Retail

Athletic inspiration and growing ambitions

Founded in France by seven sports lovers in 1976, Decathlon has grown to become the largest sporting goods retailer in the world. The company's rapid growth is driven by an inspired approach to its relationship with customers. "We have a strong ambition, which is to move people through the wonders of sports," says Maxime Bruynbroeck, Head of Network, Decathlon.

To attract and retain an athletically inclined audience, the company must deliver an experience designed for users on the go. For a globally distributed business, ensuring reliable connectivity is a challenge. Decathlon currently operates in 79 countries, with approximately 2000 sites. The majority of these are retail locations but also include warehouses, factories, and offices.

The sites are managed by a central network team responsible for Decathlon's SD-WAN solution. Additionally, more than 200 local engineers operate these sites, each of whom is responsible for managing networks in one or more countries and upgrading those systems. Each network team's administrative privileges are limited to their respective perimeters, with Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) managed by Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) roles and tags.

Since 2017, Cisco Meraki has been the backbone enabling Decathlon to scale network management and security across its expanding footprint. "Decathlon is growing fast. We must deliver day-to-day excellence," says Bruynbroeck. "Network is the foundation."

Enhancing and simplifying network security

To streamline operations and simplify network management, Decathlon leverages automation native to the Cisco Meraki platform. Decathlon's previous third-party VPN system had lacked fully qualified domain name (FQDN) authentication and configuration presets, which inhibited the company's ability to push out certain updates, such as site-to-site firewall rules.

Only the central IT team was able to use the solution; Decathlon needed its local IT teams to have more autonomy and control in deploying network updates. Large-scale deployments were further complicated by the variety of network needs in each location, making a templated approach unsuitable and necessitating excess manual configurations subject to human error.

By using Cisco Meraki APIs, the company has developed a web portal that automates network configuration, security, compliance, and monitoring across its locations. Both central and local IT teams can roll out updates in a tested, scalable manner, with the system able to handle more than 2.5 million API calls per month—nearly 1 per second. "Our teams have a lot of autonomy on the solution and are able to provide the best network for all our users," says Sébastien Fauchois, Network Proximity Team Leader, Decathlon.

Moreover, the cloud platform's zero-touch provisioning means Decathlon's network team does not have to be physically on site when deploying and refreshing network switches, or for network troubleshooting. This saves time, travel costs, and significant IT resources. Full-stack visibility provides real-time insights across its access points, switches, and security appliances, so Decathlon's IT team has a deeper understanding and control of its entire network, can achieve faster mean time to resolution, and maintain a holistic approach to security management.

"With the built-in security features, we know that our networks are safe," says Bruynbroeck. "This allows us to focus our activities on delivering exceptional service."

Delivering automation and vital customer insights

At the front end of Decathlon's customer service, the platform also delivers simplicity, sustainability, and scale. For instance, native Cisco Meraki integration with ecosystem partner VusionGroup has enabled the rollout of electronic shelf labels (ESLs) that transform Decathlon's stores into a digital asset. ESLs digitally display product pricing, promotions, and information that can be updated automatically and remotely by the central network team—eliminating paper label waste, ensuring accuracy for shoppers, and freeing employees to focus on customers.

Decathlon is also able to leverage its guest Wi-Fi login portal to gather additional customer insights, such as dwell time, frequency of visits, contact information, and more. Using their Cisco wireless infrastructure to inform data-driven decisions has enabled Decathlon to optimize employee scheduling per department, based on hourly and daily activity across different zones.

Using APIs, automation, and compliance rules built in to follow best practice, Decathlon is moving its customers through the wonders of sport with speed and efficiency to meet the expectations of athletes at every level. "From providing fast transactions at checkout to enabling dynamic, real-time inventory, we are reducing complexity—and that also helps guarantee that our network can scale," says Bruynbroeck. "Decathlon's network is no longer just a support function. It's an enabler of our ambitions."