Bernie marcus and arthur blank founded the home depot in 1978. along with investment banker ken langone and merchandising guru pat farrah, the founder’s vision of one stop shopping for the do it yourselfer came to existence when they opened the first two home depot stores on june 22, 1979, in atlanta, georgia. The first stores, at around 60,0 square feet each, were cavernous warehouses that dwarfed the competition and stocked 25,0 skus, much more than the average hardware store at that time. In only one year they opened a 4th store in atlanta and the company had annual sales of $22.3 million dollars. In only 10 years on its 10th anniversary home depot opened its 100th store in atlanta.

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By: wendy bull 1,765 words bull march 21, 2010 bull 639 views home depot swot analysis the home depot case analysis the home depot nyse: hd, headquartered in vinings, georgia, is a home improvement retailer that aims for both the do it yourself consumer and the professional in home improvement and construction. It is the second largest retailer in the united states, behind wal mart and the third largest retailer in the world, behind wal mart and french company carrefour. The company operates stores in the united states including the 50 states, puerto rico, the united states virgin islands , canada, and mexico.

It was ranked 13 on fortune magazine apos s fortune 500 the home depot also owns a chain of higher end home decorating and appliance stores. The company was founded in 1978 in atlanta, georgia by bernie marcus and arthur blank, and grew rapidly, with sales topping $1 billion annually by 1986. From the moment of its foundation, hd has continued to grow constantly by targeting strong markets with many new homeowners and young people such as new orleans.home depot managed to grow fast by quickly adapting to change and continued to be successful by holding fast to the culture and values of the organization.

The constant renewal and the work to sustain culture that produces good products, employees, and customers has helped home depot maintain its competitive advantage and lead the retail building industry. The company’s management put a lot of emphasis on taking care of its employees, encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit, treating each other with respect, and being committed to the highest standards. The stores and their merchandise were set up that all the stores were very similar. Operational efficiency has been a crucial part of achieving low prices while still ofering high level of customer service.

The company was assesing and upgrading its information to support its growth and control cost, and enable better decision making. The company continued to see greater efficiency as a result of its electronic data interchange program. Merchandising included all activities involved in the buyig and selling of goods for profit, and the merchandising strategy for home depot followed a 3 prolonged approach: 1 excellent customer service, 2 everyday low pricing, and 3 wide breadth of products. To maintain its competitive advantage home depot employed the clustering strategy, and it was also the the only one to offer quality products such as prego laminate flooring, ralph lauren paints, etc. Swot analysis strengths: to my opinion home depot has manged to succeed and lead the home improvement industry only through its numerous and unique strengths. Some of the most important ones are: company culture the orange blooded culture emphasized individuality, informality, nonconformity, growth, and pride. Taking care of its people providing excellent wages and benefits, superior training, and advancement opportunities.

Operational efficiency home depot was achieving operational efficiency by upgrading its computerized systems and implementing the satellite communication. All of these investments would help in reducing cost, support growth, and enable better decision making. Operational efficiency is very crucial in achieving low prices while still offering the same customer service. Television network hdtv money saving device that allowed hd’s top executives to get instant feedback form local managers, and allowed training and communication programs to be viewed in the stores. Advanced inventory management system it allowed and increases in the inventory turnover. Continuous experimenting and testing in technology and business strategies a company can grow and be successful only if it invests money and time on its future development.

Advertising home depot maintained an aggressive campaign using various media for both price and institutional policy. Also sponsored the summer olympic games the home depot case analysis the home depot nyse: hd, headquartered in vinings, georgia, is a home improvement retailer that aims for both the do it yourself consumer and the professional in home improvement and construction. The company apos s management put a lot of emphasis on taking care of its employees, encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit, treating each other with respect, and being committed to the highest standards. Television network hdtv money saving device that allowed hd apos s top executives to get instant feedback form local managers, and allowed training and communication programs to be viewed in the stores. Also sponsored the summer olympic games in atlanta, which can have a great impact on the generation x, and y who are going to be future customers of hd.

Reacting with speed and catch trends early this can assure a firm apos s success. Merchandising strategy it provided excellent customer service, low prices, and wide variety of products. Strategic planing planing in advance how many stores would be opening in the next four years and how many employees they would be needing to keep the business going.

Weaknesses: the strong management team of home depot has left very less space for weaknesses but has not eliminated all of them. The greatest weakness that i noticed was the rapid expansion into unknown territories. Home depot repeated the same mistake when it bought the 9 store bowater warehouse chain, and also when it implemented the cross road strategy which didn apos t turn as profitable as hd expected. So all these moves were the result of not well planed strategies and could lead to a disaster if not prevented. Another weakness is the fact that hd is not doing a great job in targeting the women customers.

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The rack type displays and the non elegant stores definitely don apos t attract females like myself, lowe apos s is even better at that. Opportunities: being the only big box retailer to offer a number of other exclusive, high quality products such as prego laminate flooring, home depot is one of the most impressive brands in modern marketing. Few other companies have such a stranglehold over the home improvement and supply market, and home depot does very well for itself in terms of attracting new consumers. If you're interested in buying an essay online, this is a solid look at one of america's top chainstores for all things related to home improvement. If this isn't your cup of tea, feel free to check out our other essay writing services.

Please visit the ultius homepage to get started on your custom academic content solution today! the home depot was incorporated in 1978 as a home improvement retailer. The company runs warehouse style stores, and they sell a wide assortment of building supplies, home improvement supplies, gardening and lawn care supplies, as well as services such as dumpster and equipment rental. According to reuters 2013 , the home depot stores are approximately 104,0 square feet inside with a 24,0 square foot outside garden center. The home depot operates 1,974 stores in the us, and carries over 300,0 products between their stores and website reuters 2013. This caused the company to reevaluate their marketing strategy to see where improvements could be made. The home depot decided to change their marketing strategy to place a significantly greater emphasis on customer service.

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According to frank blake, chairman and ceo, their new goal is to take care of associates, put customers first and simplify the business mahoney 2009. As part of this effort, the company greatly reduced the amount of information, mail, and reports each store manager received mahoney 2009. The goal in doing this was to free up the managers’ time, so they could spend more time on the floor helping customers. They also instituted communication blackout days two days a week when stores would receive no corporate messages or emails mahoney 2009.

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Once again, this was designed to get more members of management away from their desks and out helping customers and associates.

offering lower prices

the home depot also recognized that more people were struggling financially, so they worked to reduce the number of rebates, coupons, and sweepstakes mahoney 2009. Instead, they focused on offering the lowest price possible all the time without the need for extra paper or promotions. One thing they did, which has paid off was institute their on call experts program. They have home depot employees, who write how to articles, blog posts and more on home repair advice, remodeling projects, gardening tips and more zmuda 2011. They are also present online, so if a customer has a question, they can ask an expert and get a real answer in a short period of time.