Home Depot: Customer First

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Home Depot: Customer First

Marketing Audit

December 4th, 2013

MKTG 301.002

Horane Williams

Executive Summary

Founded in 1978 by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, Home Depot is one of the biggest

retailers in the world today. Drawing from the company mission statement, as “to be one of the

most successful retailers in the next millennium”, you can see that they are well on track for

this. Management at Home Depot also vision the company to continue their plan to take the

existing success in areas where they have a base business and use this base to expand into

other markets this could include foreign investment as they have already established some

stores in other countries.

In trying to establish itself in the competitive market, Home Depot, has had some competition

in the past couple decades. These include Lowes, Garden Sea6le and etc. By reaching its goals

are expanding their sales, and market throughout the world, Home Depot will have to stay on

top of these particular companies. They also face the problem with trying to expand their base

in the Professional Business Segment of which they only hold about 4% of this market. Their

Marketing Plan 1

Competitors in this area are smaller businesses that have focusing on this market for some

time.Home Depot has in fact been on the move with the latest apps such as the Pro app, which

allows their most loyal customers to shop easier and complete their projects at a faster rate.

Home Depot overall is on the break of something big to come within the next few years, this

includes a ways on how to increase profit growth without worries.

External and Internal Environment

Home Depot was founded in 1978 by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, with these two

included investment banker Ken Langone and a merchandising expert Pat Farrah. The :rst Home

Depot opened in Atlanta, Georgia on June 22th, 1979. The store was around 60,000 square feet

each and it was inside a warehouse. This warehouse also stored/stocked 25,000 SKUs which was

said to be more than an average hardware store around that time. Home Depot helps

customers through projects as lumber work, power tools, kitchen design and much more. The

associates of this company go under an intensive product knowledge experience when they :rst

join the company. The company also helps customers to improve on their product knowledge as

well as they host workshops every week, which various through regions. Home Depot stresses

providing great customer service and this is why it is the number 1 retail

Marketing Plan 2

company in the world. Home Depot current cost per share is $78.08.

Home Depot oBers many diBerent services. The company has many diBerent varieties of

products ranging from their departments which include appliances, bath, building materials,

décor, doors & windows, electrical, Eooring, kitchen, lighting &fans, lumber, garden, paint,

plumbing and hardware. These departments help customers with their everyday projects. Some

of the products that are oBered in these departments are available online and in store with a lot

of selection from diBerent brands. Some brand Home Depot carries is Bosch, Porter Cable,

Dewalt, Makita, Ryboi, Ridgid, Dremel, Behr, Martha, Echo, Black & Decker, and etc.

Home Depot uses a device it calls “First Phones” that is an integrated phone, walkie-talkie, and

handheld computer. This application manages the in-store process for pulling product

purchased by a customer online to be picked up in the store. Home Depot also uses the device

for cycle counting. Every morning, some store associates use their First Phone to scan every

shelf out of stock. If the store system says the product is available in the building somewhere,

the system will create a list for other associates to locate that product and put it on the shelf.

Trends in the environment that could represent opportunities for this company is the

amount of non-pro:t organization that are in the need of help with construction work or just

establishing their business. Home Depot could reach out more to the environment and build

upon their corporate responsibilities within their community. Reaching out to the community

also could establish Home Depot as a community friendly business and then eventually a6ract

more customers within. Another opportunity that could be presented to Home Depot is the

Marketing Plan 3

partnership with more suppliers to build even a more exclusive product selection throughout

the stores. When Home Depot does this it allows them to be even more competitive in the

market when it comes to dealing with Wal-Mart, Target and etc but not only are they selling

home construction materials but they are now also selling home decorations type materials as

well. A trend that can negatively aBect the company is the fact more and more customers is

buying online rather than shopping in the store. This threat is important because then Home

Depot would have to switch their a6ention to their “buy online”, “pick-up in store” option. This

threat can easily be handle buy stores being more aware of this and establishing within the

company a designated department that take care of these online orders, so whenever the

customers do come in they are ready to go with their order. Another possible threat to the