Home Depot's Operation Management

The Home Depot’s two main customers are at home “do-it-yourselfers” and contractors. The main products and services offered help solve the wants and needs of customers involved with home construction and maintenance,

The Home Depot mission statement reads as follows: “The Home Depot is in the home improvement business and our goal is to provide the highest level of service, the broadest selection of products and the most competitive prices. We are a values-driven company and our eight values include the following: excellent customer service, taking care of our people, giving back, doing the “right” things, creating shareholder value, respect for all people, entrepreneurial spirit, and building strong relationships.”

This allows Home Depot to better utilize resources by targeting demographic categories that are likely to be interested in home improvement or contracting services. Home Depot advertises a low price guarantee, including beating competitors’ prices by 10% (The Home Depot, 2016). Home Depot’s current marketing slogan is “More Saving, More Doing”. Home Depot markets to both the inexperienced homeowner as well as contractors for its products and services. The company’s marketing strategy, slogan, and price match guarantee all fit the current corporate strategy of growth through increasing sales at existing retail locations and online to both contractors and homeowners. As an organization within an industry where low price is likely necessary due to lack of differentiation, Home Depot’s marketing strategy focused on low price is necessary. The low-cost without focus strategy at the business level is also aligned with this marketing focus. Since Home Depot is looking to gain customers in the broader market, focusing on both do-it-yourself customers and contractors is

The Home Depot stores are always stocked with merchandise that is localized to match your area's specific market needs. They heavily promote a low price guarantee that targets any competitors advertised specials. Furthermore, they also have a sizable special order business that

Home Depot compiles advertising, antitrust and confidentiality in policy of Compliance with Laws, Regulations, Policies, and Standard Operating Procedures. Advertising is to be provided to consumers with accurate, fair, and lawful information that is intended to help them make informed decisions. Antitrust laws in the United States and other countries are intended to preserve a free and competitive market place. Confidentiality is extremely important, as internal information is not to be shared with any outside venders, competition, or family members. This is to provide a guide for employees’, as Home Depot seeks competitive advantage. (Home Depot Internal, 2008)

The Home Depot knows that they must stay on top of technology and management must be able to organize this function in a way that surpasses the competition, pleases the customers, and keep the employees satisfied.

Lowe’s is part of an oligopoly type market structure. An oligopoly is a situation in which a particular market is controlled by a small group of firms with at least two firms controlling the market. The main key to behavior in an oligopoly is that companies must take into account what other companies will do. In perfect competition, firms are price-takers and can ignore other firms (Basic Economics, 2009). The home improvement retail stores are an industry that includes Home Depot, Lowe’s, Builders Square, and in other states, Menards.  Smaller companies have to try to compete with them to stay in business.

Home Depot company offer a wide range of merchandise and services, and serve three primary customer groups: do-it-yourself customers, do-it-for-me customers and professional customers. A classic Home Depot store stocks approximately 40,000 to 50,000 product items, including variations in color and size. Major product groups include building materials, lumber plumbing, electrical and kitchen; hardware and seasonal, and paint, flooring and wall coverings. To balance the national brand name products it offers, the Company has formed strategic associations with vendor partners to market products under brand names that are only offered through The Home Depot. “As of fiscal

Home Depot is also known for its high productivity. The company likes to maximize the efficiency of the space it uses. International Home Depot stores in 2014 averaged $297 earned per square foot. Lowe’s international stores only averaged $280 per square foot (Trefis Team, 2015). The growth of Home Depot’s e-commerce sales is another testament for its productivity. Home Depot’s had online sales of 500 million in 2009. E-commerce sales have grown to over 5 billion (Birkner, 2017). In 2007, the company’s store were in charge of stocking and replenishing inventory. The staff spent as much as 60% of their time working with inventory instead of working with customers. To solve this problem the company created algorithms that autonomously kept track of the inventory for the management (Bond, 2017). The company also created 18 rapid deployment centers from 2007 to 2015. These centers move products between stores in a more efficient rate utilizing a for just-in-time replenishment model. Lowes also has rapid deployment centers, but has only built 15 in the same amount of time. The high productivity of Home Depot is one of the reasons it continues to outperform its competition.

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

SWOTT AnalysisStrengths (internal)The Home Depot is a large organization that focuses on two major buying segments. The self employed general contractor who can go to The Home Depot for all their buying needs and secondly the weekend warriors. Those would be the average working person who likes to do things and build things themselves. This has been a strength and staple for The Home Depot from its infancy as an organization.

The Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is a home improvement, construction products and services retailer operating over 2,000 big-box stores in the United States and abroad. The Home Depot was founded in 1978 by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank with the vision of one-stop shopping for do-it-yourself (DIY) customers, installation services for do-it-for-me (DIFM) customers and competitive products for the professional market. Their DIFM installation programs include products such as carpeting, flooring, cabinets, countertops, and water heaters. In addition, the company provides installation of various professional products like generators and HVAC systems.

Home Depot and Lowe's believe in big warehouse space, an informal atmosphere and low prices. They are able to offer the lower prices to consumers due to their purchasing power. Inventory differs depending on the story type, home centers typically sock more lumber and building supplies, as their biggest customers are contractors. They pay their floor employees minimum wage, and keep overall costs down by keeping them as part time employees.

Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement retailer operating in 45 states, Canada, Chili and Puerto Rico. Home Depot stores aim to serve both do-it-yourselfers and professional contractors with home improvement superstores carrying between 40,000 and 50,000 different products. Home Depot has also been listed as one of Fortune's most admired specialty retailers for the past six years. In order for companies to succeed in the competitive current marketplace they must consider not only the bottom line and their investors but also their impacts on the community, their employees, and their customers. Home Depot was founded on the idea that treating employees well is an important responsibility. Home Depot believes employees that are

The first two Atlanta based stores were 60,000 square foot facilities that carried approximately 25,000 different Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) maintained in large, open warehouse style isles (The Home Depot, n.d., The Alfano Group, 2015). According to the Home Depots (n.d.) history bio, the volume of products available dwarfed typical hardware store inventory and variety, while empty boxes stacked on shelves above gave the illusion of carrying an even larger volume of product on a daily basis.