BUSINESS CASE
Decathlon
Towards a competence-based organization
01 OVERVIEW
Decathlon, the world leader in sports retail, is undergoing a profound transformation of its business model to better meet the expectations of both its customers and employees. Anchored in its core purpose, this ambitious global strategy aims to deliver an enhanced and immersive customer experience, strengthen its commitment to sustainability, and modernize the entire organization.
It is within this context that the project to redesign the learning ecosystem was launched. The objective is to simplify and unify the learning experience for 110,000 employees across 70 countries. The goal is to make skill development accessible, personalized, and self-directed for every employee — positioning Decathlon as a learning organization that values knowledge sharing and continuous growth.
Decathlon in numbers
1976
creation date
101,000
employee worldwide
1700
salepoints
82
countries
02 PRODUCTS USED
Bealink LXP
03 CONTEXT & CHALLENGES
Decathlon has an ambitious vision: to equip every athlete, from beginners to enthusiasts, while supporting its teams in their professional growth. This mission is now embedded in a global transformation strategy that combines immersive customer experiences, a strong commitment to sustainability, and organizational modernization.
Today, Decathlon faces several major challenges:
A fragmented learning ecosystem, relying on numerous disparate tools that do not communicate with each other, limiting the fluidity of the learner experience.
The need to provide an accessible, high-performing platform — particularly on mobile — to match the daily habits of employees.
Significant localization and multilingual management constraints, with a presence in 70 countries and specific challenges related to training deployment in markets such as China.
Exceptional diversity of professions: 411 different job roles and thousands of skills to develop and promote.
A strong desire to bring together internal experts (job leaders, skill leaders) to structure knowledge and share best practices.
The ambition to create a global, coherent, and inspiring learning experience, while allowing local entities to adapt content to cultural, operational, and regulatory specificities.
A strong training marketing challenge: promoting skill development as a strategic driver of differentiation and employee engagement for the employer brand.
“One of our key challenges is to provide global support around a role or skill, while also integrating a local dimension that gives real relevance to the teammate’s interactions with our customers.”
Thibault GALY-DEJEAN
Director Ecosystem Talent Development @Decathlon
04 tHE SOLUTION
Decathlon University : A global strategy for skills development
To support Decathlon in this transformation, we propose the implementation of an integrated and scalable learning environment designed to balance global consistency with local flexibility.
01 Strategic alignment and unified experience
The platform brings together all existing tools in the learning ecosystem to ensure a seamless, consistent experience aligned with Decathlon’s global upskilling strategy.
02 Accessibility and advanced localization
The learning environment will be fully accessible across all devices — especially mobile — with full multilingual support and the ability to manage publishing and compliance in complex markets such as China. This approach ensures a unified experience while giving countries and local entities the flexibility to adapt content, formats, and priorities to their specific needs.
03 Job- and skill-based personalization
With a skills-based approach, each employee gains access to personalized learning paths and recommendations based on their role, experience level, and professional goals. The platform accommodates Decathlon’s 411 distinct job roles, offering targeted development plans aligned with strategic, regulatory, and operational priorities. The solution leverages the expertise of Decathlon’s job leaders and skill leaders to structure content and create a shared competency framework.
04 An engaging digital experience
The platform includes features such as social learning, peer collaboration, and gamification to increase learner engagement and encourage knowledge sharing. It highlights internal expert contributions and fosters a strong community dynamic around key skills.
“It was a very smooth implementation, with Bealink’s teams proactively offering solutions to meet our specific needs — whether in terms of language or functional design — all within a standard product. That’s exactly what makes Bealink LXP so relevant.”
Thibault GALY-DEJEAN
Director Ecosystem Talent Development @ DECATHLON
05 SOLUTIONS DEPLOYED AT DECATHLON
Skill-based organisation
Learning Hub
Learning Ecosystem Management
Learning experience
Personalization
Learning Culture
Evaluation & certification
06 INTEGRATIONS
