Radical reorganisation

A sustained period of poor profitability has led to Praktiker, a German DIY retailer, carrying out a radical reorganisation of its group structure – not only in Germany but abroad as well. The executive levels have already been slimmed down, areas combined and the corporate organigram streamlined, in addition to a reduction of the board from five to four members in 2010. Sales and category management in Germany are each now the responsibility of one director, the former with 11 district managers and the latter with 8 category managers reporting to him (previously three regional/area managers with 16 or 11 district or category managers respectively). The total number of area managers in the group has fallen from 28 to 22 (-1 abroad, -5 in Germany), and departmental managers are down by 27 to the present total of 93 (-8 abroad, -19 in Germany). So the board, together with the first and second executive levels, have been reduced by 20 per cent, while the overall number of Praktiker employees has fallen by six per cent to approximately 25 000. With effect from 1 February the nine national companies, which had until that date operated separately, have been merged into two sales regions which are each under the control of a three-man management team headquartered either in Budapest or in Athens. This has been achieved by doing away with the previous second executive level, that of the country managers. The Region International 1 based in Athens comprises the countries of Albania, Greece, Poland, Turkey and Ukraine. The three-man management team consists of Michael Trapp (company spokes-man, sales and marketing), Ioannis Selalmazidis (products) and Neophythos Panayiotou (commercial). Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Romania and Hungary belong to the Region International 2 based in Budapest. The present two-man management team consists of Karl-Heinz Keth (company spokesman, sales and marketing) and Harald Mörtenhummer (products). The commercial area of responsibility has not yet been filled. At the same time the company intends to extend its presence in Poland and Greece: four new stores are due to be launched in the course of this spring alone. Poland saw the opening of one store in Opole at the end of March, while others followed in mid-April or are expected in the autumn. The Polish network will increase to 25 as a result. The new stores are between 6 000 m² and 9 000 m² in size. The company’s expansion in Greece is being concentrated on intermediate centres outside the…