This report analyzes the marketing strategies and financial performance of The Home Depot, a leading retailer for home improvement products. It examines the products offered, target customers, marketing mix, competitors, and financial performance. The report also provides recommendations for investment.
Contribute Materials
Your contribution can guide someone’s learning journey. Share your
documents today.
Running head: MAIN RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT Main research assignment Name of the student Name of the university Student ID Author note
Secure Best Marks with AI Grader
Need help grading? Try our AI Grader for instant feedback on your assignments.
1MAIN RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT Table of Contents Executive summary....................................................................................................................2 Marketing analysis.....................................................................................................................3 Products offered by the entity and its brand image................................................................3 Customers of the company and channels used for reaching the customers...........................3 Marketing mix (4 Ps).............................................................................................................4 Competitors............................................................................................................................5 Financial analysis.......................................................................................................................6 Financial performance............................................................................................................6 External factor........................................................................................................................6 Stock price..............................................................................................................................6 Recommendation....................................................................................................................7 Reference....................................................................................................................................8
2MAIN RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT Executive summary The main objective of the report is to analyse the annual report of The Home Depot that is engaged in retail business for home improvements products. The report will highlight the products line of the entity, its target market, competitors and marketing mix under the marketing analysis. In the financial analysis part the report will highlight the financial performance, external factors those affected the company, stock price of the entity for past 6 months and the reason of share price trend.
3MAIN RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT Marketing analysis Products offered by the entity and its brand image The Home Depot Company is retailer for home improvements products. It is engaged in selling the assortment of the building materials, garden and lawn products, products related to home improvements and offers different other services. Primarily the company provides services to 3 groups of the customers including – do-it-for-me (DIFM) customers, do-it- yourself (DIY) customers and the professional customers (Ir.homedepot.com, 2019). Retailers are generally concerned regarding the brand image and that is for the good reason. The way any entity portray itself to the consumers, determines the type of customers it wants to associate itself. The Home Depot is amongst the market leaders and is able to succeed as it has solidified distinct image that is appealing to different customer segments (Huang & Sarigöllü, 2014). Customers of the company and channels used for reaching the customers DIY customers include the home owners and they buy products as well as install them on their own using the in-store or online resources DIFM customers include the customers those are looking for 3rdparties for providing the installation services. Professionalcustomersoftheentityincludethecontractors,traders,builders, renovators and interior designer (Ir.homedepot.com, 2019). The entity shall focus on the white females, aged between 35 to 54 years with the income of more than $ 60,000 from Midwest region. It is predicted by Census Bureau that the entity will market to the white population of 239,746,254 people including female customer of 151,886,332 out of which 84,082,929 female will be aged between 25 – 44 years and
Paraphrase This Document
Need a fresh take? Get an instant paraphrase of this document with our AI Paraphraser
4MAIN RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT regional population of 66,388,795. Most likely DIFM customers of the company are females and college graduates from North eastern region (Ir.homedepot.com, 2019). Different channels used by the entity to reach its customers include mobile through the colour project app, groundswell through you tube how-to videos, associating itself with a noble cause through providing services to homeless youth and launched the programme ‘The Orange Door’, making some thoughtful acquisitions, opening more number of stores and providing better inventory management as well as supply chain (Ir.homedepot.com, 2019). Marketing mix (4 Ps) Product– the entity is the supplier for providing the countless products and services to large numbers of customers. Main products of the entity are – Retail services with the option of the expert advices Home improvement products derived from the 3rdparty Professional and contractor products and services particularly for the cleaning and janitorial equipment, lumber, plumbing kit and painting supplies Material related to home improvement, building, lawn and garden products including fans, lighting, bath, windows, kitchen, doors and grills (Epstein, Buhovac & Yuthas, 2015). Place– it is actually a superstore that sells different materials to DIFM consumers, DIY consumers and the professional consumers including professional remodelers, tradesman, repairman and small business owners. The entity has its network all over 50 states of US, Mexico and all 10 provinces of Canada (Ir.homedepot.com, 2019). Price– currently Home Depot is at the top position in the retail marketing and achieved its position through different pricing policies that helped it ensuring competitiveness but not
5MAIN RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT with cost of the revenue. It uses guaranteed low price or penetration pricing that is aligned with the generic strategy to attract the customers (Ir.homedepot.com, 2019). Promotions– for reaching the customers it follows the vigorous strategy of communication to create better visibility for the products and services. It uses television commercials that are considered as a prominent tool for advertising. Further, it uses online media and print media to highlight the products and services amongst customers. Another key success factor for the entity is online sales and websites sales (Ir.homedepot.com, 2019). Competitors Major competitor of The Home Depot isAce hardwarewith the estimated revenue of $ 5.1 billion and employees of more than 8200. Ace hardware is the online retail platform that is engaged in offering plumbing, electrical, garden and lawn equipment. The entity assures consistent quality for its private level products through different means including the factory site visits, 3rdparty lab testing and specific criteria for the imported products (Ace Hardware | The Helpful Place - Ace Hardware. (2019). Another competitor of the company isMenardswith the estimated revenue of $ 9.5 billion and employees of more than 45,000. It owns and operates chain for the home improvement centres and offers building materials and home appliances. Menards provides quality products to the customers including products and services including development of residential real estate. Culture is major competitive advantage of the entity that can be found in every aspect of the company. It devotes attention and time to the customers. Further, the value wheel of the entity involves entrepreneurial spirit, customer service and building a strong relationship (Ir.homedepot.com, 2019).
6MAIN RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT Financial analysis Financial performance Looking into the financial performance of the entity for the year 2017 as compared to 2016 it can be identified that the sales, gross profit and net profit of the entity has been increased in absolute terms as compared to the previous year. However, if the percentage term is considered, though the gross profit margin is reduced from 34.16% to 34.05%, the net earnings margin has been increased from 8.41% to 8.5% over the years from 2016 to 2017 (Khadafi,Heikal&Ummah,2014).Majorreasonbehindthecompany’seconomic performanceisstrongmacroeconomicconditionsincludingincreasingofconsumer’s disposable income and gradual recovery in the housing market that have positive impact on the company like Home Depot which is significantly dependent on economy improvement (Mathuva, 2015). External factor Externalfactorsthoseaffectedtheentityincludesunpredictablespendingof governments, increase in cost of capital, decline in the preference for the imported goods and rising trend of using the mobile technology (Cao, 2019). Stock price Current stock price of the entity is 203.55. Last 6 months changes are as follows –
Secure Best Marks with AI Grader
Need help grading? Try our AI Grader for instant feedback on your assignments.
7MAIN RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT It can be identified from the above that except for the month of November, the stock price of the entity for the last 6 months were in rising trend. Reason behind increase of share price is fall in the mortgage rate and positive data on housing that declined the fear regarding the market condition (Finance.yahoo.com, 2019). Recommendation Based on the share price performance and financial performance of the entity it is recommended that the money can be invested into the company. The major reason of this recommendation is the strong macroeconomic factors and increasing profit trend of the company is indicating that long term sustainability of the entity.
8MAIN RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT Reference AceHardware|TheHelpfulPlace-AceHardware.(2019).Retrievedfrom https://www.acehardware.com/ Cao, L. (2019). Implementation of Omnichannel Strategy in the US Retail: Evolutionary Approach. InExploring Omnichannel Retailing(pp. 47-69). Springer, Cham. Epstein, M. J., Buhovac, A. R., & Yuthas, K. (2015). Managing social, environmental and financial performance simultaneously.Long range planning,48(1), 35-45. Finance.yahoo.com. (2019).Yahoo is now part of Oath. Retrieved 10 April 2019, from https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/HD/ Huang, R., & Sarigöllü, E. (2014). How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand equity, and the marketing mix. InFashion Branding and Consumer Behaviors(pp. 113-132). Springer, New York, NY. Ir.homedepot.com.(2019).Retrieved10April2019,from http://ir.homedepot.com/~/media/Files/H/HomeDepot-IR/2018_Proxy_Updates/ HD_AR_Soft-Copy.pdf Khadafi, M., Heikal, M., & Ummah, A. (2014). Influence analysis of return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), net profit margin (NPM), debt to equity ratio (DER), and current ratio (CR), against corporate profit growth in automotive in Indonesia Stock Exchange.InternationalJournalofAcademicResearchinBusinessandSocial Sciences,4(12). Mathuva, D. (2015). The Influence of working capital management components on corporate profitability.
9MAIN RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT Monestier, T. J. (2014). Where Is Home Depot at Home: Daimler v. Bauman and the End of Doing Business Jurisdiction.Hastings LJ,66, 233.