At DECATHLON, our Purchasing team is strategically located at the heart of our industrial operations. In 2024, we launched the Purchasing Center of Excellence (CoE) with a clear ambition: to empower our network by leveraging our people, processes, and tools.
We are committed to upskilling our team members, establishing robust standards and processes across all purchasing categories, and deploying digital tools to enhance efficiency and agility. Additionally, we continuously monitor purchasing performance to identify opportunities for improvement and drive sustainable growth.
Today, our Corporate Direct Purchasing Policy serves as the foundation for all direct purchasing activities. It outlines the guiding principles, organizational structure, governance framework, and operational standards that support our teams worldwide.
Our long-term ambition is clear: to be the global leader in sourcing wonderful sports products.
Purchasing key principles are based on our values :
- We put humans first, we believe in the talent and well-being of all people along the value chain.
- We are building sustainable competitiveness to offer our customers affordable products.
- We are committed to regulation compliance, ethical behaviors, human and environment protection.
- We aim to develop relationships with our suppliers based on transparency, mutual fairness and trust.
- We achieve efficiency through close collaboration with our ecosystems and data-driven decisions.
Our purchasing network is made up of various jobs, from global purchasing manager to global strategic buyers, working in close collaboration with our global production network of over 2,000 teammates.
To ensure alignment across our initiatives, we have a Project Management Officer dedicated to leading and coordinating the deployment of our strategic roadmap and commitments.
By enhancing supplier collaboration and optimizing procurement effectiveness, she helps deliver high-quality, affordable sports products. Her cross functional role is essential to building an even more robust and sustainable purchasing panel and procurement strategy.
In a constantly evolving environment, purchasing teams are required - on a daily basis - to navigate a complex landscape that balances economic performance, sustainability goals, regulatory compliance, supply chain resilience, and other strategic priorities.
The core challenge of our purchase academy is to equip our teams with the tools and capabilities to tackle these challenges effectively, responsibly, and sustainably. This requires structured support for developing purchasing skills across social, environmental, ethical, and regulatory dimensions. Given today’s increasing uncertainties, mastering risk management has become a fundamental pillar of our approach.
In this context, the digitalization of purchasing practices becomes a key lever to support the transformation of the purchasing roles, enabling the analysis and interpretation of data to drive high-value decisions.
To structure and sustain this skills development, we have designed a unified skill framework that empowers every teammate involved in purchasing to understand their current level, self-assess, and shape a tailored-development plan aligned with their role, specific needs and professional aspirations.
This work was accompanied by a clarification of responsibilities, expected levels of expertise, and interactions between the various roles. It helps to strengthen collective efficiency, the complementarity of profiles, and ensure that clarifying each contributor’s role supports the company’s purchasing performance.
In order to make our suppliers autonomous, we established a solid Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) framework. We manage and optimize interactions with them to ensure long-term value, efficiency, and mutual benefits. It involves building strong partnerships, aligning goals, and fostering collaboration to improve performance, resilience & innovation.
Today, we work with 1400++ suppliers in 40++ production countries.
We believe collaboration & transparency with suppliers is the most effective way to approach and overcome today’s challenges. That’s why we focus on building strong, long-term relationships with our Industrial Partners—organizations whose vision, mindset, and values closely align with our own. That’s why we focus on building strong, long-term relationships with our Industrial Partners—organizations whose vision, mindset, and values closely align with our own. Through a rigorous selection process and a collaborative Industrial Partnership Project, we strive for mutual growth and continuous progress in the manufacturing of sporting goods.Through a rigorous selection process and a collaborative Industrial Partnership Project, we strive for mutual growth and continuous progress in the manufacturing of sporting goods. In 2025, we count 55+ industrial partners.
For the past decade, we've built strong partnerships that have been crucial to our transformation. Adapting our value chain in an ever-changing world, we face complex challenges. Now, we're taking it to the next level with our revamped partnership program, launching in 2025 with a bold ambition: Leading together the future sports industry.
We based our program on 4 mains principles:
Trust: The bedrock of our collaboration.
Excellence: Shifting from reactive to predictive.
Innovation: Driving industry leadership through innovation.
Sustainability: Creating meaningful change across our communities.
To foster deeper synergies and co-build strong relationships, we’ve been offering multiple touchpoints—both locally and globally—for nearly a decade. These include our Local and World Partners Forums, bringing together 200 to 500 participants, as well as digital events that regularly engage over 600 participants.
Whether by region or at a global scale, we organize in-person events to connect, collaborate, and address both strategic and local challenges. To stay continuously connected with our top suppliers, they also have access to a dedicated, tailor-made digital platform.
To drive our strategies forward, foster deeper synergies and co-build strong relationships, we’ve been offering multiple touchpoints—both locally and globally—for nearly a decade. These include our Local and World Partners Forums, bringing together 200 to 500 participants, as well as digital events that regularly engage over 600 participants. During our latest World Partners Forum, held in March 2025, we presented our new ambition and strategies to our industrial partners.
Whether by region or at a global scale, we organize in-person events to connect, collaborate, and address both strategic and local challenges. To stay continuously connected with our top suppliers, they also have access to a dedicated, tailor-made digital platform.
