ins.
 To understand the modes of communications offline and online.

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1.3 Contribution of the project
While working on this project I get to learn-
 How to optimize stock in each store by calculating efficiency on the basis of space
given to a product family and sport.
 How to optimize Product Routing by doing delivery as soon as possible by making
unloading plans, implantation plans and by scheduling truck deliveries.
 How to optimize Team Routing by team-mates activeness and happiness by making
layout attractive and User friendly with SIBC (Self informed best choice) and making
product available to User.
 How to optimize User satisfaction by ensuring that store is clear and products and
team is available to assist User.

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 2.Company Overview

2.1 About the Company

Decathlon is a French sporting goods retailer. It is the largest sporting goods retail
company in the world. It started with a store in Lille, France in 1976 by Michel
Leclercq. Currently it has 1500+ stores in 49 countries.
Decathlon offers over 5000 varieties of products under more than 50 sports
categories including Hiking, Cycling, Running, Fitness, Swimming, Water sports,
Football, Cricket, Badminton, Golf, Horse riding, Roller sports, Tennis, basketball and
volleyball. Decathlon owns over 20 brands with research and development facilities to
innovate latest designs.
Decathlon opened its first cash-and-carry format and wholesale store in 2009.
However, it got approval for single brand retailing in 2013 and changed its business
from wholesale to retail. It keeps 30% average margin on its products and boost
profitability through lower overhead cost.
In India Decathlon has all its In-house brands and each Brand represents a particular
sport or group of sport. Like- Quechua for Hiking, Domyos for Fitness, kipsta for
football. Decathlon targets for mass market with its motto ‘Sport For All, All For
Sport’

2.2 Mission of the Company

Decathlon’s mission is to make sport accessible to as many as possible. We would like
to help, inspire and guide you through your sports experiences. We believe that being
active and discovering new sports every day is an important part of a healthy lifestyle.
Let’s do some sports together, as together is always more fun!

2.3 vision
To share the benefits of sports with the large number of Indians.

2.4 Company Values

 Vitality- Vitality is Life, intense activity, energy, drive and vigour. Employees at
Decathlon are full of vitality as they have, first and foremost, a positive mindset and
are bursting with energy. They are enthusiastic, they love creating and innovating, and
relentlessly strive to improve and make things around them change.
 Responsibility- Being responsible is about making decisions and making sure they are
acted upon. Employees at Decathlon are fully responsible for their decisions, both in
terms of their team and their customers. Responsibility is also about anticipating the
challenges facing society and orienting Companies actions towards sustainable
development. And it is also the responsibility of company to guarantee the safety of
customers and employees all over the world.

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Figure 2.1.1

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2.5 Organization Structure

CEO India
West ZoneManager
East Zone Manager North Zone Manager South Zone Manager

Regional Manager Regional Manager Regional Manager Regional Manager

DSI Ajmer Road

Store Manager

Sport
Sport leader Leader(Full Intern
Operations Manager Coach Timer or Part
Timer)

Mr. Steve Dykes (CEO India)

Mr. Atul singh (North Zone manager)

Mr. Raghwendra singh (Regional

Manager)

Mr. Bijay bhan singh (Store Manager - DSI

Ajmer Road)

Mr. Atul Singh (Sport Leader - quechua)

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 3.Brief Description of concepts introduced in the study

 Product Stage- In decathlon product has 7 life stages, which are displayed in ERP
system (zinstore) by different colours. Green being the first stage and red being the
last stage. In red stage the production has been stopped for that particular product and
a new model has been introduced with some advanced features. On an average
products has a life of 3-4 years.
 Inventory Management- Decathlon has dedicated ERP system which ensures
basic stock availability. Replenishment of stock is done automatically until and unless
there is a rupture from brand itself or the product is in last stage. We can order the
product manually also through zinstore.
 Implantation logic- Every layout(sport) follows a Implantation logic that derives
customer flow. Implantation logic can either be CAD (computer added design) plan
given by the brand (brand office) or it can be locally adapted by sport leader but it
should have a logical reasoning. Every sport has various family heads like
backpacking, snow hiking, nature hiking, trekking etc. and divided into 3 sections
(Men, Women and Kids).
 SIBC (Self Informed Best Choice)- SIBC believes that if a sport leader is not
available in the layout and layout has all the signage & compare charts. Then user can
easily decide what to purchase because of the proper product details and product
comparison. SIBC layout also mean your layout has all its products in place and Users
Can See It-Touch It- Feel It-Try It-Buy It.

 Terminologies:

 LPBP ( lowest price best value)- These are the products which are technically
specific and available at lowest price. Generally they are the first products of their
families.
 Zinstore- ERP system that helps in planning and managing key functions of the store.
Like, Ensuring Availability of enough stock, customer data, human management
 Gondolas- It is rack shape structure used for product implantation. Normally a
Gondola has 13LM’s.
 LM’s ( Linear meter)- It is a meter distance used to calculate efficiency for store.
 Credit Note: A note issued to buyers when they want to get a product exchanged.
 POS (Point of sale)- The place where sales take place.
 Roster- Human management resource
 Local catchment- local catchment is the area where one can reach within 25mins from
store by driving. 25minutes radius is local catchment for the store.
 Piloting- piloting is analysing your customer, competitor and forecasting the demand
for coming season. Every sport leader has to make a LSP (local sport project) in
which he looks after all the factors that will impact sales in coming year.
 Delivery

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 4.Company Analysis
Decathlon believes in continuous innovation. Company keeps on testing new products,
concepts and event ideas to make sure User experience is continuously improving. Company
believes in the concept of “happy employees, happy customers”. Every Employee has their
say in the strategy and project ideas. Currently Decathlon have over 87000 employees
worldwide. Company put a lot of emphasis on green project right from production to its retail
stores. solar panels are installed on roofs and company recycles its waste by 100%.
Decathlon has eight major departments-
1. Research and development- They have dedicated teams for each of the 20 brands
which continuously improves its products technicality by keeping low prices for
products.
2. Brand- In this department all the planning and forecasting for the coming year goes on
and they give orders to the suppliers according to forecasted demand.
3. Expansion team- Expansion team analyses and decides the new potential place where
store can be opened.
4. Manufacturing- Decathlon manufactures and outsource its products. In India most of
its products are outsourced from suppliers except cycling and bottles and camping
tents.
5. IT- It department looks after training platform( HU-MINE), ERP system (zin store), C
base (centralised data storage), decathlon.in and many more things.
6. Logistics- Logistics department takes care of all goods movement for retail stores, B-
2-B clients and online orders.
7. Warehouse- In India decathlon has only two warehouse (Bangalore & Gurgaon
warehouse) which looks after all 71 stores.
8. Retail store- Retail stores are the end line which gives business to company as all
selling happens here. Each store has a store manager and one operations manager.
They manage the complete store. Every department has a dedicated sport leader and
he is responsible for all the business. He does forecasting and piloting for his
department and select the range of products from brand according to local catchment.

Decathlon Store DSI Ajmer road is a standalone store with the area of 19000sq feet.
Standalone stores are usually big and have experience zone for all major sports where one try
roller blades on a smooth surface. In other section runners can test shoes on smooth to rough
surfaces. Mountain bikes can be tested on wood and solid terrains. Company usually opens
these stores in suburbs to save cost and later it opens more store in the city centres once it has
established itself. In Jaipur they opened their first store on Jaipur-Ajmer highway which is
20kms from the city centre and now they are planning to open a new store in city by the end
of this year.

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Decathlon Marketing Mix:
 Product-Decathlon is one of the leading sports apparel and accessories brands in the
world. Its marketing mix product portfolio includes sports equipments, accessories,
clothing , footwear and much more. There is a wide collection of products for all the
sports including football, baseball, basketball, cricket, badminton, etc. Decathlon also
has all the items for less popular sports like archery, billiard, darts, field hockey, roller
skates, volleyball and even scuba diving. Not just men, there is a separate and diverse
section for women and kids as well. The variety and abundance of products is such
that sometimes there is a problem of plenty. Decathlon also offers products from its
own brands like Artengo , Domyos, Kalenji, New Feel, Inesis, Oxelo and many more.

 Price- Decathlon brand aims to encourage sports all over the world. So, it makes sure
every sporting gear is available at affordable prices. It has consistently maintained its
low prices by not compromising with quality. This is because of the optimization of
internal processes in design and logistics. Cost leadership, along with decent quality is
the core competency of this brand. Decathlon keeps its prices around 20 percent lower
than its competitors.

 Place- Decathlon has dedicated expansion team which does the research and come
out with places targeted places where sport users are available and it opens its store
firstly in suburbs because the size of Decathlon stores are usually larger to provide
experience to the users with specialised experience zones for the each sport where
Users can play and test their sport items. Once they reach at enough popularity then
they open other small stores in city centres. Decathlon also delivers products online
through its decathlon.in website.

 Promotion- Decathlon doesn’t invest much in promotions because of its low cost
structure. However Decathlon gets its main promotion from word-of-mouth marketing
by making its users happy and satisfied. Decathlon uses online modes for marketing
through adverts. Decathlon engages its Users through events. Decathlon continuously
organises events for particular sports and also believes in community engagement.
Decathlon has a dedicated website where one can look for the particular events
coming up at their store locations.

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 4.1 EFFI-STORE
My project is “EFFI-STORE” in which I have to analyse factors upon which efficiency of a
store depends and how we can make store more efficient. Company believes that working in
an efficient environment brings pleasure to our team mates and satisfaction to our users.
Efficiency is the comparison of what is actually produced or performed with what can be
achieved with the same consumption of resources.
Efficiency targets to increase operational efficiency by improving the satisfaction of team
mates which will improve Users satisfaction. 90% of the team time is to invest in building
relationships with the Users, rest everything has to be done in remaining 10% time. So, one
has to be efficient enough to do all daily tasks like, layout facing, stock ordering, layout
maintenance, delivery, ensuring layout is upto the standard.
Decathlon IT team made an in-store application in which walking to any item in the store,
sport leader of that sport can find all detailed information in one step and can place orders
from that application itself. This thing completely changed the way a sport manager works.
As Decathlon stores are usually 4000 square meter it can take a few minutes to go to a
computer and coming back to the Customer but now with the help of this single screen,
multi-function application they carry the answers to every question in their pockets.
To increase the efficiency at the end line Decathlon India has many projects geared towards
continued improvement of customer experience. The deployment of RFID tags on products
has accelerated the functioning at POS and also helps in inventory management.
Every sport leader has to do piloting and has to decide his ambition for the next year. A sport
leader always keeps his ambition in mind which motivates him to achieve the piloted
turnover. Regular workshops are conducted at decathlon to discuss the problem or
opportunities among team members and these workshops add great value to store efficiency.

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 5.Tabulation and Finding/Results
During my layout and efficiency training under EFFI-STORE, I learned really important
things that affect the conversion rate, turnover & User satisfaction. Decathlon focuses very
much on User satisfaction & User experience. Here are few things that I have learnt:

5.1 Right human at Right time- According to the survey conducted by

decathlon 80% of sale takes places through human assistance. Presence of human
at the time of decision making plays very important role because a sport leader
can advise best according to the requirements. Eg. A person wants to go to Nag
Tibba trek and he doesn’t go that frequently to treks than a sport leader will advise
him according to that only, in decathlon sport leaders doesn’t believe in selling the
help people in their passion sports. So, they suggest the best technical product
with best price according to the needs &wants of Users.
• It has been observed that conversion rate increases with increase in no. of
employees.
• Human Efficiency is calculated on the basis of total no. of quantities sold
divided by total no. of human hours taken.
Total no . of quantities sold
Human Efficiency=
Totalno . of working hours
• Human Efficiency target for 2019 is set at 10Qty/human hour.
• Human productivity is also a major of how productive teammates we have.
Totalturnover
Human Productivity =
Total no . of working hours
• Human Productivity target for year 2019 is set at 3550INR/ hr.

5.2 Delivery process- Delivery at Decathlon takes place on 3 days a week. So it is

very important for a sport leader to complete delivery a soon as possible. Hence,
Decathlon started measuring delivery efficiency store wise under its EFFI-STORE
project from march 2019 onwards. Delivery efficiency plays a very important role
in defining how productive you can be
• For year 2019 delivery efficiency Target is set 6Qty/min/person.
• Delivery efficiency is calculated by calculating the total no. of human hours
( in minutes) taken to complete the delivery and delivery completion means
your product is properly displayed and ready for sale.
TotalQuantities delivered
Delivery Effciency=
Total no . of working minutes taken

Quantity sold
Sport Sport Leader

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 Jan Feb March April May June
Day hiking Atul/Neeraj 5565 3567 4517 5021 5788 5862
Working Hours 384 400 344 336 284 208
Efficiency 14.49 8.92 13.13 14.94 20.38 28.18
Gym Pilates Navneet 4298 2613 5148 6224 5624 7138
Working Hours 160 160 200 168.0 180.0 216
Efficiency 26.86 16.33 25.74 37.05 31.24 33.05
Cardio Akash/ Akansha 2854 2103 3503 3382 4054 4029
Working Hours 200 112 216 154 144 208
Efficiency 14.27 18.78 16.22 21.96 28.15 19.37
Jogging Deependra 1818 1660 2045 2154 2533 2450
Working Hours 192 200 216 176 208 192
Efficiency 9.47 8.30 9.47 12.24 12.18 12.76

5.1.1 Human Efficiency

5.3 Cash Counter Operations- Point of sale is the place where all cash counter
operations take place. So, it is very important to be efficient at this stage.
Efficiency at this place can be increased by putting baskets filled with impulsive
buying products. So, the User that is waiting for his turn will look at the products
and will buy some. In decathlon largest quantities of impulsive buying product
were sold through cash counter baskets.
All the refund and exchange also happens at POS. when a product is returned we
need to deicide that product is defective or going back to layout. If product is
going back to layout than we have to put it in the basket which is for back to
layout products and these products should be returned back to their layouts for
display because if by any chance a customer is asking for a size of the product and
product is available but it is in the back to layout basket. A sport leader will say
sorry we don’t have the size. In this case store is making User unsatisfied as well
as revenue loss.
During the registration of first time customer. employees have to fill the postal
codes of customers for store reference. If a customer don’t know the pincode then
he will take time to search for the pinocde and reduces the efficiency. So
decathlon Jaipur has already prepared a chart available at every cash counter
which saves time and thus makes store more efficient.
Item code tags of most of the impulsive buying products fall because they pass
through lots of hands. So, at the time of billing the cashier doesn’t know the item
code. He has to go to computer has search of item code which again reduces the
efficiency. So every cash counter has a items code chart for most of the impulsive
buying products.

Another important thing which I covered during my internship was customer

handling. It is one of the most important part of selling a product. Under this

15
 training, I was being taught as to how a customer should be handled. Learnings
from this training were:
 In order to make the shopping experience for a customer a memorable one it is
important to make products available, demanded by the customer, to the customer.
 Continuous related questions should be asked from the customer to narrow
down the specification of the product.

5.4 Events-
Decathlon organises a lot of sport events and their main aim is to create awareness
about the sport, about the store and to bring new customers for registration. Events
are organised on weekends to pull more Users. During my period there has been
three events organised out of which one is Sports Utsav. It was a two day event
organised on 22nd & 23rd June. It brings 320 new registrations for the store. On that
weekend turnover was just at 12% growth but next weekend sales are gone up by
42%. It’s not necessary that the impact of events will be seen of same day.
Sometimes impact is seen in coming weeks. This sports utsav helped in the social
media appearance of the store and more Users could be tapped with this.

Main purpose of the events is to create current or future walk-ins for the store. A
retail company basically works on three fundamental things to improve its
performance.

 Walk-ins: If a retail company is struggling then it should focus on

creating more walk-ins by promotional events or social media campaigns.

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 Conversion rate: Once A retail has enough walk-ins then it should
concentrate on converting them into customers. The conversion rate for
decathlon Jaipur for the month of March has been 34% while in month of
May it has been increased to 41% which is highest for DSI Ajmer road till
now. What we as a store has noticed that human availability plays a big
role in conversion rate. More human availability leads to greater
conversion rate and human efficiency level also increases till a certain
point.

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  Average basket value: Average basket value is the average value of
items getting sold. It is equivalent to total value of goods sold by total no.
of billings done.
Once conversion rate is achieved, then comes the role of efficiency, here
are some of the practices followed by DSI Ajmer road-

Jan Feb Mar Q1

Ambition Realised Ambition Realised Ambition Realised Ambition Realise
d
Qty/H 7.67 7.5 7.28 7 8.38 8.86 7.78 7.79
r
TO/Hr 3666 3890 3408 3554 3873 4257 3649 3900.33

 Regular refill of stock in TG (Tail of gondola) & cash counter

baskets.

 Implantation of impulsive buying products in central aisle basket

for high quantity sales.

 Cross marketing peg after every 3LM’s.

 Daily manager ensuring that right human on right time is available

& this can be made possible by ensuring that only one team
member from a particular department is on leave at one time. Daily
manager should also try that No breaks during peak hours (6pm-
8pm).

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 Analysis report on efficiency

Efficiency - Jaipur Store

Quarter 1:

Challenges faced in Q1-

 Less walk-ins as compared to last year. There was a Dip of 1% in Q1,2019 as
compared to Q1,2018
 Due to Unplanned leave in Feb. we have to face problem in Right human at right
time.
 POS and WD Roster got hampered because of Unplanned leaves in Q1.
 100% of Team members were not trained on Efficiency.
 Cross marketing Peg after 3 LM’s was followed by only a few departments.
 Our way of doing Delivery was not effective in Q1.

Efficiency Sport wise in Quarter 1:

Top 5 Efficient Sports:-
Gym Pilates - 22.97 Qty./hr.
Cardio Fitness - 16.42 Qty./hr
Tennis - 13.05 Qty./hr.
Hiking - 12.18 Qty./hr.
Football - 9.61 Qty./hr.

Top 5 Efficient sport according to LM:-

Tennis - 0.75 Qty./LM/hour
Gym Pilates - 0.74 Qty./LM/hour
Football - 0.63 Qty./LM/hour
Cardio Fitness - 0.58 Qty./LM/hour
Cricket - 0.46 Qty./LM/hour

Good Practices of above sports:

Regular refill of stock in TG.
Regular animation of high selling products in TG.
Implantation of Impulsive buying products in Central Aisle basket for high quantity sales.
Cross marketing Peg after every 3 LM’s
More commercial Layout
Regular animation in layout.

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 Few Good practices in Q1

What How Who When Result

Cash counter -Stationery near -Efficiency -February VSAT - 88.96%

operations Cash Counter referent -March NSAT (Due to long queue)
-Pin code chart at -CHM January-4
POS referent Feb.-2
-Back to layout March-1
baskets behind POS Data Collection - 68.34%
-Item code chart at
POS

Right human -1 Team member on -Sport March -Conversion:

at right time WO from Each leaders onwards January-31% February-
cluster -Store 32%
-Only 3 Planned Leader March-35%
leaves in a Day
-Roster to be freezed -NSAT due to no Team
on 28th for each member
Team member. January-4
-Once Roster is February-3
freezed POS and March-2
WD roster to be
prepared.

Fixture Area -We maintain fixture -Sport Daily -Reduction of time usage to
area in the best leader get fixture from 2.10 min. To
possible way. -Daily .40 in.
-Item code chart of manager
fixtures in fixture -Operation
area. referent
-Efficiency
referent

April May June Q2

Ambition realised Ambition realised Ambition realised Ambition realised

Qty/H 10.6 9.47 10.52 11.60 10. 11.27 10.34 10.78

r 45
TO/Hr 4608 4812.32 4819 5434.6 4788 5036.28 4738.33 5094.40
0

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 Ambition For Q2 (Till 27th June)

Human Hours piloting for Q2

April May June

Full Timer 23 23 23
Part Timer 5 5 5
Total Hours 5288 5184 5152

Quantity sales piloting for Q2

April May June Total

Qty sales 50051 60134 58063 168248

Action Plan for Q2

What How Who When Expected

Result

100% Trained -2 Workshop every Efficiency Every 10 Qty./Hour

Team members month. referent month
on Efficiency -Efficiency to be part
of Induction plan.

Cash Counter -One more POS for -CHM In Quarter VSAT - 90%
Operations Weekends referent 2 NSAT
-Pre registration of -Operations (Due to long queue)- 0
new users referent Data Collection- 75%
-Effective POS and -Efficiency
WD roster referent
-Effective Cash till -Store leader
trolley and -Cross -CAB
marketing near POS referent

Right human at -1 TM on break from -Sport leader In quarter -Conversion Rate -

right time each cluster -Store leader 2 41%
-No Breaks during -Daily -NSAT due to no team
Peak hours managers member - 0 NSAT
-Effective Roster of -Efficiency
Part timers referent.

Delivery -Delivery roster -Sport From Delivery efficiency-

efficiency -Delivery mass plan Leader April 6qty./min./person
-Use of Central Aisle -Daily onwards

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 basket managers
-Use of Timer for -Efficiency
delivery. referent

Cross Marketing Cross marketing peg -Sport April 10 Qty./Hour

in every 3 LMs leaders onwards
-Daily
managers

Swot Analysis Of Decathlon

 Strength:
1. Group is largest sporting goods reseller in domestic market.
2. Large variety of sports goods in affordable pricing for all classes of consumers.
3. Own private label brands to get high brand recall.
4. Strong and innovative marketing since years have created a strong brand retention
in the minds of customers.

 Weakness:
1. Limited global presence as compared to leading global companies.
2. E- retailing is gaining importance but still company has limited presence on the
same.
3. As there is big issue of work life balance in retail. Retention rate of employees is
very low

 Opportunity:
1. Brand building by tie-up with emerging clubs/teams/players.
2. Company has opportunity to innovate on technology front to design new
products.
3. Creating high brand awareness by exploring advertising media tactically.

 Threat:
1. High competition from global and domestic players.
2. High competition from global and domestic players.
3. Decathlon is diversifying into innovation techniques but it needs to expand more
to keep reinventing itself

22
 Observation & Interpretation

Sports sector in India is growing at a very fast pace. There are new & innovative
sports brands entering Indian market. People are becoming more health conscious and
thus decathlon has a greater opportunity to capitalise on that as it provides quality
products at reasonable prices. On the basis of my internship I have learnt that
decathlon believes in its values which are the core part of its work culture.
As Decathlon only hires sport persons and each employee has to go through physical
endurance test. This plays a very importance role in differentiating Decathlon from
other brands. Another big change that Decathlon brought in the sports industry is
customer happiness & customer handling. Every store has a dedicated CHM Manager
dedicated to customer related issues.
Decathlon doesn’t spend much on marketing and it tries to reduce its operations cost
in result of that they are able to provide quality products at such low prices. Decathlon
worked a long way on its layout. We don’t usually see the concept of ‘self-informed
best choice’ so, decathlon has an advantage over its others competitors. Every product
has its information displayed which maximizes the customer experience with the
brand and also increases store efficiency as they are able to maintain such big stores
which limited no. of employees because of its layout.

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 Recommendations
1. Decathlon main research & development happens in France, due to which local sports
like kabbadi doesn’t have any products. As, my location was in Jaipur there were a lot
of Kabbadi players and each time they have to go back unsatisfied. So, atleast Brand
should have basic products.

2. Decathlon should also introduce more indoor games as right now it has limited indoor
games. During my period of internship 20-25 customers asked to me about Chess and
every time I have to reply ‘sorry sir’.

3. The Customers ought to be instructed with respect to mark and the sub-brands at
Decathlon. This will empower the clients to distinguish what the item is and the
proposed reason for the item, along these lines decreasing the quantity of profits
because of wrong item recognizable proof and determination.

4. Decathlon and its sub-brands go for advancing their items in a tepid ad approach,
concentrating on bulletins and handouts. In spite of the fact that this strategy is
powerful in various ways, it adds to the expense of the organization. Online media
commercials ought to be investigated the organization, in order to make brand
mindfulness, advance occasions and workshops furthermore to stay in contact with
the clients.

5. According to the item arrangement, those items falling under ‘5/40’ territory ought to
be kept in more stock as when contrasted with the items falling under ‘80/20’. This
will guarantee there exists insignificant SLT with respect to the items, along these
lines lessening expense to the organization.

6. As right we have experience zone only for 4 major departments, more experience are
needed to enhance customer experience.

7. Hiring of more employees as awareness of Brand is increasing which is leading to

more customer walk-ins, therefore more human should be available in layout.

8. As decathlon provides minimum 2year warranty on its products. The terms &
conditions should be specified to Users clearly during the purchase.

9. Decathlon believes that all customers comes to its store are sport users and company
trusts them, due to which they don’t have RFID scanners at exit points and don’t even
have CCTV cameras. People take advantage of it and there has been many cases of
theft which is costing company 4% of its turnover. There should be proper RFID
scanners and CCTV cameras to monitor and reduce thefts from the store.

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 Limitations of the study
The limitation of the study that I faced were as follows:

1. The study duration i.e. the SIP period of 2 months is very short as it
took a time to understand the information and technicality of the
products.

2. Human availability was a main issue at the store so I have to cater with
large amount of crowd, especially on weekends.

3. The main that I faced is that customers that are coming to the store are
not very product specific. Most of them are not users. For e.g.- if a
customer is looking for sports shoes. he doesn’t want to differentiate
between walking and running shoes. So, most of the time you have to
tell the customer about the technical differences between the walking
& running shoes. Which affects the current efficiency of the store.

Scope of Future Improvements

As an intern I was not given complete information because company right now is not
comfortable with disclosing its balance sheets with outsiders and also intern don’t
have access to zinstore. Everytime we had to ask our mentors for the data which was
very time consuming process as most of the time they were busy attending customers.
There should a proper system that can be accessed by interns for their project
information.

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 Bibliography
 https://www.merchantmaverick.com/understanding-point-sale-pos/
 https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Decathl
on_Group.html
 https://globalapparelforum.com/decathlon-succeeds-adidas-nike-puma-become-no-1-
sports-gear-category/

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