Vantaggi
Decathlon has a strong mission to engage more people into sport activities. Teammates are inspired by this mission, there is a strong spirit within the organisation. As a European company Decathlon has formed their corporate values, which are accepted and developed by the teammates. There is a strong connection in terms of culture, organisation, processes etc among all Decathlon markets. There is also a belief, that all teammates should play as entrepreneurs in their roles, which gives teammates more freedom and responsability for their decision, helps to grow faster. Decathlon values teammates who stay with the company for a long time: there is high chance that a teammate can start as a store employee and then grow to some other positions in other departments. Many Decathlon top managers actually started in a store many years ago.
Svantaggi
Since there is a lot of freedom given to teammates and business units, processes and actions may be not aligned and chaotic. There is a lot if ineffieciency, since teams are duplicating each other, try to bring max valut to their business unit, even if in general for the organisation it doesnt` make much sense. Also since many teammates grew within Decathlon there is a bit narrow minded approah in leading the business.