Craig Menear, president and CEO of Home Depot, and Carol Tomé, CFO, recently attended a question and answer session presented at the Goldman Sachs 25th Annual Global Retailing Conference. Matt Fassler of Goldman Sachs moderated the discussion, focusing on Home Depot’s plan to invest $11 billion in both its brick-and-mortar and digital experience, as well as streamlining its B2B and professional distribution services.

“The way the customers are engaging with the Home Depot is changing at a rapid pace,” said Menear. “They are blending the physical and digital worlds together. And so it becomes imperative that the Home Depot trades creates truly a one Home Depot experience where the customer can blend those two channels together and engage with us.”

Investment plans include a full B2B website experience (scheduled to debut in the next fiscal year) to allow customization to professional’s business and needs, technology to monitor shipments from suppliers, and improvements to downstream distribution networks to free up valuable real estate in brick-and-mortar stores.

“The shopping experience for most categories today starts in the digital world,” Menear added. “So the job of the merchant is to optimize that space against the largest customer base if you will, when they design and put assortments in the store. In the digital world we have the ability to expand that offering, and allow us to be able to service a wider customer base within a product category… But the customer is still blending the project both through the digital and the physical world. We see this when they select a certain portion on the project from the digital world, but then other elements of it, they still buy in store.”

The full transcript of the discussion can be found here.