Staples Inc.
Staples, Inc. is an American retailer of office supplies. The company currently employs approximately 91,000 employees and sales of approximately 23 billion U.S. dollars. Its subsidiaries and affiliates in North America, South America, Asia and Europe have about 7,000 products that can be purchased in the Company's markets, by catalog or online store. The company's headquarters is located in Framingham, near Boston.
The eponymous staple ( German: Staple ) is one of the most typical office supplies at all.
History
The company was founded in 1985 by Tom Stemberg, a former manager of a supermarket chain, and Leo Kahn. According to the company's history Stemberg is when printing a business plan on July 4 ( American National ) have cracked the ribbon of their printer, and he had the idea of establishing a supermarket for office products after fruitless search for a replacement. Until then, office supplies for small customers was driven only by small retailers who were not open around the clock as opposed to large supermarkets. The business model of Staples was thus a classic pick wholesale market concept with long opening times, large product line and low prices by quantity purchase and sale, specializing in office supplies.
Stembergs concept was initially skeptical, the need for major office markets has been questioned. Nevertheless, opened on 1 May 1986 in Boston's Brighton the first Staples wholesale store, the first wholesale market for office supplies worldwide. Staples was supported by Bain Capital, the firm of the future politician Mitt Romney. The Staples model proved a great success, within two years, 20 more offices wholesale stores of different providers were established.
With the IPO in 1989, the company took a 36 million U.S. dollars, the same year the shipping division Staples Direct was founded. From 1990, the company opened up the market in the western United States, opened in 1991, the first Staples store in Canada. The expansion into Europe began in 1992 through a joint venture with UK-based Kingfisher.
The German market entered Staples in 1993, initially through a partnership with MAXI paper. Both the British and the German partners were acquired in 1996 by Staples. In the tenth year of existence, the company has already opened in 1996 its 500th market. The online presence staples.com was 1998., The 1000th store was opened in 1999, at the same time drove Staples its European expansion progressing through acquisitions in Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal. Since 2002, the company is the world's largest supplier of office supplies. With another wave of acquisitions (companies in Austria and Denmark) Staples strengthened its position in the European market and took both in Asia (China) and Latin America foot.
Since 1999, Staples is named after the multi -purpose arena, the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Since June 2008, the Corporate Express is part of the Staples Group and occurs since 1 January 2010 as " Staples Advantage" on the market.
Corporate Structure
The Group Staples, Inc is divided into three segments: North America Sales (North America Retail), Shipping North America (North America delivery) and Staples International.
Sales North America:
Catalog and Online Store North America:
Staples International: