Centralizing Home Depot The reason for decentralizing Home Depot was a strategic decision when the company was new and needed to understand the demands of its products. The company encouraged store managers to be resourceful and be able to manage their stores on an individual basis, ordering merchandise that best suited the needs of local consumers. This decentralized approach allowed the new company to fulfill its mission of being able to offer a low-cost product while beating whatever competition was available. This approach gave them the freedom and on-the-spot decision-making to evaluate new products while staying abreast of the ever-changing market. These processes of offering different products and trying to better understand customer needs allowed the company to grow rapidly until the end of the 20th century. This accelerated growth spurred the startup of other companies, such as Lowers, as they found a profitable market in providing cheaper household supplies. The decentralized approach worked for Home Depot because they no longer had stores, as the housing infrastructure back then wasn't as great as it is today. Demands on these stores were high, as consumers found they could get many of the home improvement products they needed at a reasonable price, in one place. Decentralization allows companies to take full advantage of the division of labor by sharing decision making across the organization. This will empower local store employees and allow them to improve their performance by being able to operate efficiently based on requests without senior management approval. Another advantage of decentralization is that company leaders can find themselves...... in the center of the paper....... The foresight of Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank allows the company not only to face an aggressive competitor. “Lowes” but also bring the company into the 21st century. The new company also leveraged technology to optimize efficiency and created new incentive programs to drive innovation. During the start of this new business in the early 1980s, Home Depot had formed alliances with many manufacturers to sell their products such as; Ryobi® tools, RIDGID® tools, BEHR® paint, LG® and Toro® appliances and Cub Cadet® to continue to meet the demands of their customers (Homer TLC, Inc, 2003 - 2010).ReferenceHomer TLC, Inc. (2003 - 2010). Our history. Retrieved from Home Depot: http://corporate.homedepot.com/wps/portal/HistoryJones, G. R. (2010). Organizational theory, design and change (vol. 6). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, United States: Prentice Hall.