DECATHLON has saved a lot of work by switching to mobile phones. For store employees and IT technicians.

  • Company Decathlon

When a customer comes to a DECATHLON sports equipment store and asks any member of the staff about the availability of a certain item, the employee will immediately respond to them without having to wander over to their computer or ask their colleagues. Because they can find all the information they need in the application on their mobile. System4u manages over 600 mobile phones in Czech stores – and DECATHLON's IT Department has very little to worry about.

The first impetus for change came from France

 Just a few years ago, DECATHLON employees worked differently – some worked on a company computer or tablet while others worked on a private mobile. When the demand came from the motherland of France for everyone to begin using the central mobile application, it arrived with some initial problems. 

“A lot of people had older versions of the application on their mobile or tablet, which in turn communicated poorly with the newer ones. In IT, we had no idea how many devices we had at the company. And what’s more, we had to set up and update all mobile phones manually. Having to cope with this meant that one person was completely occupied to the point where they often couldn’t even manage it all fast enough”.

 The situation was unsustainable in the long-run, which is why at DECATHLON they decided to adopt a rigorous solution. They purchased mobile phones from Samsung for their employees and had System4u deploy technology for their mass management and security system – Samsung Knox Configure.

Huge Time Savings

“We had several requests that could not be compromised. The first of which was that the DECATHLON logo should appear and play a jingle as soon as each phone is turned on. We also wanted to have a unified wallpaper and lock screen on our mobile phones and ensure that all 13 company applications that we use on them would work correctly. We also hoped that the technology would ease manual work in terms of phone set-up”.

By deploying and setting up Samsung Knox technology, System4u has met these requirements. New phones will immediately configure themselves automatically after start-up and employees will gain access to all the applications which they are authorized to use in order to do their jobs. For example, thanks to these applications, they can immediately detect the current stock availability of goods or even have an invoice printed directly from their phone. 

But the thing that is valued most of all at DECATHLON is that the IT department now has an overview of all devices and phone management will take them less than a minute. 

“Everyone has an updated system and updated applications, and thanks to IMEI codes, we have an overview of how many phones we have in our stores. When we give someone a new device, we don’t even have to see it – the employee just turns on their mobile and everything they need is downloaded, updated, and set up just like how everyone else has it. This also applies to cases in which a mobile phone that’s been turned off for a quarter of a year is put back into operation – everything is updated when it is turned on. Before this new system, we would have spent several hours setting up such a phone”.

The result? It saves on employee workloads

Today, about 670 mobile phones circulate around Czech DECATHLON stores. If the IT Department were to manage them all manually, it would take dozens of hours a month. This is how Samsung Knox Configure system and System4u customer support solve the majority of matters for the IT Department.

“If you’re dealing with a similar situation, I have to recommend migrating to a mobile solution. You’ll have less man-hours in terms of manual set-up and updates, you’ll have an overview of the phones, and people will be able to work happier and more efficiently. The older employees had to get used to it at first. After years spent on computers or laptops, it was new to them, but it all quickly fell into place”.

Ideal for all brick and mortar shops

Do you also want your store employees or other on-site employees to have access to all the information they need without having to rely on a computer or laptop?

Write us at info@system4u.com or call us at 543 210 522.

Samsung Knox

Who have we helped?

CEE Logistics

Thanks to the mobile application, the company can easily obtain documents from their drivers on the road.

IDOT (Intune Device Onboarding Tool) from System4u

The IDOT saved IT technicians in a large manufacturing company a lot of work.

Antonínská Primary School, Brno

Just turn it on and get down to work right away. We helped a primary school set up tablets for students and teachers.