Office Depot

Developing Leaders at Office Depot

Investment in People and Process

Office Depot provides office supplies and retail services to its customers through 1,400 worldwide stores, e-commerce sites, and business-to-business sales. The company has annual sales of approximately $11.6 billion and employs about 38,000 associates around the world.

Office Depot recognized that its keys to remaining successful lay in the leadership and culture of the organization. Using leadership development and education as an accelerator, Office Depot, working with Penn State, transformed its workforce to tackle significant complex strategic initiatives, break down silos of functionality and communication, and implement continuous process improvement as a way of operational life.

Supply Chain Leadership as a Competitive Edge

In 2010, Office Depot's Supply Chain organization realized what could be gained by changing from tactical expertise in a single element, such as warehousing, to an end-to-end perspective that utilizes strategic thinking to generate business results. Further, the leadership team recognized that both a mindset shift and cultural change were required to transform tactical managers into true supply chain leaders. They felt that a well-designed learning process would help them accelerate this transformation.

Office Depot chose to partner with Penn State Executive Programs out of our willingness to collaborate, ability to extend action learning beyond the classroom, and our outstanding reputation in supply chain research and education.

Leadership Development as an Accelerator

Cohorts were formed based on supply chain responsibilities from both corporate and field locations as well as from other business areas including IT, Finance, HR, Retail, and Merchandising. Together, Penn State and Office Depot created an integrated Supply Chain Leadership Development solution that included:

• Campus-based executive education programs for two levels of management with customized learning modules, case studies, simulation, and applied learning.

• "Office Depot Challenges" where cross-functional teams applied program concepts to address strategic initiatives.

• Executive-level involvement.

• Benchmarking, research, and networking with other supply chain executives through membership in the Penn State Center for Supply Chain Research™

Outcomes

The impact of the engagement far exceeded the expectations of Office Depot Design Team:

• Office Depot's earnings press release for the second quarter of 2011 list reduced distribution costs, a factor in improved performance.

• Supply Chain directors championed the launch of the Office Depot GreenerOffice Delivery Service, through which customers can receive their supplies in a paper bag instead of a cardboard box. During the pilot phase, over 90 percent of customers opted for the GreenerOffice Delivery Service. The program was projected to replace 5 million cardboard boxes with paper bags over 12 months -- resulting in major environmental benefits.

• A sustainable pipeline of supply chain talent within Office Depot allowed several participants to be promoted, including two into vice president roles.

• Integration of change management and effective supply chain problem solving techniques into everyday business processes.

Chief Learning Officer magazine awarded Penn State Executive and Professional Programs with its gold Learning in Practice award for our academic partnership with Office Depot.