Home Depot Uses Cloud to Tap ‘Do-It-For-Me’ Market
July 6, 2013 Leave a comment
July 5, 2013, 5:09 PM ET
Home Depot Uses Cloud to Tap ‘Do-It-For-Me’ Market
Rachael King
Home Depot Inc. plans to expand a service that connects shoppers who need help installing purchases like tile or ceiling fans to local contractors. That service relies on communications infrastructure from Twilio Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. “The market is moving from do-it-yourself to do-it-for-me,” Anthony Rodio, vice president of Home Depot, told CIO Journal. About 42% of home improvement projects are now done by outside help, he said. For the first time since 2008, sales to professional contractors is growing faster than sales to consumers, said Frank Blake, Home Depot CEO on a conference call with investors on May 21.As the housing market recovers, Home Depot is again seeing business from smaller professional contractors who spend less than $10,000 per year with the company,according to a Wall Street Journal article. Professional contractors often need help finding their next job. “The company thought that if they could help pros find their next job, they might be more loyal to Home Depot,” said Mr. Rodio.
In January 2012, Home Depot acquired Redbeacon, an online marketplace where consumers can request bids from pre-screened local contractors. That service now operates in five Home Depot markets including San Francisco, Atlanta, Austin, Dallas and Las Vegas. In the next few weeks, the service will expand to more locations on the West Coast and then start to roll out in various markets across the country, said Mr. Rodio, who is also the CEO of Redbeacon.
The Redbeacon service uses Twilio, which provides communications technology for the text messaging and the mobile customer service that Redbeacon has embedded in its website and mobile app. The text messaging, customer service and other communications operate on Amazon Web Services.
As Home Depot executives better understand how Redbeacon operates, they’re starting to see that other parts of the company might also benefit from the “do-it-for-me” approach, said Mr. Rodio. “They see how we’re able to run call center operations more efficiently than they do at Home Depot,” he said. By running on Twilio and Amazon Web Services, Redbeacon can operate its virtual call centers without buying physical switches or paying $400 for a handset, he added.
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