Summary
In 2017, The Home Depot announced a $1.2 billion supply chain investment with the goal of better meeting the changing needs of both do-it-yourself and professional customers. This commitment, which was originally intended to come to full fruition on a five-year timeline, got an unexpected speed boost in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic. Home Depot saw an unprecedented increase in the volume of deliveries and a need for expanded deliveries capabilities and flexibility. This growth has not been without pain. Unlocking these capabilities necessitated transitioning away from siloed fulfillment channels to unified technological, operational, and communication experiences. Here, the THD Deliveries UX team saw an opportunity to deliver value at scale: dynamic supply chain configuration. This is the story of how Home Depot scaled their deliveries supply network administration to support an ever more dynamic and transparent deliveries network that serves their business and centers their customers’ and associates’ experiences.
Key Insights
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Home Depot's delivery supply chains evolved in silos over decades, making consolidation complex.
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Customer expectations shifted drastically after Amazon’s two-day Prime delivery introduced new fulfillment standards.
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Internal teams had low trust and unclear understanding of each other's roles prior to UX intervention.
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Anar built trust from the ground up by interviewing every individual and mapping complex systems to clarify connections.
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Rachel learned shifting resistant partners from passive avoidance to active resistance was key to uncovering their fears and motivations.
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Direct communication partners responded better to telling statements rather than UX’s typical clarifying questions to preserve credibility.
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Redefining empathy as solution-based rather than problem-based helped shift the mindset from 'us versus them' to 'all versus the problem.'
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Consolidating over 10 configurable tools into one holistic supply chain management tool enabled streamlined operations.
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A highly user-led cross-disciplinary team (UX, product managers, engineers) accelerated design decisions and delivery.
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Sharing knowledge openly and involving partners deeply helped spread best practices and maintain momentum forward.
Notable Quotes
"We had four different supply chains fighting for priority, with different business teams and conflicting systems."
"Two-thirds of my Enterprise UX slack channel reported late or lost deliveries—an embarrassing result for such a large company."
"When I interviewed everyone, I asked what success meant to them specifically to inform my UX roadmap."
"I needed to move partners from passive to resistant because resistance reveals their fears and motivations."
"I learned I had to stop asking questions and start telling them what I was thinking, then say tell me what you think."
"Empathy for us needed to be redefined from problem-based to solution-based to avoid an us versus them mindset."
"We consolidated over 10 configurable tools into one holistic supply chain management tool this year."
"Engineers now ask better questions and make more informed design and technology decisions with the context we provided."
"Our product managers look at UX as an opportunity for discovery, not as a stakeholder to question."
"Involving partners directly is powerful: tell me and I forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I understand."
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