Office Depot: A Destination for Office Supplies and E-Business Expertise - Building Multi-Touchpoint Relationships With Customers and Vendors by Integrating Business Processes

Overview

Founded in 1986, Florida-based Office Depot has grown into one of the world's largest office supplies retailers, with 47,000 employees and customers in the US and 20 other countries. But in a maturing marketplace, Office Depot was facing rising costs and low margins. Opening and managing office supply superstores was an expensive strategy; more to the point, many customers were looking for more efficient ways to buy, particularly large organizations that preferred to buy in bulk. IBM Global Services analyzed aspects of Office Depot's e-business operations and showed how they could substantially improve customer responsiveness using an open-systems approach.