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The Home Depot Partners with SAP to Accelerate the Company’s Technology Strategy |
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BOSTON, Mass. - May 18, 2005 - The Home Depot® (NYSE: HD) today announced a new partnership with SAP AG (NYSE: SAP), the world’s leading provider of business software solutions, that reinforces the company’s commitment to technology innovation. The partnership is the next step in the company’s multi-year strategy to implement standardized systems and platforms and build a robust IT infrastructure. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® ’05, SAP’s international customer conference being held in Boston, Massachusetts, May 17 - 19.
The partnership will provide significant opportunity for The Home Depot to utilize SAP® solutions to enhance its retail operations and support its other growth businesses. Implementation of the new software solutions and platforms will ultimately provide specialized merchandise assortments and promotions at the individual store level, increase operational flexibility by providing a common platform to grow the business and significantly improve visibility and efficiency throughout the supply chain.
“By leveraging the expertise and global leadership of SAP, we will accelerate our ability to bring new solutions to our associates and provide better choices and services for our customers,” said Bob DeRodes, executive vice president and CIO at The Home Depot. “We want the very best technology available to enhance our overall performance and provide a flexible platform to support expansion in a variety of new formats.”
To execute this strategy, The Home Depot will work with SAP to deploy an enterprise suite of software products, based upon SAP for Retail solutions, to enhance the company’s merchandising and supply chain activities. The Home Depot will become an SAP Global Alliance Account and will serve as SAP’s retail sector “lighthouse” account, enabling the two companies to partner in the research and design phase of new capabilities to stay ahead of marketplace demands and create unique, highly flexible applications.
“As the leading provider of business solutions to retail businesses globally, SAP is proud to work with The Home Depot to enhance its capabilities to meet the current and future demands of the marketplace,” said Bill McDermott, president and CEO of SAP America and corporate officer of SAP AG. “Our partnership with The Home Depot demonstrates a joint commitment to industry-specific experience and solutions, enabling SAP to support mission-critical processes in the retail industry.”
This partnership continues a long line of technology investments recently made by The Home Depot. The company is the first in the home improvement industry to deploy self-checkout, with more than 1,000 stores equipped with “do it yourself” checkout stands. Other initiatives include a range of technology rollouts to enhance the customer experience and improve associate productivity. During the last two years, The Home Depot has installed hundreds of thousands of new devices in its stores, including cordless scan guns and point-of-sale (POS) terminals, and has completely revamped its store network and wireless capabilities. In 2004, The Home Depot successfully implemented SAP’s financial solutions, improving the company’s analytical capabilities by streamlining its financial operations.
About The Home Depot
Founded in 1978, The Home Depot® is the world’s largest home improvement specialty retailer and the second largest retailer in the United States, with fiscal 2004 sales of $73.1 billion. The company employs approximately 325,000 associates and has 1,912 stores in 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico. The company recently announced the creation of a business development operation for retail expansion into China. The Home Depot has been recognized by Fortune as the No. 1 Most Admired Specialty Retailer for 2005. Its stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: HD) and is included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Standard & Poor's 500 Index. HDG
About SAP for Retail
SAP for Retail is an industry solution portfolio that combines mySAP™ Business Suite solutions with integrated retail applications to help companies grow sales, reduce expenses and improve inventory productivity. With more than 400 customers using the SAP for Retail portfolio and 2,400 SAP customers in the retail industry worldwide, SAP is the leading provider of business software solutions for the retail industry. Supporting sophisticated processes such as forecasting and replenishment, merchandise management, multisite workforce deployment and point-of-sales data management, SAP for Retail enables retailers to achieve real-time visibility into enterprise-wide performance, customer demands and market trends. Built on the open and scalable SAP NetWeaver™ platform, SAP for Retail enables retailers to integrate existing applications and achieve business change more easily and cost effectively.
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