Driving Growth Through Performance Management

In their first year of structured performance management, Swedol achieved organic growth of 11.9%. Swedish stores exceeded their sales budget by 5.5% in 2016 and by 7.8% in 2017. Here’s how they made it happen.

“Swedol proved that performance management works — when it’s tailored to the needs of the business. Together, we built a structure that drives growth, strengthens trust in data, and frees up time for what really matters: sales.

Johannes Ingerby, Corporate Performance Management Expert
TIC

The Challenge

Aligning Growth with Strategy

Swedol is a leading retail chain serving professionals in construction, contracting, transportation, and industry. With 50+ stores across Sweden, their offering ranges from electrical tools to hydraulics and consumables.

In late 2015, Swedol was aiming to transform the business in line with an ambitious growth strategy. To support that, they needed:

A performance management model that could guide store-level action
Reliable, consistent tracking data — a “single source of truth”
Better use of their decision support tool, QlikView

Success started with identifying what really drives growth. Swedol pinpointed the six most critical sales drivers across their store network. Then, each store selected two to three of those drivers to focus on — depending on their own local conditions.
Monthly tracking through store dashboards helped keep momentum high throughout the year.

On top of that, each store received additional follow-up metrics tied to operational performance. This layer of tracking was reactive — stores only needed to act if they were off track or close to missing a benchmark.

To build trust in the data, a terminology guide was created to define each metric, calculation method, data source, and who was responsible for updates. This gave Swedol a follow-up system they could rely on — and act on confidently.

The Solution

Clear Focus and Trustworthy Follow-Up

The Results

Growth, Engagement, and Alignment

11.9% organic growth in year one
Stores exceeded sales budgets by 5.5% in 2016 and 7.8% in 2017
Active users of QlikView jumped from 35 to 55 per month

Beyond the numbers, the project created a clear link between strategy and store-level operations. Store managers had the tools and ownership they needed to drive growth — and a structure that gave teams the clarity and confidence to focus on what matters most.