Home Depot Inc. will make its biggest investment of 2010 in more than 10,000 portable devices that will help employees stock shelves, make telephone calls and check out customers anywhere in the store.
Home Depot said the handheld gadgets will cost about $60 million. For the past decade, employees of the world's largest home-improvement retailer have managed inventory using computers powered by motorboat batteries on rolling carts.
"If you compare us to a world-class retailer, from a technology perspective, 1991 is kind of where we are pegged," said Matt Carey, hired as Home Depot's chief information officer in 2008 from eBay Inc. "This is the first big customer-service tool we've given our associates in a very long time.'
Home Depot, based in Atlanta, says the devices will help it vault past the competition, including Lowe's Cos., which has been using handheld wireless technology in its stores since 1995.
Upgrading technology is part of Home Depot's broader push of employees into selling. Workers who once counted cash at the end of the day now spend that time on the sales floor and let the banks alone count the money, Chief Financial Officer Carol Tome said. Employees also prepare fewer reports on store operations to drive back-office workers into the store to work with customers, she said.
At least five of the handheld gadgets from Motorola Inc. will be distributed to each of Home Depot's 2,000 U.S. stores this year, Carey said.
In testing last year, the company found that employees spent less time tracking down merchandise, such as galvanized nails of a certain length, he said. The devices help provide the location of the item as well as the amount in stock or availability at another store.
"With the way things are going in the economy, it's better for a retailer to invest in a customer-facing technology than a back-end technology where they may not see a rate of return as quickly," said Sahir Anand, research director for Boston-based consulting firm Aberdeen Group's retail practice.
The technology combines mobile-telephone calling, walkie-talkie communications among employees, and inventory management in a single device, Carey said. As a result, employees no longer need to carry phones and walkie-talkies or use the rolling computers, he said.
"It can also be a mobile cash register," said Marvin Ellison, executive vice president of Home Depot's U.S. stores.
An attachment to the device processes credit and debit cards, allowing purchases to be made away from the checkout registers, similar to transactions at Apple Inc. stores. -- Bloomberg News Service
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