The Sherwin Williams Company, One Of The World 's Largest Paint Companies Essay

The growing trend of home improvement has perpetuated a larger demand for box store home improvement shops such as Home Depot and Lowe’s. There are several types of companies that contribute to the booming renovation industry. Home Depot and Lowe’s provide all the

The Sherwin Williams Paint Company was started in 1866 by Henry Sherwin and Edward Williams in Cleveland, OH. Since the company’s inception there has always been a focus on providing customers with high quality goods and services. As one can imagine the organization has undergone some changes since its inception to becoming one of the top paint manufactures in the United States. The company kicked off 2016 with a bang by naming its 9th Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company, John Morikis, on January 1st and making former CEO Chris Connor executive chairman of the board (Cho, 2015). Also, mentioned by Cho (2015), Morikis has been with the company for 31 years and, “He is the company 's first management trainee to rise to CEO” (2013,

The retail market for home décor is very competitive. There are a variety of stores and catalog retailers that offer similar merchandise. Major players in the industry include Bed, Bath & Beyond, Cost Plus, World Market, and Williams-Sonoma. Specialty sections of large department stores also provide competition. Opportunities in retail home décor include attracting viewers from television networks, specializing in home décor. Home & Garden (HGTV) and the Do it Yourself (DIY) network are two examples of networks that encourage interior home design by the novice. Retail home décor products are often featured on television networks which provide a way to market their merchandise to consumers. Threats to the industry include an increasing number of home décor retailers that provide competition. In addition, wholesale clubs contain home décor departments which have a tendency towards lower prices. The current energy crisis, sub-prime mortgage debacle, and increasing unemployment rates also pose a threat to the industry.

Lowe’s is continuously being threatened by Home Depot in losing market shares. It is a constant battle; Lowe’s and Home Depot are expanding substantially in attempts to take over territory claimed by the other as well as unclaimed territory. The biggest weakness for Lowe’s is its lack of customer service. Customers are leaving Lowe’s in search of credible, knowledgeable service which is found at Home Depot.

The art of painting dates back to pre-historic times, the finger used as a paintbrush on the canvas of cave walls. When it comes to painting, artists have many mediums to choose from: acrylics, oils, gouache, fresco, and watercolors. Watercolors is one of the toughest mediums to achieve, its transparent streaks almost impossible to cover up and its various techniques prestigous and precise, but satisfying when accomplished. The incentive a watercolor artist has to get a taste of perfecting their talents is impecable; therefore, striving for perfection can only be accomplished with the understanding of the watercolor history, the use of the tools of the trade, the practice of techniques, and observation of former artists’ approaches.

The company that I have chosen for this assignment and project is Lowe 's Companies, Inc. Lowes strongly focuses on the mission statement “helping the customers to improve their homes”. The company started in 1921 as a small store in North Carolina. Great success and high demand of Lowe’s products led to an increase in the number of stores. By 1955, there were five more functional stores. Rapid growth took place around 1960s. Carl Buchan was one of the founders of Lowe’s, who died in year 1960. Exactly a year later in 1961, the company went public. This was the time when Lowe’s was given its name. Initially it was called North Wilkesboro Hardware Company. By 1979, Lowe’s established more than 50 stores in the United

      There were an increased number of contractor sales and architectural paints along with related supplies. An increase in Do-It-Yourself customers has also helped with strong sales growth. The increase in the Do-It-Yourself market resulted in higher sales of paints, wood care products and aerosol products. The services of professional painting contractors were in high demand, and those customers shop at Sherwin-Williams paint stores. These customers continue to shop at the paint stores because of Sherwin-Williams' quality products and services which have made their business more successful. Net sales for their Paint Stores segment increased by 14.6 percent

In order to further strengthen its holdings on the home improvement market, Lowe’s Companies, Inc. has restructured the company’s vision to conform to meet the ever-changing needs of its customers. Lowe’s extensive research has led it to include a well lit sales floor, informative in-store displays, exclusive and proprietary brands, and an ingenious store layout just to name of the few changes. This new vision is not only centered on the store itself, Do-It-Yourselfers and Commercial Business Customers have many ways to satisfy their needs conveniently though stores nationwide by placing orders over the phone, fax, or from the improved Lowe’s web site.

The Sherwin-Williams Company is viewed as one of the leading paint manufacturing and retailing companies in the US. Some of their key strengths are a strong market presence, wide product portfolio, and strong financial performance.

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

In 1999 the U.S. paint industry sales were projected to be more than $13 billion. The industry has slow sales growth and is constantly changing due to government regulations. In 1999, Jones∙Blair had sales volume of $12 million with an annual growth rate of 4%. Jones∙Blair produces and sells architectural coatings, OEM coatings and paint sundries. However, the President, Alexander Barrett and the senior management executives know that there are some areas that they need to improve on.

1. There was a problem with last week’s acrylics. She is sending them back to get fixed. She said the Trampoline & Tumbling had the gymnastics figure and the gymnastics trophies had the Trampoline and tumbling figures. I think what probably happened is The stands with the engraving text were mixed up and placed on the wrong trophies. She wasn’t upset and seemed to understand how rushed we were due to receiving numbers so late.

“…Are the factors that need to be overcome by new entrants if they are to compete in an industry…” Home retail in the UK is very big, developed and competitive industry. It has well-known companies that are recognized for style, price, and costumer services. A new competitor can get easily to the market competing with better services, design products and price. But economic and legal aspects may be a reason for potential entrants to refrain to enter into the UK market as it represents a fairly large investment. Potential entrants need to penetrate into the market with a new kind of service or product. Example: Argos use catalogues to make sales through the market. IKEA, is known for selling ready-to-ensemble products.

A gap in the communication of the transaction was evident. The management teams could have emphasized how the combination of the companies resulted in each company staying authentic to their mission and core purpose statements. Some of Valspar’s core competencies that were not addressed include the interior and exterior metal food containers and beverage cans coating product line that does not appear to fit in the combined portfolio. Additionally, Valspar’s Interior and exterior decorative paints, stains, primers, varnishes and specialty decorative products for both the do-it-yourself and professional market is both a core product line of Valspar and a redundancy of Sherwin William’s product lines and would likely lead to cannibalization if

Founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA is, over 60 years later, the world largest furniture retailer, providing products in a flat packing concept and at low prices. They have 226 stores in Europe, Asia, and America with revenues of $17.7 Billion as of August 2005. 70% of their marketing communication is based on their famous annual catalog. There are many environmental factors that affect IKEA’s global and domestic marketing decisions. An analysis of those factors, the influence of the global economic interdependency and the effect of trade practices and agreements, the demographic and physical infrastructure, the cultural differences, social responsibility and ethics versus legal obligations, the effect of political systems and the influence of international relations and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, and finally the effect of technology are discussed herein.