Office Depot partners with startup

Company hopes to better compete with online retailers

BOCA RATON — With online competitors stealing market share, Office Depot said Wednesday it is partnering with a Silicon Valley startup that will allow it to deliver products faster to retail, e-commerce and business customers.

That’s the idea behind Boca Raton-based Office Depot’s latest technology partnership with Elementum, which provides “real time” visibility of inventories worldwide.

The partnership could help Office Depot better compete with Amazon and Walmart in fast and efficient product deliveries.

“Utilizing Elementum is a game-changer for our operations and performance,” Office Depot CEO Gerry Smith said in a news release.

The technology provides visibility across all segments of the business operation: procurement, logistics, manufacturing and inventory management, according to Office Depot.

“It allows us to proactively manage all of those functions from one centralized point that gives all teams immediate access to that information,” said John Gannfors, Office Depot’s executive vice president of transformation, strategic sourcing and supply chain.

And while the system won’t be in place for Hurricane Irma, which has been forecast to make landfall in South Florida this weekend, the system will help with future weather-related events.

“Elementum will alert us if the event will impact our operations and allow us to react proactively to minimize any disruption,” Gannfors said.

This is the second time in recent months that Smith has turned to technology to improve the office supply retailer’s operations. In June, Office Depot partnered with and invested in California-based startup Centriq Technology to develop a business app.

Office Depot said Elementum will help the company “shrink lead times and ensure material availability” for its customers. The technology enables a company to adjust, deliver on time and prevent items from being out of stock.

Elementum, based in Mountain View, Calif., was launched in 2012 to disrupt the supply chain management industry. The company has raised $67 million in venture capital, according to Crunchbase, a site that tracks startup companies and their funding.

Office Depot’s 2016 sales were $11 billion, down 6 percent from the prior year. The company has been struggling to compete with a shrinking market for office supplies as well as discount retailer and online competition. Office Depot and Staples tried to merge, but finally called off their proposed $6.3 billion merger in 2016 after it was challenged in court by federal regulators for anti-competitiveness.

At its Boca Raton headquarters, Office Depot employs more than 2,000 people.