Home Depot began back in 1979 when Bernie and Arthur started the company after being
fired from Handy Dan.
We focused on having the right product in our stores and on customer service.
So when Home Depot opened, we were the first big box retailer in the area.
And Bernie and Arthur's vision was to stack it high and let it fly.
And so we wanted to make sure that our customers felt our presence of product and being in
stock and knowing that we could meet all of their household and home improvement needs.
And the second thing was customer service has to be number one.
So when a customer comes in and they have a problem, our job is to solve that problem
for them.
And so whether it was replacing a washer in a faucet or an entire home renovation, we
were going to be their subject-matter experts to help guide them through the project.
And so our focus on was customers who were doing it themselves and giving them the confidence
that they could go in and change out a toilet or put in a ceiling fan or lay down tile.
And our job was to teach them how to do it and to instill confidence.
We started in Atlanta with two stores and expanded to four stores and then six stores.
And as we started growing in the Atlanta area, we also decided we needed to go down to Florida
and we went down to Miami and expanded in Florida very rapidly.
There weren't any big box retailers back when Home Depot started.
This was a very new concept--putting all these different businesses under one roof.
All these big businesses kind of followed our lead in that regard.
And we now have stores all throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto
Rico, Virgin Islands.
We even have a store in Guam.
We're a pretty large company now with 2275 stores.
One of the things that has allowed us to grow our business so rapidly is the development
of our people.
And so we spend a lot of time developing our associates, ensuring that we're growing future
leaders for the organization.
So if you look at our company today, about 85% of our store managers came up through
the stores.
So we invest that time in them to ensure they understand our culture, that they understand
the values.
It's our people that grow our business.
And so in order for us to continue to expand and to grow, we have to make sure our associates
carry that message every day to our customers.
And then in return, we're able to grow our business exponentially.
When Bernie and Arthur started a few stores locally, you could pretty much figure out
what you needed to carry in that store because you lived in that community, you understood
the businesses.
They were there with the products that they were offering.
When we started becoming more regional, things were different.
People buy different things in different areas.
So we had a concept that's called decentralized.
So we didn't manage from one corporate office.
We had offices across the country where each buying office could make their own decision
for merchandise.
So we had merchants over different categories.
People who bought faucets, people who bought paint, people who bought hardware products:
hammers and nails.
And they assorted the stores in that area based on regional needs.
We're still pretty much like that today.
We're centralized now; we have one buying office here in Atlanta--the corporate office.
But we have people in the field who give a lot of feedback.
Our customers really helped us decide what products we needed to add to our product mix.
So as customers came in and started asking about different selections in lighting, or
different selections in faucets or toilets, our merchants were able to go out and take
that feedback and make deals with those vendors and bring that product in.
So when you think about entrepreneurship, it's got to be both what a company wants as
well as what the customer wants.
Part of growing the business is ensuring that you're meeting your customers' needs, and
so they helped us grow our business.
As we were growing, our business initially it was a lot of do it yourself.
But we also noticed it was a lot of pro-penetration.
Contractors--people who do work for customers.
And as that continued to grow, we became a large supply house for the professional business
customer.
And that's when we really started being able to expand quicker.
Then you have to also imagine the internet coming online in '99-2000.
We get online and started going in that direction.
And that's a big part of our business now as well.
Buying online, shipping to the store.
Buying online, picking up in the store.
Buying online, having it delivered from the store.
Just multiple ways to solve customers' problems.
And when you think about our stores, we have about 35-37,000 skews in stock inside the
store.
We have over a million skews available online.
We also have distribution centers now built throughout the country that can give us the
ability to get product from online purchases to the customer's home in less than two days.
So we've really grown our business with the pro customer and we continue to expand and
grow our business with the online customer as people continue to ship the way they shop.
The heart of the company is our people.
The soul of the company is our values.