Personal Presence for Critical Negotiations

“Stefan Persson takes a different role during the establishment. While Erling Persson is on site once a month, Stefan Persson visits Germany at most once a quarter, when the German manager Edgar Rosenberg has interesting new store locations to show in the major cities. At this time, Stefan Persson focuses on finding the best store locations and then he puts all his energy into negotiating with property owners who are not familiar with H&M before. They have big dragons to fight, Dutch C&A and department stores like Karlstadt and Kaufhof. When the CEO of H&M himself comes down to negotiate a new store, it gives a completely different weight. Erling Persson makes his spontaneous visits, and combines them with sauna bathing. Stefan Persson always has an agenda.”

“He would often visit Germany, at least once a month. He just showed up at the office, completely unannounced. He had taken the morning flight from London. With Erling Persson present, things happened immediately, Thomas Enderstein explains. If the management in Germany had requested additional supplies, it could happen that the Sweden office said no. "You have enough relative to the sales," they thought. But when Erling Persson called and said that the warehouse was empty, they sent supplies immediately. No discussion.”