Case Study: Builddirect, An E-Commerce Organization

BuildDirect, an e-commerce organization in the home improvement division, began with only two employees. However, they experienced rapid growth in less than a decade. Sustaining the original culture, vision, and mission can become a challenging endeavor for organizations like BuildDirect to overcome through periods of expansion. In order for BuildDirect to maintain their original vision, they must a) hire individuals who fit the skills and culture, b) have leadership role model the culture and behaviors they wish to see in the organization, and c) continue to promote and encourage continuous learning and innovation.

About BuildDirect

Background

BuildDirect was co-founded in 1999 by Jeff Booth, President and CEO, and Robert Banks, Executive

The traditional supply chain model flowed from the manufacturer to the exporter, wholesaler, wholesale distributor, retailer, and then finally to the end buyer. This model created increased costs to the end buyer due to the number of processes before the product was given to the customer. Jeff Booth created a company that would remove redundancies in the chain flow to move the product directly from the manufacturer to BuildDirect and then to the end buyer to remove the traditional supply chain inefficiencies (Sutton, Rao & Hinds,

In the past, they have been sensitive to these type of factors. is sensitive to external market changes. First of two examples can be seen on 9/11, where this national crisis caused disruptions to many businesses. When the markets stopped, BuildDirect was unable to secure the necessary investments to stay open. They had a CAD $15 million investments with their bankers that was not able to go through due to the market crash. Due to the lack of investment from the banks, BuildDirect was required to lay off 20 of 32 employees. They had to take money from family, friends, and issuing private offer