Home Depot

BBBY faces both external / internal potential problems while it tactics to implement its expansion plan.

Question 2: When comparing performance during the first five months of 2004 with performance in 2003, which warehouse shows the poorest change in performance?

7. Based on the data in case Exhibits 1, 5, and 6, is Costco’s financial performance superior to that at Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale?

Home Depot has clearly set itself up to be successful in the recent upswing in the housing markets. Their technology upgrade has proven to be successful in keeping stores stocked and employees more engaged with helping the customers.

Although times have changed since Lowe's first opened its doors in 1946, Lowe's values have not: the company remains committed to offering quality home improvement products at the lowest prices, while delivering superior customer service. Lowe's utilizes both strategic and financial planning in order to further their business and to stay in the competition with other home improvements stores for many years. Using strategic planning, the company has been able to make changes that allowed saving money and improving customers' experience. As diligent as Lowe's has been over the years, Lowe's reported a slight decrease in its sales and its earnings in its 2008 annual report. For 2009, the company plans to increase its revenues by using a

Home Depot’s corporate-level strategy is one of internal growth. This conclusion was reached based on the increased focus that Home Depot has placed on growing its existing online and traditional retail operations. Between 2016 and 2018, Home Depot is expected to invest approximately four billion dollars into improvements in its online and physical retail locations in order to make both work more synergistically and grow sales (Petro, 2016). Home Depot hopes that these investments will continue to increase sales at both its physical and digital retail locations, thereby growing the company without adding significant numbers of physical locations.

Retailing building supply stores have become a popular retail industry sector due to increased public awareness and the need of many homeowners for the home improvement products. Back in the 1970s, long before warehouse stores ruled home improvement land, do-it-yourselfers shopped at “home centers.” These 30,000 square foot stores offered cheaper prices and wider selection of products, about 25,000 more than local hardware stores and eliminated the extra trip to the lumberyard. The dependence of many of these retailers upon the homebuilding industry for much of their business has also been reduced and the warehouse superstores, such as Home Depot, have become more important. The smaller companies in the

Financially, Home Depot has had a strong fiscal year with “ reported sales of $24.9 billion for the second quarter of fiscal 2015, a 4.3 percent increase from the second quarter 2014” (The Home

Home Depot is the fastest growing retailer in the U.S. by some accounts. It has a fascinating history of innovation and entrepreneurship. The company had some difficulties in the mid-2000s that some attribute to cultural clashes. However, during this period the company was able to take full advantage of the housing boom. Yet when the bubble burst, Home Depot was forced to claim substantial losses. Despite these loses Home Depot has weathered the storm fairly well and is in prime position to take advantage of an economic recovery; if it ever comes.

Lowe’s is the world’s second largest home improvement retailer and operated 952 stores in forty five states at their fiscal year ending January 30, 2004. The company is currently in the midst of the most aggressive expansion in its history with 130 new stores opened in 2003 and another 140 slated for this year. Lowe’s saw 2003 sales reach approximately $30.8 billion, due largely to their focus on the retail customers and home-improvement projects.

Companies are growing by bringing in new stores to new locations rather than come up with innovation in the terms of bringing the products to the consumer. As written in business insights, the industry is recession proof but personally we believe that the companies’ sales are

1. Please conduct a financial ratio analysis using the data in Exhibit 2. How do the results reflect different strategies pursued by the 4 firms?

The first company that will be analyzed is Home Depot. Home Depot's total assets increased to $40,518 million from $40,125, an increase of 0.9%. These figures, however, are lower than the value of total assets on the books for HD for the prior three years. The 2008 fiscal year was the point where Home Depot had the highest asset levels at $44.324 billion. The recession has been the biggest culprit for the decline in the size of Home Depot. All of the firms in the building supplies industry have a strong relationship between their sales and the strength of the housing market, as home purchases are a major impetus for home renovation projects. Home Depot's size declined with the onset of slowness in the housing market, and it is expected that its size will not begin to increase until the housing market recovers. Home Depot management has noted that there are signs of life in the US housing market, and that this should be taken as an encouraging sign for the company (Isidore, 2012). Indeed, the company's balance sheet has grown in size throughout the 2013 fiscal year, so that the latest Q3 total

The new construction market in the mid 2000’s was flourishing. People saw building a home as an opportunity for a solid investment because prices and rates were so low that certain homes could depreciate extremely slowly. However, there would be a negative effect from all this low-cost new construction and few were aware of just how devastating it would be to the new construction market.

● According to exhibit 1 the Home Improvement market has been growing at a steady pace of about 3.5% for the past 5 years. A lot of this growth steams from the do it yourself consumer market which is the primary target for the Builders Square and Hechinger Co. merger. Although Home Depot and Lowe 's dominate the bulk of the home improvement market, only 6% of Home Depot’s sales come from building materials and related products compared to the combined 3.4% for Builder’s Square and Hechinger Co. As seen in exhibit 10, the Combined Projections for Proposed Builders Square - Hechinger Merger, Green projects an increased gross profit margin as well as EBITDA assuming a 2% growth rate for the combined firm. Their profits do struggle in the beginning due to an increasing amount of revenues lost to competitors along with their high count of closing stores. After year 3 the effects of competitor openings and store closings levels off with only a 1% change simulating what appears to be the end