case study: the Home Depot

Lowe’s Company has been in business for over 60 years. The company is the second largest home improvement retailer in the world and employs more than 215,000 employees. The company’s home base is Mooresville, North Carolina. Standard & Poor ranks Lowe’s as #48 . Presently, Lowe’s stock, which is identified on the New York Stock Exchange as LOW, is selling for right under $20 a share. This price has been consistent and is comparable to their biggest competitor Home Depot, Inc whose stock has remained steady at $23.

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

3 takeaways from Home Depot corporations 2001 earnings report. Firstly, new warehouses at first glance, has grown consistently 21% year-over-year at approximately 200 stores added each year in the last 5 years. A deeper look into what the new stores is, that it is a store with difference concept from the traditional warehouse and growth plan. Home Depot has expanded into the international market, opened Expo design store centers, and within those stores have implemented different channels and cross-selling to increase sales per square footage, currently same-store sales increase at 4%, traditionally they’ve had a 7% increase year over year.

| |Strategy and Policy: The Home Depot used to place a huge emphasis on creating a customer-friendly atmosphere with clean |

In this analysis, I will study the industry in which Lowe’s and Home Depot operate to include, the ratios of these companies, and how those ratios affect the companies and their approaches to earn a profit. I will also cover the history of each company, and their individual corporate goals and strategies. Finally, I will then do a side-by-side evaluation of the companies’ financial health.

While I neither personally know nor got a chance to interview any Home Depot managers at local stores or corporate headquarters, Home Depot’s eroding market share is a clear indication that management is no longer well aligned with consumer’s perceptions, expectations and beliefs about The Home Depot brand. A May 4, 2008 article in the investor website SeekingAlpha.com entitled “Home Depot Slows Down: Still Losing Customers to Lowe’s” argues that for several years The Home Depot management invested heavily in new store openings (capital spending) at the expense of employee training, store upkeep and inventory. As a shopper I have experienced this classic compromise of quality for the benefit of top-line revenue growth. I witnessed the degradation of store caliber as my local Home Depot store became progressively dirtier and more

For this research assignment, I chose Big Lots. The reason I decided on Big Lots is primarily, because I am very interested in home decorating and in High School I lived very close to a Big Lots store, so I shopped there often. While in college, I moved from campus to my apartment and I visited them quite a bit. In this paper I’ve described the history, retail strategy, and competitive advantage of the Big Lots store I researched.

The Home Depot believes in employees working together to find products and services that fit their customer’s needs, creating a community that extends beyond each store’s boundaries. They are heavily involved in local communities, and in 2002 they founded the Home Depot Foundation, which has since invested over $380 million in communities nationwide. This foundation’s mission is to provide all US veterans with a safe place to live, and so far it has committed over $80 million to address the needs of homeless veterans. They also partner with nonprofit organisations to provide disaster relief and aid.

Home Depot’s and Lowe’s functional strategies appear to be very similar across the different components. Both firms are investing in information technology, using capital for strategic investments, ensuring products are relevant to the local market, integrating the online and brick-and-mortar shopping experience, and striving to hire and retain knowledgeable people. In addition to similar tactics discussed by the two firms, there were even identical terms used to describe functional strategies such as “seamless”, “customer experience”, and “price guarantee” were used to describe some

I enjoyed meeting you and sharing a little about myself this afternoon, Brandon, thank you for your call. I look forward hearing from you re available opportunity and the chance to meet others within The Home Depot’s finance organization to understand the variety of need and explore how and where I may provide the most utility. I will also keep you abreast of open opportunities that I identify which are of interest.

I take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks and deep gratitude to all those people who extended their whole hearted co-operation and have helped me in completing this project successfully.

SWOT analysis is a popular analysis tool used in different situations that include not just business and marketing but also project planning and personal career development (Chapman 1995-2012). As for the strategic planning, Kenneth Andrews popularized his idea that good strategy means keeping a fit between the external situations a firm faces and the internal capabilities (Hill and Westbrook, 1997). The format the SWOT analysis presented is a 2x2 'internal/external' matrix, in which questions and relative answers can be listed for analysis (chapman 1995-2012). And according to Hill and Westbrook (1997), the output of SWOT analysis comes from meetings facilitated by consultants or managers to contribute the final analysis. Brainstorming can be used for filling in the sections to answer the questions. In addition, similar arguments should be concluded and ranked according to their answers in meetings (Rauch, 2007). As for the newly developed analysis, the TOWS matrix matching the various factors enables companies to stimulate new strategic initiative (Dyson, 2004).

The focus of the SWOT analysis is to identify the key internal and external factors that are important to achieving the objective. SWOT analysis groups key pieces of information into two main categories; internal factors and external factors. The internal factors are the strengths and weaknesses that are internal to the company while the external factors are the opportunities and threats that presented by the external environment. The internal factors are determined by their impact on the company’s objectives. What may represent strengths with respect to one objective may be weaknesses for another objective. The external factors may include technological change, legislation, cultural changes, and changes in the marketplace or competitive position (Wood, 2008).

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (Ferrell and Hartline, 2014, p. 39). A SWOT analysis evaluates both the internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (opportunities and threats) that create advantages and disadvantages to a company when serving its customers (p. 39). A SWOT analysis is extremely beneficial in helping a company determine areas of improvement (p. 39). Internal factors examine the actual company being analyzed while external factors examine the external market (customers and competition) (p. 85).

The case study Renovating Home Depot was the case of a leader who joined a successful business only to discover that the company was running out of growth opportunities and also did not have the basic systems needed for increased growth in place. Robert “Bob” Nardelli was chosen as the CEO of Home Depot based on his proven ability to reenergize slow-growth businesses. He was a leader that went all out to achieve his goals and was identified as someone who was “comfortable in his own suit”, and believes in being successful his own way. He made several innovations which were used in General Electric (GE) where he recorded past successes. We see the success demonstrated in the growth of revenue in Home Depot, as well as opening