Office Depot
| Office Depot, Inc.
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|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | Corporation |
| ISIN | US6762201068 |
| founding | 1986 |
| Seat | Delray Beach , Florida |
| management | Roland C. Smith |
| Number of employees | 56,000 (2015) |
| sales | 16.1 billion US dollars (2014) |
| Branch | Wholesaling and retailing of office supplies |
| Website | www.officedepot.eu/ |
Office Depot is a US office supplies and services provider founded in 1986 . The company's headquarters are in Delray Beach , Florida . The company employs around 38,000 people worldwide and had sales of around USD 10.7 billion in 2012.
Product range
The company's products include office supplies, IT products, office furniture and office services such as copying, printing, emailing and document duplication. Office Depot sells its products and services through various distribution channels in 59 countries, especially in 1,656 retail stores, through employees in direct sales and in eCommerce. Product names include Office Depot, Tech Depot, Viking Office Products, Viking Direct, Guilbert, and 4sure.com.
Company history
Office Depot was founded in March 1986 and opened its first store in October 1986 in Lauderdale Lakes , Florida , USA .
Office Depot has been represented in Mexico with a joint venture since 1994 . In 1998 it merged with Viking Office Products, a direct marketer of office supplies in Europe and Australia . Since then, the company's International Division has been operating simultaneously under the brand names Office Depot and Viking.
In 2000, Office Depot launched the “contract customer business” sales channel in Great Britain and Ireland and expanded it to four other countries. With the takeover of Guilbert SA in 2003, Office Depot further expanded its contract customer business. Since the end of 2006, Guilbert's business and customers have been fully integrated into the Office Depot business.
In 2006 Office Depot acquired a majority stake in Best Office in South Korea and a majority stake in AsiaEC, a supplier of office supplies and services in China . In the same year the company increased its stake in Office Depot Israel to a majority stake and also took over Papirius, a business-to-business trading company for office supplies and services in Eastern Europe .
At the end of 2007, the International Division operated a large number of office markets in France , Japan , Hungary , Israel and South Korea as the wholly owned owner or through majority shareholdings . In addition, Office Depot participates in almost 100 office markets in South Korea and Thailand through license and distribution agreements .
In 2008 Office Depot and Reliance Retail Limited started a joint venture to provide office supplies and services to corporate customers in India. This step marked the entry into the Indian market . In order to accelerate the market entry of the joint venture, Office Depot and Reliance also took over the company eOfficePlanet.
In the same year, Office Depot and bigboXX.com entered into a strategic partnership to provide office supplies and services to business customers in Hong Kong . Also in 2008, the cooperation with Netbizz Office Supplies paved the way for entry into the Singapore market .
In the summer of 2008 Office Depot acquired a majority stake in AGE, a Swedish office supplies company.
In 2009 Office Depot entered into a franchise agreement with Alshaya, a trading company in the Middle East . The aim was to open new Office Depot retail stores in various countries in the Middle East in the coming years. In 2009 the first retail partnership opened in Kuwait . At the same time, the new Israeli office and distribution center opened.
In Europe, Office Depot set up new distribution centers in Großostheim (Germany) and Zwolle (Netherlands) and started with Tele Account Management teams in the Czech Republic and Slovakia . The European headquarters are in Venlo , the Netherlands . The Swiss headquarters and logistics center are located in Lenzburg .
In 2010 Office Depot signed an agreement with the Finnish retailer Bruce Campbell Ltd Oy. This made AGE, a Swedish office supply company in the area, fully owned by Office Depot. In the middle of the year, the company announced its intention to sell and back-license Office Depot Israel. At the same time, the second Alshaya branch was opened in Dubai and the B2B business was introduced in Kuwait and Dubai. The company also opened three new stores in France and announced its partnership with Casio in France for the sale of the “Revolution” video projector. In the Czech Republic, Office Depot launched a new online shop for entrepreneurs and small businesses (SMB). In the fourth quarter, Office Depot partnered with Xerox to offer managed print services in Germany.
At the end of 2016, Office Depot sold its European business to the German investment company Aurelius . The acquisition was completed on January 2, 2017. In 2016, the company employed around 6,000 people in Europe and achieved sales of around 2 billion euros.
In October 2017 Office Depot took over the IT company CompuCom Systems . The price was paid through the issuance of new shares and the assumption of debt totaling one billion US dollars.
social commitment
Office Depot is committed to many aid organizations worldwide and is the first company in the industry worldwide with a "Greenbook". In 2002 Office Depot established the “Office Depot Charity for Children” foundation. This has set itself the goal of supporting charitable projects for children financially and materially.
Web links
- Office Depot official website (multilingual)
- Viking Germany
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Office Depot, Inc. 2014 Form 10-K report
- ↑ AURELIUS completes takeover of Office Depot Europe , at www.aureliusinvest.de , accessed on April 29, 2017
- ↑ Office Depot Takes First Step in Strategic Transformation to Become Business Services Platform with Acquisition of CompuCom. In: www.wallstreet-online.de. October 3, 2017, accessed on August 27, 2019 .