HOME DEPOT历史资料：
家得宝公司成立于1978年，连锁店数量达2234家，遍布美国，加拿大，墨西哥和中国等地区，是全球领先的家具建材用品零售商。年营业额163.6亿美元。

Arthur blank所说，home depot以专注于客户服务为宗旨实现了成本优势+差异优势=薄利多销+优质服务。
Bernie and I founded The Home Depot with a special vision – to create a company that would keep alive the values that were important to us. Values like respect among all people, excellent customer service and giving back to communities and society.

1978年创建
1981年进入一级半市场交易
1984年纽约证券交易所上市
1985年拥有50个商场，收入7亿美元 在8个新市场增加了200个店面
1990年捐献社会公益事业的资金超过18亿美元
2007年《财富》全球最大五百家公司排名四十四

1：仓储式的连锁零售商场
2：销售的商品主要为家居装修材料
3：DIY（do it yourself）
4：中低档的品牌商品

产业发展趋势：
双薪家庭数量增加
家庭可自由收入支配增加
休闲时尚改变
所以导致家装行业快速增长，年销售额在85年就达到800亿

Home depot business’s strategic framework

1) What we are passionate about: Customer Service;

Home Depot believe our more than 300,000 associates are a competitive advantage. For us, customer service begins by investing in our associates, in their training and in their success. We are proud that we continue to set company records for Success Sharing, our bonus program for our hourly associates. For 2013, our Success Sharing payout increased 25 percent versus last year and totaled almost a quarter of a billion dollars. We have focused additional training on interconnected retail, adjusting our Customer FIRST training to incorporate the interconnected retail experience. We continue to enhance our Buy Online, Pick-up In Store and Buy Online, Ship to Store services and have seen consistent improvement in our related customer surveys. We are now expanding our existing store delivery program to include Buy Online, Deliver From Store. And we have continued on the path of redirecting store hours from tasking activity to customer service.

2) What we want to be best in the world at: Product Authority for Home Improvement

Home Depot merchants have the responsibility of being the customer’s advocate for value. Their job is to provide our customers products that make their home improvement projects or job site tasks simpler, with an assortment of compelling values. To help with this job, over the past several years we have been building the competencies we call collectively Merchandising Transformation. This effort has focused on providing our merchants better tools for, among other things, forecasting and replenishment and assortment and space allocation. The tools are largely in place, and we can begin to use them to create additional value