The company
Decathlon is today one of the world's leading sporting goods retailers with more than 1,400 stores in over 40 countries. Founded in 1976 in Lille, France, Decathlon today sells products for more than 100 sporting activities. The company's unique value proposition rests on its ability to design, manufacture and sell its own products across more than 20 Decathlon brands dedicated to specific sports, including Quechua and BTWIN. Innovation is at the heart of Decathlon's continuous efforts to improve the experience of enthusiasts around the world and make sport accessible to everyone.
The challenges
From B2B commerce to B2C retail in India
Initially focused on B2B, Decathlon then targeted B2C stores in India after the government approved 100% foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2013, becoming the first sporting goods company to obtain this approval.
As a result, Decathlon launched an ambitious growth plan to build a vast store network across India within 5 years, and therefore sought a software solution ready to support this expansion plan.
Through efficient integration with Decathlon's information systems and thanks to new technologies such as RFID, mobile payments and the use of Openbravo Web POS in Decathlon stores, we genuinely help our staff improve their efficiency in checkout processes and we clearly reduce training time. With its B/S architecture, we have many opportunities to rethink the checkout process in stores. We believe this innovative solution will help us in the digital transformation of our business.
Tim Liu, IT Manager Decathlon International
The solution
India: technology put to the test
Decathlon placed its trust in the Openbravo solution more than 5 years ago in India, using Openbravo Java POS, Openbravo's former point-of-sale solution built on a client/server architecture. The shift to B2C, followed by a short and successful pilot phase, led the company to migrate to the new Openbravo Web POS solution.
This fully web-based, cloud-ready and mobile point-of-sale solution gave Decathlon complete POS functionality built on a highly flexible and easily adaptable technology platform. Today, Openbravo Web POS is used in 60 Decathlon stores across India.
Expansion into other countries
Following the positive experience in India, Openbravo went through a strict internal verification process and was officially certified by Decathlon as a POS solution that could be adopted in other countries.
In addition to India, Openbravo is now used in China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia, and the list keeps growing.
Openbravo gives Decathlon a single solution that integrates seamlessly with the company's current systems, a solution that is quickly and easily deployed and adapted to meet the specific needs of each country: tax regulations or innovative technologies such as RFID, mobile payments or self-checkout terminals.
The results
Faster in-store innovation for a differentiated shopping experience
Openbravo's flexibility has allowed Decathlon to introduce new innovations at the point of sale more quickly, reducing the time needed to adopt new technologies such as RFID, mobile payments with Alipay and WeChat integration (Decathlon China) and a brand-new self-checkout solution that was launched in under 3 months. Today, Decathlon customers enjoy a faster, more convenient shopping experience, which helps increase their satisfaction and loyalty.
Openbravo's out-of-the-box mobile point-of-sale features open up new possibilities for better in-store customer service, such as the ability to assist customers anywhere in the store or reduce checkout queues. Openbravo POS is a mobile web solution that automatically adapts to the screen size of the device used and offers the same features from mobile devices as from a traditional point-of-sale terminal.
Simplified multi-store IT management and move to the cloud
Openbravo's Web POS solution has considerably simplified the IT infrastructure required for stores, enabling faster new store openings and reducing the overall effort and cost of daily store maintenance. Product and price updates can be made centrally and applied in stores within minutes. Other changes or new processes can also be rolled out faster across different sites.
Store performance is guaranteed by the powerful offline capabilities of the Openbravo solution, ensuring uninterrupted in-store sales even in the event of temporary loss of connectivity. Openbravo's architecture also enables Decathlon to make progress in its move to the cloud, another of the company's strategic objectives.
Solution flexibility to support specific business requirements
Openbravo's modular architecture simplifies the introduction of new features that can be deployed centrally and tested with lower risk. This includes critical developments such as integration with Decathlon's SAP system using POSLog, a POS data integration standard promoted by ARTS, the retail technology standards division of the National Retail Federation. The Openbravo solution has also been successfully integrated with other systems such as eCommerce and the loyalty platform.
