MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Would You Invite Employees to Vote on Strategic Direction?

Executives often fear that they’ll lose control and speed by engaging employees in strategic planning. But here’s a new playbook that works.

As the newly appointed CEO of Hema, a struggling European retail chain with 750 stores and 19,000 employees, Saskia Egas Reparaz faced a daunting challenge. The year before, in 2020, the company had posted a loss of 215 million euros despite having generated 1.1 billion euros in revenue. Hema had been through several private equity owners and leadership teams over the past 15 years, all of whom had failed to turn things around. Yet the new private equity owners had high expectations of Egas Reparaz and were confident that she could get the company back on track.

She did just that, most notably by reversing the company’s long-established strategy of expanding beyond the home market. Hema was operating stores throughout Western Europe and had even franchised some outlets in the Middle East and Mexico. Egas Reparaz closed dozens of stores and focused Hema’s operations in the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) as well as nearby France. By the end of 2021, the company was profitable again, and in 2022, gross sales rose 20%.

About the Author

Alexander Loudon is a strategic consultant with Loudon & Associates and the author of The Execution Advantage (Warden Press, 2023).

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