On industry's big stage, Nardelli scores quiet points - Bob Nardelli, president and chief executive officer of Home Depot - Brief Article

Home Channel News, Sept 3, 2001

SCOTT LARSON

As soon as Home Depot announced last December that a former General Electric executive would be taking over as president and CEO of the country's third-largest retail empire, the questions began to flow: Who is this guy, and what does it mean that someone with zero retailing experience is now at the helm of the Bernie and Arthur Express?

What does his hiring say about Home Depot's future, or maybe more to the point, a present marked by stagnating same-store sales, a slumping economy and increasingly restless investors?

When and where will the changes come, and to what degree will they rock that revered Home Depot culture? Can a man with blueblood business pedigree really bleed orange?

And those were just the start. Questions begat more questions like some sort of self-generating virus that threatened to eat a huge hole right through the retailer's glossy veneer.

Answers, however, have been few and far between. Sure Bob Nardelli, the Jack-Welch-protege-turned-retail-front-man, has made the necessary gestures toward putting on a public face. Didn't I see him on "Larry King Live" the other night, sandwiched between the latest on Gary Condit and a debate about the lure of Powerball tickets on the poor?

But while he has talked, making the rounds from inner-city playgrounds built by Home Depot associates to the pages of the Wall Street Journal and the airwaves emanating from CNBC, Nardelli has never really said all that much. Bit by bit new initiatives -- a new buying structure (see page 1), a rollout of an urban store, an acquisition of a small chain in Mexico -- worked their way to the surface. Still no overarching vision of Nardelli or his agenda has emerged, and the inner man and his plans to propel Home Depot forward remain largely an enigma.

Hence, I would assume, the overflow crowd of vendors, buyers, retail rivals and general industry figures that spilled out of the McCormick Place Grand Ballroom on the second morning of last month's International Hardware Week held in conjunction with the National Hardware Show. They were there, I imagine, to pick up some nugget of insight from the man himself, delivered in the form of the show's keynote address.

More than a few in attendance went away disappointed -- and not, they told me, just because they had to stand outside the ballroom's doors, closer to a set of restrooms than the featured speaker. While Nardelli talked for upwards of 45 minutes, they pointed out, he focused on things anyone even remotely versed in Home Depot already knows: plans to improve "shopability" through the Service Performance Improvement initiative, the vast opportunity represented by home services, Depot's view of the pro market and expansion -- both geographic and conceptual.

There were no bombshells. No profound announcements. Not even any nice personal tidbits that made them feel like they now knew Bob Nardelli.

Maybe so. I guess I'd agree that like most such speeches, Nardelli's address was strong on generalities and broad themes designed to appeal to a diverse, slightly cranky and caffeinated crowd at 8:30 a.m. And surely no one actually expected him to announce an acquisition in Poland or the purchase of one of this country's largest pro dealers.

Yet I for one felt that in an oddly effective way, Nardelli took great strides towards defining himself, and maybe by extension a New Home Depot. Maybe it was the way he never seemed to finish a sentence. Or his folksy manner and engaging grin. Whatever, at least he made the effort, and as one long-time industry veteran told me, that in itself is a change.

"Maybe he realizes the degree to which Home Depot is part of this industry," this vet mused. "It was a good thing for Bob Nardelli to be front and center at the hardware show."