Home Depot Financial Analysis Case

For fiscal year ended January 30, 2011 ("fiscal 2010"), Home Depot reported Net Earnings of $3.3 billion and Diluted Earnings per Share of $2.01 compared to Net Earnings of $2.7 billion and Diluted Earnings per Share of $1.57 for fiscal year ended January 31, 2010 ("fiscal 2009"). The results for fiscal 2010 included a $51 million pretax charge related to the extension of our guarantee of a senior secured loan of HD Supply, Inc. (the "HD Supply Guarantee Extension"). The results for fiscal 2009 reflected the impact of several strategic actions initiated in fiscal 2008. These strategic actions resulted in store rationalization charges related to the closing of 15 underperforming U.S. stores and the

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.

The Intensity of Rivalry among Competitors in an Industry (High): Equally balanced competitors exist within the industry such as BCF and KMD; these firms also face competition from retailers and wholesalers. The growth of the industry is relatively agile in both financial and technological aspects. The intensity or rivalry is further accentuated by relatively high storage and fixed rental costs, extensive product differentiation and minimal switching costs.

The economy is the main topic of discussion between neighbors, classmates, the mass media, and the President. Unfortunately, all that is discussed are the negative notes of how much money one lost in the stock market, how homes no longer have the equity it once had, and how some lost a home because of having the current status of consulting and being in between jobs. Because Home Depot is the leading supplier of home improvement building materials and related tools and supplies, the economy has greatly affected the company's revenue and generating lower profits. However, a close watch on market trends will help the company foresee challenges or issues the company might encounter so steps for a successful short-term and long-term goals will

Lowe’s is the 14th largest retailer in the United States and is presently planning aggressive expansion, opening a new store on average every three days. Lowe's revenue growth is primarily a function of penetration of the market increase resulting from a burst of new locations instead of the same store sales. Although Lowe’s has grown tremendously, it remains half the size of Home Depot and has serious debt burden that increases its risk level drastically. Lowe’s is Home Depot’s largest competitor because both companies have the same products, services, and enormous warehouse formats. In this major retail market Lowe’s and Home Depot stores go toe

The home improvement sector of the economy is large with two major players in the industry and with many smaller local and regional competitors. These two major competitors are Home Depot and Lowe’s. These two companies account for over $110 billion in total sales each year. Even though sales have gone down over the past few years due to the downturn in the economy they have not gone down nearly as much as home sales and this is due to more people deciding to do more home improvements to their own home then buying a new home. Both of these companies have been able to keep up sales and increase them year over year by improving current

The Five Forces Model as defined by Dr. Michael Porter of Harvard University uses five different strategic factors to explain Competitive Rivalry a company or industry faces. The fiver forces that comprise the model are Bargaining Power of Suppliers, Bargaining Power of Buyers, Threat of Substitute Products, Potential Entrants and Completive Rivalry (Porter, 2008). The intent of this analysis is to rank-order each of these five factors from the standpoint of their influence on Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) and their competitive position in the retailing industry. Each of the five forces are rank-ordered in terms of their importance to Target.

The following paper will discuss the research that I completed regarding the internal and external environments of both Allstate Insurance and the Target stores as a corporation. What will be provided is information on the competitive advantages of each company and the types of strategies that they each use. What will also be discussed is how each of these organizations create value and how they maintain a competitive advantage through their business strategy. I will also cover what types of measurement guidelines both Allstate Insurance and Target is using and how effective these measurement guidelines are for their organization.

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 intensity of rivalry and the threat of substitutes are strong components for J.C. Penney to consider as they continue to strive for increased revenue and market share. Their two primary competitors are Macy’s and Kohl’s, both of whom have fiercely competitive strategies to be strong retail operations. For instance, while Macy’s offers a multitude of promotional deals and is working hard to choose products based upon demographics and geographic segmentation, Kohl’s is attempting to reduce their inventory levels and improve their marketing strategies in order to become a stronger competitor in the department store segment of the retail industry. In order to compete with their competitors, J.C. Penney aims to focus on their previously successful promotions and home department segmentations by bringing in new reputable designers in order to attract a larger customer base. Due to the fact that the intensity of rivalry and threat of substitutes are both moderately strong in the retail department store industry, J.C. Penney ought to be diligent in their implementation of strategies in order to achieve success in the retail business.

These figures chart the struggles that Home Depot faced over the past five years. The first period, FY2008, which was mostly the 2007 year, saw the company already beginning to slump, with sales sinking. Home Depot's business is highly correlated with the state of the housing market, as people buying homes are the main drivers of spending at home renovation and repair stores. Thus, when the housing market began to slump in 2007, Home Depot's revenues began to decline. This trend continued over the

Office Depot is a supplier of office products and services. The company's selection of brand name office supplies includes business machines, computers, computer software and office furniture, while its business services encompass copying, printing, document reproduction, shipping, and computer setup and repair. An S&P 500 company, Office Depot generates revenues of over US $14 billion annually and has 42,000 employees worldwide. It is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. Office Depot is one of the biggest office supplies retailers, but its sales revenue decreased dramatically 26% from 14.5 billion dollars in 2008 to 10.7 billion dollars in 2012.

When it comes to the impact of the Five Forces of Competition and its effect on the performance of Staples and Office Depot, there does not appear to be a strong threat of new entrants in the big-box retail office supply segment of the industry. It seems unlikely that anyone will want to open a new office supply store. While there is a level of service differentiation between the two companies, there is little product differentiation between the two. Likewise, there would be little product differentiation from a new competitor. The threat of substitutes comes into play between Staples and Office Depot in that both companies offer basically the same products. If the customer can’t get what he wants at one store, he can go to the other. Likewise, if the customer becomes disenfranchised with one company for whatever reason, he can easily go to the other company. There doesn’t seem to be much bargaining power of customers or suppliers. There does seems to be a strong industry rivalry which, as with most industries, is the major determinant of the competitiveness of the industry.

The Home Depot Inc. was founded in 1978 and is the world’s largest home improvement retailer and the second largest retailer in the United States. The sales for the fiscal year 2000 were $45.7 billion, compared to $38.4 billion in fiscal 1999. As of January 2001, the company was operating 1,134 retail stores in forty-seven states, six Canadian provinces, Puerto Rico, Chile and Argentina.

Competitive analysis is an important part of your business plan, there are a lot of different alternatives in the market, costumers usually look for different sets of values to focus on, benefit levels and what does the item include when they are choosing where to buy the product from. Even though costumers usually choose similar products to those alternatives, and that’s where competition is created.