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Office Depot
Type Public (NYSE: ODP)
Founded 1986
Headquarters Delray Beach, Florida
Industry Retail
Products Office supplies
Revenue $15.0 billion USD (2006)
Website http://www.officedepot.com/
Office Depot (NYSE: ODP) is one of the world's leading suppliers of office
products and services. The Company's selection of brand name office supplies
includes business machines, computers, computer software and office
furniture, while its business services encompass copying, printing, document
reproduction, mailing and shipping. Office Depot's customers include small
office/home office, medium-sized and large businesses located in the U.S.
and in 41 other countries around the globe.
The Company sells its products through multiple distribution channels,
including over 1,000 office supply stores, direct mail, Internet websites,
business-to-business e-commerce, and sales forces. Office Depot operates
under the Office Depot, Viking Office Products, Viking Direct, Guilbert,
TechDepot and 4sure.com brand names. An S&P 500 company, Office Depot
generates revenues of over US $15 billion annually and has 52,000 employees
worldwide. It is headquartered in Delray Beach, Florida.
History
Office Depot was founded in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida (near Fort Lauderdale)
in 1986 by three partners: Pat Sher, Stephen Dougherty, and Jack Kopkin.
Sher, the company's first CEO, died the next year from leukemia. Sher's
estate donated the proceed of his life insurance policy to the help the
fledgling company meet its payroll. [1] The company retained professional
executive recruiters (so-called "headhunters") to find a replacement for
Sher. The new Chairman and CEO turned out to be a Sherwin-Williams executive
named David Fuente.
Fuente immediately launched an aggressive nationwide expansion program. To
finance it, he arranged for an initial public offering of stock in 1988. In
1991, Office Depot expanded to the West Coast region with the purchase of
competitor Office Club. By 1993, it was operating over 350 stores in the
U.S. and Canada. This acquisition moved Office Depot onto the national
stage. [2] Mark Begelman, founder and president of Office Club, joined
Office Depot as President and Chief Operating Officer.
Office Clubs store were slated to continued operations under the Office Club
brand and operate as a subsidiary of Office Depot. This was because Office
Club operated under a "Membership format" (Similar to what is employed by
Costco and Sam's Club) and the company was at first reluctant to part with
that. Within a year of the merger, Office Club stores dropped the membership
format and became fully assimilated with Office Depot.[3]
The company began to run into problems in the late 1990s when many key North
American markets became saturated with too many of the big three office
supply chains: Office Depot, OfficeMax, and Staples.
Later expansion and acquistions
In search of new opportunities, Office Depot began to expand overseas to
many more countries. In 1998, it launched its public Web site and merged
with the catalog company Viking Office Products.
In June 2003, Office Depot Inc. acquired Guilbert, formerly part of the
Pinault-Printemps Redoute Group (PPR). With this strategic acquisition,
Office Depot has doubled its presence in Europe to around 3 billion Euros
and with this move confirms its European market leadership (Office Depot
European headquarter is located in the Netherlands - Venlo).
During the dot-com collapse in late 2000, the company's sales took a dive.
Over 70 stores were closed and Fuente was reportedly forced out of his job
as CEO; he was replaced by the head of the company's international
operations, Bruce Nelson. On October 4, 2004, Office Depot announced that
Neil R. Austrian, former President of the National Football League, was
succeeding Nelson as Interim Chairman and CEO. Succeeding Austrian was Steve
Odland, formerly CEO of Autozone.
Design, Print, and Ship Depot
Other than just supplying the tools for business, Office Depot also offers a
Copy and Print Center for high volume copying, faxing, ordering business
cards, stamps and engraved products as well as binding and assembling
presentations. Most stores include a UPS shipping center with UPS rates.
Private Brands
In addition to selling many nationally recognized name brands, Office Depot
sells products under several "home" brands, including:
* Ativa, for shredders, telephones and certain computer hardware components
such as floppy drives and USB drives
* Break Escape, for coffee, snacks, and other break room supplies
* Castlebridge, for executive briefcases and portfolios
* Christopher Lowell, for office furniture, in association with the
television personality
* Foray, for pens, pencils, highlighters, correction tape, and other writing
instruments, as well as CD cases.
* Furniture at Work, for office furniture
* Niceday, for most standard office supplies
* Office Depot brand, for most standard office supplies such as staples,
binders, file folders, remanufactured ink & toner, etc.
* TUG, for school backpacks
* Worklife, for higher-quality presentation and résumé papers
Customer Incentive Programs
Ink Cartridge Recycling
Similar to other office supply chains, Office Depot has a program set up to
encourage customers to recycle their used ink cartridges. Once per day, a
customer has the opportunity to drop off empty cartridges for a discount on
their purchase. Previously, a $2.50 discount was available towards the
purchase of a new ink cartridge. Since February 12, 2006, the discount was
increased to $3.00 and can be used towards any purchase over $3.00. As of
May 27, 2007 you may redeem up to twenty-five cartridges a day for any
amount totaling more than the dollar amount per purchase (up to a $75
purchase).EXP(7-10-2007)
Only inkjet cartridges that contain an internal printhead qualify for the
program. This includes the majority of HP and Lexmark produced cartridges as
well as the Office Depot remanufactured brand version of those cartridges.
It also includes a very limited number of newer Canon cartridges. Cartridges
that do not contain printheads do not qualify. Some cartridges contain
electrical contacts that may be confused as being a printhead, but these
contacts are only to allow communication with the printer for purposes of
measuring ink levels or to determine whether or not the cartridge has
expired. Most toner and toner/drum units can be recycled, but not those that
are simply plastic toner containers such as many fax machine ink produced by
Brother Industries and Panasonic. This program excludes ink tanks, such as
almost all Epson brand inks.
Office Depot Worklife Rewards
On June 1, 2006, Office Depot launched the Worklife Rewards program which
combined several benefits of the former "Advantage Reward" and current Star
Teacher program. It offers 5% rewards on the total amount spent past $200
(excluding computers, monitors, UPS shipping and postage stamp purchases) in
a three-month period, with no cap on the amount of rewards that can be
earned. Office Depot brand ink qualify for a double credit 10% reward.
Theoretically, if an individual spent $50,000 in a three-month period, they
would earn $2,500 in rewards credits. The credits are issued on a store gift
card. For Copy.Print.Ship services, 15% rewards are given on all purchases
past $35.
Worklife members also receive exclusive coupons through postal mail and
email as well in store savings on select items.
STAR Teacher Program
The STAR Teacher Program is specifically for educators and school
administrators, and incorporates the benefits of the Office Depot Worklife
Program. In addition to Worklife benefits, the STAR program also carries a
5% at-register discount on purchases, as well as a 15% discount on copy
center purchases in addition to the 15% reward for copy center purchases
past $35. There are also many events at the Office Depot stores for the
teachers, including bi-annual Teacher Appreciation Breakfasts that offer
free breakfast and giveaways for teachers.
5% Back To School Program
The 5% Back To School Program contributes a portion of a purchase to a local
school as a store credit that the school may use to purchase Office Depot
merchandise. Schools must register with the program to receive the store
credit. Some merchandise does not qualify for the program. Store credits
granted to schools expire 120 days after issue and may be revoked under
certain conditions.
This web form on the Office Depot web site may be used to apply an online
order to the store credit tally of a particular school:
http://www.officedepot.com/promo/backtoschool/input.do
An ID number identifying the school to receive the store credit should be
included in the form. ID numbers for local schools are recorded at each
Office Depot retail location and may be obtained by telephone.
Sponsorships
Office Depot previously owned the naming rights to an Office Depot Center in
Sunrise, Florida. It has since been renamed BankAtlantic Center.
Office Depot is the primary sponsor of the NASCAR Nextel Cup #99 Ford
Fusion, owned by Roush Fenway Racing and driven by Carl Edwards.
Activities per country
Stores owned by and operated under the Office Depot name
* United States, established 1986
* Belgium, 1 location (2007)
* Canada, 33 location (2006)
* France
* Japan
* Hungary
* Netherlands, 2 locations (2007)
Stores operating with the Office Depot name under joint venture / license
agreements
* Mexico Currently operating 111 stores.
* Israel, established 1994 [1] Currently operating 34 stores.
* El Salvador Currently operating 3 stores.
* Guatemala Currently operating 4 stores.
* Costa Rica Currently operating 4 stores.
* Thailand Currently operating 13 stores.
* South Korea Currently operating 9 stores.
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