News

Home Depot happy with decision to give employees mobile devices

June 22, 2012

Home Depot's Jennifer Smith discussed Wednesday at Motorola's product launch in New York City the success of the retailer's mobile device deployment.

The company is now extending the initial rollout to 25,000 of Motorola's mobile devices intended to make it possible for store workers to better assist customers wanting more product information. The solutions also give employees access to inventory information and allows them to order items that aren't currently in the store and ship them directly to customers.

CIO Matt Carey told CIO Journal that when he arrived at Home Depot in 2008, the company's retail technology was comparable to what other chains possessed "in the year 1990." To determine which products were out of stock, sales associates had to physically inspect shelves.

He said the store's version of mobile was a computer terminal on top of a cart "powered by a boat battery," with a scanner attached, and when merchandise was low, the store's manager re-ordered the items himself — there was no automatic system.

Fast forward to today when Home Depot has invested $64 million to deploy thousands of devices that enable associates to use a scanner on the device to continuously update and view inventory levels.

The devices, said Smith, have not only helped the retailer from losing sales when products aren't on the shelf, they also give employees the confidence to speak about the products and speed up checkout times since employees can scan items for customers as they shop.

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