Founded in 1978, The Home Depot, Inc. is the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer with fiscal 2011 retail sales of $70.4 billion and earnings of $3.9 billion. The Home Depot has more than 2,200 retail stores in the United States (including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and the territory of Guam), Canada, Mexico and China. Therefore, Home Depot main focus of the annual report for 2012 will much higher than 2011. The main focus for 2012 annual report on the financial side is the statement earnings. This includes the Net Sales which includes the cost of sales. Gross Profits are the operating expenses, selling, general administrative, depreciation and amortization it also includes the total of operating expenses. Another focus for Home Depot includes interest as well as other (income) expenses. The income expense also includes interest and investment income. The least annual focus is the earnings from continuing operations before the provision for income taxes. This report only entitles the provision for income taxes. As each selected sales data, and the percentage relationship between net sales and the major categories in the consolidated statements of earnings change for each item it is still important in evaluating the performance of the business operations (homedepot). The business operations of the store had many key factors that would influence the company’s financial performance for this 2012. The four key initiatives they will focus on will be customer service, product authority, productivity and efficiency and interconnected retail. The customer service is anchored on putting the customers first and taking care of the associates and simplifying the business. In 2011, they rolled out a new scheduling system for the associates and a new centralized return process; as a result they now have approximately 53% of the store labor hours