...THE HOME DEPOT’S ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION Organization Communications Mgmt 305 Potomac College Abstract This paper will analyze the culture of The Home Depot and its communication practices. This will be accomplished by examining the dimensions of the organization’s structure. The Home Depot’s sociability, power distribution and job autonomy, degree of structure, achievement rewards, opportunities for growth, tolerance for risk and change, conflict tolerance, and emotional support will be used to determine if the organization has a Theory Y culture. Introduction Home Depot is considered to be one of the top ranking home improvement organizations. The mission statement of this organization was formulated around being “committed to maximizing long term shareholder value while supporting management in the business and operations of the company, observing the highest ethical standards and adhering to the laws of the jurisdictions within which the company operates” (Homer TLC INC, 2010). The Home Depot transformed the “home improvement industry” by providing a well round reputation for products, corporate governance and strong values within the community. The purpose of The Home Depot remains to build relationships, have social responsibility, and concrete ethics as an organization. Employees are respected, offered growth and reputable incentive plans. Public policy makers and Home Depot collaborates on ideas to assure prosperity in our society. Home Depot delivers...
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...Home Depot Background: The Home Depot’s got started in the year 1978, Bernard Marcus, Arthur Blank, Ron Brill, and Pat Farrah were the founders. The owners Marcus and Blank got the $2000,000 that was required from a group of investors; also they were given 2 years to get their business up and running. They did lease three unoccupied buildings from J.C. Penney in Atlanta, Georgia, determining that city was the best place to start up their first store. They successfully gathered another $3.5 million in the form of loans, which was used to procure inventory. Furthermore they hired 20 employees to help run the management end of the business. On June 22, 1979, the very first three Home Depot stores, staffed by 200 workers, opened up in Atlanta. The organization began with Marcus as the chairman of the board of directors and CEO, and Blank as the president. Home Depot’s Profile: * Employees: 256,300 * CEO: Robert L Nardelli * Subsidiaries: EXPO Design Center; Maintenance Warehouse; Georgia Lighting; Apex Supply Company; Your "other" Warehouse; Home Depot Commercial Direct Division; Total HOME * Notable Stores: Home Depot; EXPO Design Center; Villager's Hardware; Del Norte * Major Competitors: Lowe's; Menard; TruServ. Lowe’s at a Glance: Lowe’s and Home Depot are the two largest retailers in the home improvement industry. Lowe’s being the 2nd largest in the industry, however, It was originally incorporated as “North Wilkesboro Hardware” in...
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...SWOT Analysis Home Depot Strengths • Brand Awareness - Home Depot is the world’s largest company in the home improvement retail industry with revenues exceeding $70 billion. Specifically, while Home Depot is the fourth largest retailer in the United States, it is the largest in both Canada and Mexico. In addition, it ranks 127th in Forbes Global list of the 2000 largest companies. Such dominance boosts brand awareness for such private brands as Pegasus Faucets, Husky Hand Tools, and Vigoro Lawn Care Products. Such brand awareness is fortunate for Home Depot since recent studies show that 80% shoppers have a positive attitude about private brand labels and some even perceive their quality as being superior. • Rapid Deployment Centers -Home Depot plans on increasing its utilization of Rapid Deployment Centers (RDC). RDCs allow the use of a single purchase order to consolidate product needs and more rapidly replenish inventories to individual stores from the center locations. Home Depot currently employs five Rapid Deployment Centers and plans to open additional centers in 2010. The result of this implementation will be improved transportation, and reduced lead time from notification of needs to inventory replacement. It is anticipated that this method will increase efficiently substantially. Weaknesses • Negative Comparable Store Sales Figures - Home Depot suffered a decrease in same store sales, down 8.7% is 2009 as compared to a smaller decrease of 6.7% in 2008. The decline...
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...look at Home Depot in how they are the leader of their industry. Than it will delve into how they can maintain their leadership over their major competitor Lowes; this paper will include a brief background on each company, and how they stack against each other in history’s timeline. Analysis Brief History The Home Depot was founded in 1978 by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank; the first stores that opened were approximately 60,000 square feet having in stock over 25,000 SKUs which made look competition look small. To the consumer they also appeared to have more product than they actually did, as they placed boxes on shelves super high give the illusion of even more product (homedepot.com). Currently Home Depot operates just over 2, 200 stores across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Virgin Islands, and Canada. Compared to their top competitor Lowe’s, Home Depot is relatively young company. Carl Buchan originally founded Lowe’s in 1946, where the first store was in North Carolina originally named the North Wilkesboro Hardware Company. The name Lowes stemmed from that fact they had the lowest prices originally as they eliminated wholesalers and dealt directly with manufacturers (lowes.com). Currently Lowes has just over 1,825 stores throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico (lowes.com). Somewhere along the lines, Lowes slipped up and Home Depot passed them up, making Home Depot the number one worldwide in their industry. There are several things that Home Depot has started...
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...and Services For most people, their home is the biggest financial and emotional investment they make. Through a variety of innovative merchandise and services, The Home Depot’s goal is to help consumers create the home of their dreams whether they want to do it themselves or have it done for them. In addition we offer specialized support and services for professional contractors and tradespeople to ensure they have the right tools and supplies for the job site. Products: Our store inventory consists of up to 40,000 different kinds of building materials, home improvement supplies, appliances and lawn and garden products for all of your project needs. Selections may vary from store to store because The Home Depot stores are always stocked with merchandise that is localized to match your area's specific market needs. We even offer a low price guarantee to beat anyone's advertised specials. And if for some reason you can't find it in the stores, we offer 250,000 other products that we can special order for you. Services Home Services Instead of doing it themselves, many customers choose to have qualified professionals complete home renovation projects for them. The Home Depot Home Services offers national installation services through pre-screened independent contractors for products ranging from floors to roofs, windows to water heaters, and kitchen cabinets to vinyl siding. Customers can call 1-800-HOMEDEPOT to schedule a free in-home consultation or learn more about the...
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...Home Depot A. Executive Summary * Introduction * The Home Depot Story - First Stage (1979-2000) * The Home Depot Story – Second Stage (2000 – 2006) * Problem Identification * Case Questions Introduction * Home Depot was founded in 1978 in Atlanta, Georgia by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank. * Both of them worked at Home Improvement Company in California and were fire by this company. * So instead of looking for a new job they decide to start up their own business based on a vision they had. * This vision was about creating home improvement stores similar to warehouses where customers would be able to find different types of tools and products with the help of experts in home improvement and customer service. * Home Depot created the concept “Do it yourself” (DIY) where homeowners were encouraged to buy products and tools and to use them to build, repair and improve their own homes. * This concept of “Do it yourself” was Home Depot’s main strategy to become successful in the Home Improvement industry. The “Do it yourself concept consisted on: * Prioritizing customer service (special attention to their customers problems) * Providing customers with training workshops and clinics to teach them how to repair their own homes. * Vendors and sale associates went through a rigorous training in product use before servicing customers. * Sales associates develop relationships with customers rather than just merely seeing...
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...Background The Home Depot was founded in 1978 by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank in Atlanta, Georgia after they were fired from their executive post at the Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers in California. The founders began the home improvement company around their vision of “one-stop shopping for the do it yourselfer” opening their first two stores in 1979 in Atlanta, Georgia in a cavernous warehouses that dwarfed the competition stocking 25,000 stock keeping units (SKUs), much more than the average hardware store at that time, and staffing the stores with knowledgeable experts in home improvement and customer service. From the beginning, Home Depot was able to offer not only the best customer service in the industry by hiring employees knowledgeable and experienced in the business and by motivating the sales associates to develop relationships with the customers instead of seeing sales as a transaction, but by popularizing the concept of “do it yourself” (DIY) offering to homeowners and other individuals trainings workshops and clinics so customers could learn how to do it themselves. The Home Depot revolutionized the home improvement industry by bringing the know-how and the tools to the consumer and by saving them money. In 1980, Home Depot opened two more stores achieving annual sales of $22 million from all its four stores. By 1990, the company had opened 145 stores, employing 21,500 people, generating annual sales of $3.8 billion, and becoming the number one U.S. retailer...
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...THE HOME DEPOT, INC. Introduction 1. Identify the company’s mission, vision, and primary stake holders. 2. Identify the five forces of competition and how it impacts the company. 3. Create a SWOT analysis for the company identifying the major strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats. 4. Based on the SWOT analysis, recommend how the company may capitalize on its strengths and opportunities, and minimize its weaknesses and threats. 5. Discuss the various levels and types of strategies the firm may use to maximize its competitiveness and profitability. 6. Determine the recent corporate governance issues that are currently affecting the company’s decisions and report how the company is or should be handling the issues. 7. Use 4-5 external sources as part of your assignment. Introduction Home Depot, Inc. is the world’s largest home improvement retailer with 2,246 retail stores in all 50 states in United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, 10 Canadian provinces, Mexico, and lastly China. HD (Home Depot) provides employment to approximately 321,000 full time employees. HD stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:HD), is included in the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index. This company sales a range of building materials, home improvement and lawn and garden. (Poor's, 2011) Home Depot was found by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, on June 29, 1978. Their vision was to create and...
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...The Home Depot Home Depot’s Plan Home Depot had several intentions in regarding the use of its organizational talent to gain a competitive advantage in the Do It Yourself Industry. The first of these is to ingrain the importance of corporate success through human capital. In the current economic environment, corporate success and growth; even survival, is dependent on the firm's ability to create employees that are motivated, skilled, and committed. The concept of how important human capital is to corporate success can be summed up with a quote from Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary S. Becker says that “The basic resource in any company is the people. The most successful companies and the most successful countries will be those that manage human capital in the most effective and efficient manner” (Brocaglia, n.d.). The Home Depot embraced this idea when the company considered its organizational talent as a competitive edge. The second of these intentions is first-class customer service through engaged employees. Employees are the first line of defense and influence when it comes to a firm's level of achievement in customer service. Customer service and satisfaction become the competitive advantage that allows for retaining customers longer even through severe price competition; and that satisfaction should be paramount through all stages of customer interaction (IBM, 2007). By placing such an emphasis on a satisfying customer experience, The Home Depot adds...
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...Cover Story Renovating Home Depot; Skip the touchy-feely stuff. The big-box store is thriving under CEO Bob Nardelli's military-style rule By Brian Grow, with Diane Brady in New York and Michael Arndt in Chicago 6 March 2006 BusinessWeek 50 Volume 3974. Don D. Ray is one tough hombre. The 39-year-old Kentucky native spent three years with the 82nd Airborne Div., one of the U.S. Army's elite units, serving at the head of a maintenance crew during the first Gulf War and an additional seven years on active duty. Then, after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Ray suited up for service again, this time as the commander of a special forces A-team that followed the U.S.-led invasion into Afghanistan. His 12-man squad of snipers, demolition experts, and communications specialists hunted renegade al-Qaeda and Taliban. Combing mountain villages, he grew a thick beard, wore traditional Afghan garb, and rode on horseback to blend in with local Muslims. Ray and his men never killed anyone, he says, but they arrested dozens of suspected militants. Nowadays, Ray commands a different kind of operation. He has replaced crack-of-dawn physical training and green Army fatigues with sunrise store openings and an orange Home Depot apron. A store manager in Clarksville, Tenn., Ray runs a 110,000-square-foot box with 35,000 products and a 100-member staff, 30 of them former military. Many days start at 4 a.m. That's when he wakes, eats breakfast, catches some CNBC news, then heads to the store, where...
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...10-mar-2015 THE HOME DEPOT, INC. 1. Evaluate The Home Depot's growth strategy. The Home Depot innovated in the home center industry by bringing a new retailing concept. One of the most important decision was to cut out completely the warehouse costs by designing retailing stores in a warehouse format in which all the inventory was already at store. This format helped The Home Depot to keep Overhead costs low and as a consequence, past these savings to their customers. This practice also led The Home Depot to work with a higher volume, lower margin and higher inventory turnover, a good indicator for retail companies which in turn helped to reduce costs even more. Having the warehouse format also helped them minimize out-of-stock occurrences, which helped them to have a stronger relationship with the customer, to whom they offered guaranteed products, by either the manufacturer or themselves. Customer service was so important for The Home Depot that 90% of their employees were fulltime works with special trainings of technical knowledge to help their customers with home improvement projects, and their advertising program included in-store demonstration of do-it-yourself which helped the Home Depot grow successfully in its early years. 2. How well did the company implement its strategy? Analyze The HomeDepot's financial performance and cash flow during the fiscal year 1985. How well did the company perform in 1985 relative to the previous years? How does The Home Depot's performance...
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...Home Depot popular concept of “do it yourself” for clients seeking to build, repair and improve their homes. Home Depot stores were equipped with a wide range of home improvement products and knowledgeable staff are ready to help customers choose the right products, tools and materials, and even explain how to use them. To some extent, Home Depot store managers “do it yourself” as well. For the first 20 years, Home Depot has been known for its entrepreneurial spirit and launched, and unofficially. Store managers who wanted to be an expert in home improvement, made their goods-planning decisions and have considerable autonomy in running their shops. Purchase was decentralized. As it grew in size, many companies believe that a more disciplined approach to operations will be important for future growth. In 2000, the company has hired Bob Nardelli, a former executive GE, to bring change. As chairman and CEO Nardelli centralized sales and purchases and brought technological discipline to store operations, simplification and standardization of processes and product implementation Six Sigma quality methodology. Nardelli changes led to higher profitability. However, the stock Home Depot has remained almost unchanged during his term in office, and some aspects of customer service significantly affected. These results raise an important issue not only for Home Depot, but also for other companies in which employees perform as routine associated with the production of non-standard measures...
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...EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Home Depot is an American retailer of home improvement, construction products and gardening products. Frank Blake is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Home Depot. The Home Depot was founded in 1978 and it is considered the largest home improvement retailer globally. Home Depot has 1786 stores within USA, Mexico, Canada, China, United Kingdom and South America. Competitions in the home improvement industry are based on several factors such as price, quality, durability, product features, customer preferences and warranties. The Home depot has shown its excellent past growth with the products involved in home construction, maintenance, renovation and remodeling. The Home depot has its main target market in...
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...Home Depot uses a three-legged stool approach to their business operations. Each leg focuses on a way to create value for the customer by connecting the business from end to end (Home Depot, 2016). Thus, the first leg is customer experience and works to connect service to the customer’s needs (Home Depot, 2016). Next, product authority connects merchandise from supplier to shelf to customer (Home Depot, 2016). Then, capital allocation is driven by productivity and efficiency to drive cost savings (Home Depot, 2016). Ultimately, the basis for their strategy is to emphasize and execute the customer and shareholders ever changing needs and expectations. Home Depot operates in the home improvement retailer and building materials industry (CNN,...
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...Home Depot vs. Lowe’s Retail Home Improvement Financial Analysis Background Introduction 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 stores and at the same time expanding both here in the United States and overseas. Company introduction Home Depot The Home Depot also known as Home Depot is a retailer of home improvement and construction products and services. The Home Depot was founded in 1978. The Home Depot operates 2,242 stores across the United States in all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam. Sales within the United States were over $77 billion in 2010. The Home Depot also operates internationally in Canada, Mexico and China. Lowe’s Lowe's Companies, Inc. is a retail home improvement and appliance stores and also does construction. Lowe’s was founded in 1946 in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina. Lowe’s operates 1,710 stores...
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