When Extra opened its first store in 2006, few believed they could compete with the well-established discount retail giants. Seventeen years later, Extra has firmly established itself as one of the top three retail chains in Norway.

The challenge they face is the need to deliver stores with exceptional customer service and experiences. They must elevate their operational efficiency, striving for continuous improvement. This is especially demanding in the competitive low-cost segment.

Extra’s primary objective is to become the largest and leading player in the Norwegian grocery market. To achieve this, they need a collective winning culture where all employees deliver on concept implementation, customer service and sales.

The concept “The fastest employees in the world” is a metaphor for perfect concept implementation, where all the employees contribute and has a personal responsibility to deliver for the team. This stunt illustrates what the employees at Extra can achieve when everybody deliver above their own expectation.

Extra wants to be number one in the Norwegian grocery market. The challenge is to engage a decentralized culture with a diverse workforce and create a collective winning culture with an understanding of the company strategy. We wanted to create a big collective happening bringing employees together across the country and make them believe in the limitless power of collective force.

To break the 5000 meter world record we needed employees that could run a 100 meter in an estimated time between 14 and 16 seconds. We sent out invitations to employees all over the country. The applicants sent us test runs to qualify for the stunt. Some did not make the cut, but we wanted a diverse group of people so the stunt could represent the whole company. With some fast runners it added up in the excel sheet and we could break the record with a few seconds. We also did test runs on the day of the event.

To become number one in the Norwegian grocery market is almost impossible. To break the 5000 meter world record mirrored this challenge and made the employees believe in the impossible. And that was our breakthrough thinking.