The Home Depot Totally Explained

Everything about Home Depot totally explained

The Home Depot is an American retailer of home improvement and construction products and services. Headquartered in Vinings, just outside Atlanta in unincorporated Cobb County, Georgia, the Home Depot employs more than 355,000 people and operates 2,141 big-box format stores across the United States (including the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam), Canada (ten provinces), Mexico and China. The world's second largest Home Depot (as of the end of 2007) opened November 14, 2007 on the island of Guam.
The Home Depot is the largest home improvement retailer in the United States, ahead of rival Lowe's, and the second-largest general retailer in the United States, behind only Wal-Mart.

History

The Home Depot was founded in 1978 in Atlanta, Georgia by Bernie Marcus, Arthur Blank, Ron Brill, and Pat Farrah. The Home Depot's proposition was to build home-improvement warehouses, larger than any of their competitors' facilities. Investment banker Ken Langone helped Marcus and Blank to secure the necessary capital. The first two stores, built in spaces leased from J. C. Penney that were originally Treasure Island stores, opened in Atlanta, Georgia on June 22, 1979.
In 2000, after the retirement of Marcus and Blank, Robert Nardelli was appointed chairman, president, and CEO. Nardelli was replaced in January 2007 by Frank Blake. In 2007 the Home Depot sold its USD $13 billion revenue wholesale division, HD Supply, to a consortium of three private equity firms.

The Home Depot today

Home Depot stores are large, averaging 105,000 ft² (9,755 m²) and organized warehouse-style, stocking a large range of supplies. The company color is a bright orange (PMS 165, CMYK 60M100Y), on signs, equipment and employee aprons.
Its 2006 sales totaled US$90.8 billion (US$77.0 billion in retail sales). Despite the 10% increase in revenue, it dropped three spots to #17 on the 2007 FORTUNE magazine's FORTUNE 500 list (it was #13 in 2005 and #14 in 2006). The Home Depot also owns EXPO Design Center

, a chain of higher-end home decorating and appliance stores. In 2006, the Home Depot acquired Hughes Supply which is to be assimilated into HD Supply

serving contractors. In September 2005, Home Depot Direct launched its high-end online home-furnishings store, 10 Crescent Lane, shortly followed by the launch of Paces Trading Company, its high-end online lighting store. In mid 2006, the Home Depot acquired Home Decorators Collection which was placed as an additional brand under its Home Depot Direct Division.
On January 2, 2007, the Home Depot and Robert Nardelli mutually agreed on Nardelli's resignation as CEO after a six-year tenure. Nardelli resigned amid complaints over his heavy handed management and whether his pay package of $123.7 million, excluding stock option grants, over the past 5 years was excessive considering the stock's poor performance versus its competitor Lowe's. His golden parachute severance package of $210 million has also been criticized because when the stock went down his pay went up. His successor is Frank Blake, who previously served as the company's vice chairman of the board and executive vice president.

Board of directors

Current members of the board of directors of the Home Depot are: F. Duane Ackerman, David H. Batchelder, Frank Blake, Ari Bousbib, Gregory D. Brenneman, Albert P. Carey, John L. Clendenin, Armando Codina, Brian C. Cornell, Claudio X. González, Milledge A. Hart, III, Bonnie G. Hill, Laban P. Jackson Jr, Karen Katen, and Kenneth G. Langone. The Home Depot's board consists of 15 members, with 14 of them being outside directors.

Marketing

The slogan "You can do it. We can help." has been used by the Home Depot since 2003. Other slogans used in the past 25 years include "The Home Depot, Low prices are just the beginning" in the early 1990s and "When you're at the Home Depot, You'll feel right at home" in the late 1990s and "The Home Depot: First In Home Improvement!" from 1999-2003.

Online

The domain homedepot.com attracted at least 120 million visitors

annually by 2008 according to a Compete.com survey.

Exclusive brands

The Home Depot carries several exclusive brands, including:

BEHR Paint
Chem-Dry (carpet cleaning, upholstery cleaning, tile and grout services)
Distinctions Cabinetry
Eco Options (store brand)
Feather River Doors
G.E. (Water Heaters)
Glacier Bay (faucets and bath)
Hampton Bay (lighting, ceiling fans & patio furniture)
Husky (tools)
Millstead
Pegasus (kitchen and bath items)
Ralph Lauren paint
Ryobi (power tools)
Thomasville cabinetry
Vigoro (fertilizer)
Workforce

Fuel Centers

Starting in 2006, the Home Depot has started testing with fuel centers at some of its stores. The first centers located in Hermitage and Brentwood (both in Tennessee), and Acworth, Georgia are expected to earn $5-$7 million per year. The fuel centers sell beer, hot food, snacks along with providing diesel at a separate island. This allows contractors with large trucks to be able to fill their vehicles. The fuel centers also offer car washes, which are large enough to accommodate full size pickups.

Home Depot construction toys

The Home Depot also has its own brand of construction toys, which include plastic hammers, wrenches, and screwdrivers, but are sold exclusively at Toys R Us.

Social and Community Philanthropy

"The company is also dedicated to giving back to the community and donates time, labor, money, and supplies to numerous charities, totaling more than $200 million in contributions. The Home Depot Foundation, established in 2002, supports a variety of community projects, including Habitat for Humanity; City of Hope Cancer Center, a California-based cancer-treatment center; and KaBOOM!, a playground-construction organization.
In 2005, Home Depot was among 53 entities that contributed the maximum of $250,000 to the second inauguration of President George W. Bush.

Environmental record

The Home Depot has stated on their website that they've a commitment "to the environment and pledge to continue to be an industry leader in looking for products and services that are respectful of our world." Home Depot introduced a label on nearly 3,000 products in 2007. The label promotes energy conservation, sustainable forestry and clean water. Home Depot executives said that as the world’s largest buyer of construction material, their company had the power to persuade thousands of suppliers, homebuilders and consumers to follow its lead on environment sustainability. “Who in the world has a chance to have a bigger impact on this sector than Home Depot?” said Ron Jarvis, who is the vice president for environmental innovation at Home Depot. This program is following Home Depot’s promise in late 1990s to eliminate the number of sales of lumber from endangered forests in countries including Chile and Indonesia. Home Depot has sinced worked with environmental groups to create a variety of green programs. For example Home Depot planted thousands of trees at its headquarters in Atlanta to offset carbon emissions.
In January 2007, the Home Depot became the official Home Improvement sponsor of the National Football League.
Seventy-three percent of the Home Depot's campaign contributions went to Republican candidates in the 2005-2006 US elections. "Home Depot's PAC gives money based on a candidate's voting record, committee assignment and leadership position," said company spokesman Jerry Shields. The CEO in this period was Bob Nardelli, a friend of Bush. Nardelli hosted a garden reception/fundraiser for Bush at his Atlanta home on May 20, 2004.

The Home Depot internationally

Home Depot Canada is the Canadian unit of the Home Depot and one of Canada's top home improvement retailers. The Canadian operation consists of nearly 190 stores and employs over 35,000 people in Canada. Home Depot Canada has stores in all ten Canadian provinces and serves territorial Nunavut, Northwest Territories, and Yukon through electronic means (Online and catalog sales).
The Canadian unit was created with the purchase of Aikenhead's Hardware. Home Depot management has an ambitious plan to overtake its biggest competitor, RONA, which has about four times as many stores. However, many of RONA's stores are smaller than the typical Home Depot store. In terms of big box stores, the Home Depot has many more stores than RONA. As of 2007, RONA pulled ahead of The Home Depot in total retail sales, due to aggressive consolidation efforts by RONA, combined with the loss of The Home Depot's industrial supply division, HD Supply, in July 2007. The Home Depot now faces competition from Lowe's as they've move into the Canadian market effective the end of 2007; Lowe's first seven Canadian outlets are all located in Ontario.
The Home Depot banner in Quebec reads "Home Depot" without the definite article "the" in order to ensure a more cross-compatible proper name (that doesn't read like a English sentence) between both the French and English languages.

Mexico

The Home Depot entered Mexico in 2001, and has since become one of the largest retailers in Mexico, operating more than 50 stores with over 6,600 employees. Most of the Home Depot stores are located in the same installations in which the extinct Home Marts were located. Border town Home Depots attract some American consumers to make their US dollar go further in purchases of mostly same home improvement products in Home Depots of Tijuana, Mexicali, Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros. In 2006, the Home Depot began a program to offer Mexican employees to have "guest worker" incentives for Mexican nationals and Latin Americans to easily, but legally obtain employment in Home Depots across the US.

China

In December 2006, the Home Depot announced its acquisition of the Chinese home improvement retailer The Home Way. The acquisition gave the Home Depot an immediate presence in China, with 12 stores in six cities. Although China is ruled by the communist party, the government allows the Home Depot to further deregulate its practices, decide on matters liberally on employee benefits and labor union membership in a socialist country.^{^[] || }}}

Labor union policies

The Home Depot has a strong "union-free" policy like other major retail companies, such as Wal-Mart.
In 2004, Home Depot workers at a suburban Detroit store in Harper Woods, MI, rejected a bid to be represented by a labor union, voting 115 to 42 against joining the United Food and Commercial Workers.
If the union had won, the Michigan store would have been the first Home Depot ever to have union representation. The retailer has more than 2,200 stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and China.

Criticism

Whistleblower case

The Home Depot currently is embroiled in whistleblower litigation brought under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) law. In July 2005, former employee Michael Davis, represented by attorney Mark D. Schwartz, Esq., filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the Home Depot, alleging that his discharge was in retaliation for refusing to make unwarranted chargebacks against vendors. Davis alleges that the Home Depot forced its employees to meet a set quota of chargebacks to cover damaged or defective merchandise, forcing employees to make chargebacks to vendors for merchandise that was undamaged and not defective. The Home Depot alleges that it fired Davis for repeatedly failing to show up for work.
The trial initially was concluded in June 2006, but in April 2007, U.S. Department of Labor Judge Pamela Lakes Wood ordered the case reopened after the Home Depot's law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld revealed that the retail giant's in-house counsel had told them that two Home Depot employees who testified at the trial had lied. Akin Gump sent Wood a letter on September 29, 2006 letter, in which the law firm requested that the testimony be stricken. In response to Akin Gump's revelation, Davis' attorney Mark D. Schwartz asked for the case to be reopened to permit further questioning of the witnesses. On April 6, 2007, Wood ordered the case to be reopened.
Schwartz believes that the witnesses who falsely denied that they'd ever been asked to enter false return-to-vendor information gave false testimony under pressure from the Home Depot. Schwartz was quoted by the New York Post as saying, "I have reason to believe these witnesses were intimidated into giving false testimony." The Home Depot called Schwartz's allegations "meritless." Settlement Home Depot has settled the dispute in a stipulation of settlement dated March 28, 2008. In the settlement, Home Depot changes some of its corporate governance provisions. Home Depot also agreed to pay the Plaintiff's counsel $6 million in cash and $8.5 million in common stock.

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