The Garden Depot Case Study-Brock University

The Home Depot (Ticker: HD) is the world’s largest home-improvement retailer along with being an American Fortune 50 company. The company operates 2,259 retail building supply/home improvement “warehouse” type stores all across the United States, Canada and Mexico. The Home Depot has over 340,000 team members and is based in Atlanta, Georgia. The average store size is just over 100,000 square feet along with an additional 24,000 square feet set aside for seasonal gardening.

Retail super-giant Wal-Mart has fought its way to becoming the world's largest company. Wal-Mart’s legendary supply chain technology has allowed them to break the three-day barrier that some economists in the eighties felt that it was unbreakable. In other words, Wal-Mart is often able to replenish items on the Wal-Mart shelf in less than three days – not from the central warehouse to the shelf, but from the manufacturer to the shelf. With quick and reliable 2-day turn around, Wal-Mart is able to maintain lower levels of inventory and still meet customer demand. These lower inventory levels result in either a reduced floor plan with lower carrying costs and lower interest expense – or a greater diversity of products on the store shelves.

By 1983 sales were more than $250 million. The company also began installing computerized checkout systems, and by 1984 inventory reordering was computerized. The same year the company acquired nine Bowater Home Centers in Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama. Home Depot then entered Southern California, Handy Dan’s home turf, opening six stores. The Bowater acquisition and rapid internal expansion caused Home Depot to falter and experienced the only dip in earnings in its history. Back on track in 1986, sales exceeded $1 billion in the firm’s 60 stores. Entering the competitive northeastern market, the company bought three Modell’s Shoppers World stores on Long Island. In 1989 Home Depot added 22 Stores, primary in California, Florida, and New England. Home Depot’s sales rose during the 1990-1992 recession. They opened more

Jack Early was recently hired to be one of the higher-level managers. Jack had completed his M.B.A at one of the more well-known universities, and applied his knowledge and training, that he gained in school, to his work at Rockmont. He made such a good impression in a relatively short period of time, that he received many commendations and an early salary adjustment.

Synopsis: Doug Aiken took over Tech Depot and replaced the symbolic leader who founded the company, when Aiken took charge he immediately introduced a new management plan, measuring everything from sales of products to employees. He saw himself as the omnipotent leader (mgt p39) Sales dropped after two years and everything Aiken was working for diminished. He did not gets the results that were expected by the company. Many of the staff expressed dissatisfaction with their jobs The board decided they were in need of a new CEO, so they hired

1)The first solution to the sawmills problem would be to get structure in the company. The president needs to go down to Jackson and take control of this situation. She needs to have managers and supervisors that take the blame for loss of productivity instead of

Are the managers at Wyant & Wheeler justified in firing Andrew? What set of criteria would you use to arrive at this decision?

I think Porter should inform the president and work together to resolve the issues within the Slade Plating Department. They need to ensure equity among the employees, good morale and ethics, employee satisfaction, and the unification of the company. I would advise Porter to have the supervisor, Otto Schell stay later to make sure that dishonesty is not present. Not only would he help establish equity within the company, in which everyone is paid for the hours worked, but he would also be able to watch his brother Herman, and make sure he is not slacking off. However, if Otto is too busy, then I would suggest Porter to assign Sarto the job to stay and punch everyone’s cards. Because Sarto is known for his leadership skills and is highly respected,

Try to retain Johnson by incrementing reasonable amount in salary as he deserves higher salary as per his extraordinary performance.

At the beginning he was told to report to Jenkins, however, once he got to the site he was assigned to Jeff Hardy.  After the company reorganization, he found himself wondering whether he should report to Knight or Hardy. However, despite the confusion, he never brought up this question to Hardy, Jenkins or Knight. He perhaps then fell into the trap of a “boss­subordinate relationship” and went with the structure he felt was assigned without truly understanding its reasoning. ii. He didn’t take enough time to understand HQ’s perspective on various issues a. Replacing the chief engineer, rejecting frequency reuse patterns, or failing to get sign off on agreements for GMCT cell sites indicate failures in managing upward management relationships. Problem #2: Employee Dynamics Strengths 1. Peterson was committed to building an empowering environment for employees. i. Peterson called weekly construction meetings, which invited all to report on the company’s weekly progress and issues. Shortcomings 2. He failed to consider alterations in team dynamics when making hiring and salary decisions. i. He hired Trevor at a higher salary rate to the resentment of other employees, causing significant damage to the trust and respect between employee and manager.

Chuck is the plant manager for the aluminum siding product line. Just like Betty, he has no college education but has had fifteen prior years of management experience. So far, he has been managing the plant for four years. He is responsible of overseeing twenty people within the plant. He has appointed two of his most capable employees to maintain the equipment since the equipment manufacturer has gone out of business. The other eighteen employees have remained on the shop floor to carry out the manufacturing duties. One major problem within this plant is employee retention. The average employee works at the company for about three years and later seeks a similar job elsewhere that pays higher wages. Employees are stating that the working conditions are poor, there is a lack of pay incentives, and rumors have been spreading that the plant may be sold in order to improve the company’s financial standing. As a manager, Chuck is not aware of the issues that employees are bringing up to the COO. It is also stated that Chuck does not seem to interact with his employees. The only time he does so is when they have a problem. In addition, the production goals are not being met and while he keeps requesting new equipment the company keeps struggling financially.

White: The problem with Bob White is that even after retirement, he still had huge influence on White Cap’s management and employees, since they were used to his friendly and employee-oriented management style. Changes in management style could incur negative response within the company. To deal with White’s legacy, Browning should make current employees known he’s achievement and capabilities to accept and trust him. Also, he should persuade the employees the changes are necessary due to new competitors and new technologies in market.

I see the problem as this: A blatant disrespect displayed by a few of the managers, specifically the most recent Mr. Franklin who was the manager in charge of Marsh when he was asked to resign. Franklin constantly hounded Marsh, saying that he portrayed poor work habits and was disorganized and

The first area of need is employee relations. One option would be for James Sprague to call his sales representatives together, letting them know that he is aware of their bad will towards him and give them an ultimatum to get on board or to turn in

He’s got just three months to prove his credibility as the Plant Manager to Bill Peach, the division Vice-President. He’s got a lot of issues with his workmen professionally because of the pressure from the top about getting the finished product shipped within the deadline and because of the blame games being played by all of his team members. Basically, he is heading a plant that is totally inefficient, not with inefficient people but with an inefficient system which he realizes later.