The Adidas Group has decided to tighten its management in Western Europe by concentrating its eight existing regional units into just five of them. Under the new structure, which will be implemented before the end of the year, only the five managers of these units will report directly to Roland Auschel, who remains chief sales officer of the Adidas group.
The largest of the five new regional units is Central, which encompasses Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Baltics. It will be headed by Günter Weigl, who already supervised the three German-speaking countries. Peter Virsik remains managing director East, heading all the other countries. He was already in charge in all the Eastern countries except the Baltics, which were previously part of the Nordics regional unit.
The other countries under this former Nordics unit are to be integrated into a second enlarged regional unit, called North. It previously comprised only the U.K., Ireland and the Benelux countries, under the leadership of the Frenchman Gil Steyaert. But under the new structure Steyaert will also supervise Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. These last four countries are still the direct remit of Henrik Bunge, managing director for the Nordic countries.
A former southeast unit comprising Greece, Cyprus, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia, led for a few months by Andreas Gellner, managing director southeast Europe, will be folded into a third new regional unit, South. Bundling the west Balkans with Italy, it will be headed by Jean-Michel Granier, former Italian country manager. Italy and the west Balkans were previously part of the same unit for several years, supervised from Greece by Alain Brouhard, but they were separated in 2010 when Brouhard left the group and Granier was appointed at the helm of Adidas Italy.
The two other units are unchanged: France remains a standalone country under the leadership of André Maestrini; and Iberia continues under a separate structure, with Nigel Griffiths supervising Spain and Portugal.
The move is part of the changes introduced by the Adidas Group to reach its target of annual sales equivalent to €17 billion and a sustainable operating margin of 11 percent by 2015. The company said the new units are composed of countries with similar retail structures and consumer preferences, and the new setup would make its European operations more efficient and focused. The five regional unit managers will all have full responsibility for the results of both the Adidas and Reebok brands in their region.
