Home Depot 2000 Annual Report Download - page 5

In addition, The Home Depot reached a number of milestones during the year. Among them:
•We continued to move up on
Fortune ’s Most Admired Companies list, climbing to sixth from ninth the previous
year and being named the most admired specialty retailer for the eighth consecutive year.
•We ranked first in social responsibility in the most recent Harris Interactive survey.
•We opened our 1,000th store in July with a celebration that ran all the way to Wall Street, where we
decorated the New York Stock Exchange with the world’s largest orange apron and several hundred Home
Depot associates built gazebos to benefit local parks.
While fiscal 2000 was a challenging year financially, a broad range of opportunities remains to build on the suc-
cess of the past two decades at The Home Depot during fiscal 2001 and beyond.
Looking ahead, a growth business We continue to be a great growth business, with plans to more than double our
sales over the next few years. The approach is straightforward: our growth will be driven by new stores, com-
parable sales increases in existing stores and through adjacent businesses. Our growth will be both productive
and profitable.
In every market in which we operate, The Home Depot has the ability to increase its presence. Our growth will
not focus simply on the number of stores opened, but on the quality of stores opened. In fiscal 2001, we will
open about 200 stores, continuing a pace of rapid expansion, but we will also open stores earlier in the year,
with “neighborhood friendly” merchandise, lower investments and associates who are fully trained and ready to
serve new customers. We expect this to give us a greater sales benefit in the first year of new store operations.
In addition, we will continue to be innovative and more productive in existing stores. After meeting with every
store manager and thousands of other associates, I am convinced we have the ingenuity and talent to grow sales
and implement best practices from existing stores across the enterprise. This has led us to accelerate the roll-
out of professional customer programs in fiscal 2001, focusing resources on the fastest growing customer
segment in our business. In addition, our Service Performance Improvement program, or SPI, will be in every
Home Depot store by the end of fiscal 2001. Tested during fiscal 2000, SPI shifts most of the handling of inven-
tory to hours after the store is closed. As a result, the store is easier for our customers to shop, products are
more readily available and our associates can focus all of their time on serving customers. SPI improves sales
productivity and customer satisfaction.
Innovative programs to improve store performance are key elements of our growth plans, but a heightened
emphasis on merchandising and store execution is equally critical. New product lines, sharper assortments to
enhance the vitality of our inventory, and a dedication to improving inventory velocity are central to these
efforts. For example, Home Depot’s introduction of major appliances in fiscal 2000 added substantial sales and
profits, while offering our customers a complete kitchen or laundry project package. With incremental support
from product line expansion, advertising and training, we expect to double this business during the coming year.
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w and improve upon everything we do.”