Tomas Holm Hedehus

Denmark has seen a growing number of people shift towards online retail. El-Salg, one of the country’s largest voluntary chains in whitegoods, small electric appliances, and lighting, is no stranger to the importance of e-commerce, with 25 per cent of its whitegoods now purchased online. This burgeoning trend shows no sign of slowing, and El-Salg is well equipped to cater for this new retail medium.

“We had two facilities in Denmark: our headquarters in Copenhagen and a department in the northern part of the country. They were closed down, and we actually employed all new employees starting in 2011. So it was a new company in a new location, new house and a new organisation. We have really changed the structure of the company to be much more competitive and lean compared to our competitors. We had a new building, new offices, and from September 2011 we had all new employees.

When you are forced by the market power to be leaner, you need to gather your forces in one place. That was the main reason—instead of having two departments, we needed to be one company at one location in order to be leaner. The second reason was to be able to modernise the company. We needed to have new people in this context. We had an old culture in the company that we needed to adapt to the new world.”