Home Depot Fixes Itself
Home Depot has long been one of the most profitable American companies, specifically because of its rapid expansion rate. They faced a real challenge going forward in the recession because almost every industry vial to the company’s success was in a free fall. Home sales, retail sales, and consumer confidence. Still, the piece profiled how the company added by subtracting, basically closing areas that were bound to fail, halting its growth rate, and refusing to borrow any money. The company had enough foresight to know how much trouble the U.S. economy was in and they made sure they weren’t borrowing any more money.
Home Depot’s corporate strategy going forward in the recession is interesting for many reasons. If anything, they’ll be paying for everything out of profit, something that most companies can’t do let alone want to. The story was a great example of how one company can say enough and still contend in the do-it-yourself retail market.
Comparing the company to Lowe’s and Wal-Mat also did wonders for the story. It really conceptualized Home Depot’s standing in the market place and also showed readers two different strategy’s: Wal-Mart taking a step back to stay in the lead, and Lowe’s pulling all the stops to try and close the gap.
The story didn’t do so well in explaining how they were going to increase sales at existing stores. It mentioned how they were going to cut areas that they anticipated were not going to do well but they did not say how exactly they would increase the sales.