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Built from Scratch is about two businessmen who
achieve the American Dream by fundamentally changing the realm
of home-improvement retailing. Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank,
cofounders of the Home Depot, explain how they established the
first national chain in the industry by concentrating on low
prices, customer service, and strong leadership values.
Ultimately, this is a book about grit and determination. "Building
the Home Depot was a tough, uphill battle from the day we started,"
they write. "No one believed we could do it and very few
people trusted our judgment." The two cofounders launched
the company only after they were fired by a California hardware
retailer because of politics. The Home Depot lost $1 million
in its first year of operation in Atlanta. Today it's one of
the great successes on Wall Street, with more than 700 stores
across the country and 160,000 employees. |
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Chris Roush nails down Home Depot in this
unauthorized portrayal of the retailing titan. Inside Home Depot
shows how cofounders Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank over the
past 20 years built their business from two stores in Atlanta
into 650 outlets--the world's largest home-improvement retail
chain. Roush, a veteran business reporter, finds that much of
Home Depot's astonishing financial success comes from its strong
"bleeding orange" culture. Home Depot fosters loyalty
among workers with the best pay in the industry, generous stock-purchase
plans, and first-rate training in home improvement and customer
service. Incredibly enough, Blank, the company's chief executive,
still spends a third of his time personally training employees--unthinkable
for any other CEO of a multibillion-dollar company. Roush also
examines plenty of defects. Home Depot was so macho that it could
be a house of horrors early on for its women employees: the company
paid $104.5 million to settle sexual-discrimination lawsuits. |