How supermarket giant Samkaup (Coop) made it fun for employees to execute strategy

Company overview

Samkaup is one of the major grocery retail chains in Iceland. The company employs more than 1400 people and operates around 60 stores all around the country under 4 different brands, including low price stores, neighbourhood stores and convenience stores.

Business Issues

• To move people and culture - not just groceries
• To involve 1400 people in 60 outlets over a wide geographical area in contributing to the strategy
• To engage managers in the strategy formulation and execution in order to release the growth potential within the firm
  

The Solution

• A beta version of the DecideAct platform was implemented (Samkaup was one of DecideAct’s first test companies) limited to the Executive Team for the first two years.
• Later, with the full version of DecideAct, the scope was extended to include all 2nd level managers as well as store managers

The Benefits

• The governance structure enables a communication platform between the Board of Directors and the Executive Team and between the Executive Committee and 2nd level managers
• The solutions provides much greater transparency and oversight throughout the whole organisation

"The beauty of it is that store managers and employees own the goals. It makes them much more motivated to implement the strategy.”

Ómar Valdimarsson