More thoughts on Home Depot's priorities. My associate Lewis Marchand sent me some comments on my post regarding Home Depot's data warehouse/business intelligence project. Lewis specializes in business intelligence applications, so I was interested in his feedback. He says, "It definitely surprises me that a firm this size has not gone to BI before, given the complexity of their business. What they are proposing is huge and they are certainly going for broke." He also points out that Home Depot's plans to implement BI systems in three separate areas is aggressive. "I would think they would concentrate on areas with the greatest potential return first, which for them of course is their supply chain."

Who knows? Home Depot has over 250,000 employees in 1500 locations. Perhaps it has found that employee performance improvement, satisfaction, and retention is currently the key constraint to success, and therefore a priority for business intelligence. Or, more likely, Home Depot believes that developing BI applications in the HR area is an easier first step than doing so in the supply chain planning function. Either way, it will be an interesting case to watch.