Leveraging an expert e-commerce team for seamless go-live and ongoing sales support.
Strengthening the market position of a well-established European retailer. Hiring highly qualified e-commerce professionals to launch a new sales channel.
What did OBI want to achieve?
OBI wanted to grow its digital footprint in Europe following a successful e-commerce launch in Germany. Rolling out this complex and robust project, they established an updated sales function for CZ&SK territories. They wanted a competent 10+ member e-commerce team in Prague, with support from SBR. The e-Commerce channel was to ensure further business growth and market position in the DIY space.
What issues were OBI facing?
As market leaders OBI has always acquired, attracted, and retained great talent. However, e-commerce is still a new field. Building an expert team from their standard scope would require a change to their business model, and therefore a postponed go-live date. A Recruitment Coordinator for project management on the client side was needed, as there was no capacity in their current HR team.
The results
SBR received initial project information including job descriptions and org charts at the end of August. Thanks to proactive communication from OBI’s HRBP, SBR familiarized themselves with the hiring managers’ needs and understood the purpose of a new organisational structure in Germany. The project was kicked off at the end of September and we were given the first job offers at the beginning of November. Essentially the whole team was assembled by February and ready for go-live in May. SBR searched and hired 10 professionals for a wide range of roles in Operations, Product Management, IT, Digital Marketing, Customer Care, etc.
“SBR rebuilt our e-commerce department to meet the project KPIs. We appreciated the natural enthusiasm, motivation, implementation of challenging tasks, constructive and effective communication, customer focus, and professional approach. SBR is our key recruitment partner, whom we count on for our future recruitment needs and projects.”
Jan Kácha Senior Business Partner (People & Transformation)
SBR’s approach
To ensure smooth and fast project delivery, SBR allocated 4 recruiters: one was present at OBI CZ as an RPO Recruitment Coordinator for 4 months, while the other 3 were in charge of direct sourcing and interviewing as an external extension of OBI’s HR team. The recruitment process was set up, a 4-hour candidate interview unit with OBI in Germany, direct reports, division heads, HR, candidates, and third-party consultants were all taking part in the interviewing process. SBR was aware of the brands present in the Czech e-commerce market, and an extensive sourcing list of candidates to target reflected this market knowledge. SBR created an attractive briefing document and conducted a direct search via LinkedIn, other databases and platforms, and for each expert role, SBR sourced 38-56 relevant profiles. For each senior and managerial role, SBR sourced and introduced 4-7 candidates. Thanks to honest and straightforward communication from OBI’s HR department, we managed to debrief each candidate and shape the ideal candidate profile.
About OBI
Europe’s No. 1 retailer in DIY, has been fulfilling customers’ needs for over 50 years. With its presence in 11 European countries and 650 retail stores, OBI is the sought-after partner in its space. OBI has 48,000 employees and serves over 200 million customers each year.
