home depot case study pdf

The Home Depot: A Competitor’s Strategic Audit, A Case Study

Cite this chapter.

• Akhtiara Erskine ,
• Angelo A. Camillo ,
• Alicia J. Bajada &
• Svetlana Holt  

323 Accesses

The Home Depot, Inc. (Home Depot) was founded in 1978 by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank with the help of investment banker Ken Langone and merchandising expert Pat Farrah. The vision was of a one-stop shopping location for the do-it-yourselfer, and the idea materialized with the opening of the first two Home Depot stores on June 22, 1979, in Atlanta, Georgia. The first stores, each at around 60,000 square feet and carrying an inventory of over 25,000 items, were far larger than the average hardware stores of the time. However, the idea was not new in Europe. In 1962, Heinz-Georg Baus, a resident of Mannheim, Germany, had the idea of bringing all hardware specialty stores together under one roof. He had been looking for tools and building materials, and was continually frustrated by having to drive to numerous stores to find what he needed. The same year, he opened the first store called Bauhaus in Mannheim, with an inventory of about 25,000 products in a building measuring about 2, 691 square feet. Today, the German company has over 250 stores in 17 European and Near-Eastern countries (Bauhaus, 2014). Sixteen years later, Home Depot revolutionized the home improvement industry in North America by bringing the know-how and the tools to the consumer, and saving them money in the process.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save.

• Get 10 units per month
• Download Article/Chapter or eBook
• 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
• Cancel anytime
• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Durable hardcover edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Unable to display preview.  Download preview PDF.

Åkerlind, G. (2005). Variation and commonality in phenomenographic research methods. Higher Education Research & Development , 24(4), 321–334.

Article   Google Scholar  

Bauhaus (2014). Bauhaus International. Public website. Accessed October 26, 2014 at: http://www.bauhaus.info /unternehmen/international

Berg, B. L. (2009). Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences . Seventh Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.

Google Scholar  

Camillo, A. A., Marques, J., & Holt, S. (2013). Strategic transcultural marketing management and global competitiveness. In B. Christiansen & M. Basilgan (Eds), Transcultural Marketing for Incremental & Radical Innovation . DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4749-7, Ch. 15 (pp. 316–338). USA: IGI Global, http://www.igi-global.com /chapter/strategic-transcultural-marketing-management-and global-competitiveness/90407

Consumer Affairs (2014). Home Depot top 936 Consumer Complaints & Reviews. Accessed October 25, 2014 at: http://www.consumeraffairs.com /homeowners/home_depot.htm

CNN Money (2007). Nardelli out at Home Depot. CNN Money, NY, January 3, 2007: 7:13 PM EST. Retrieved October 25, 2014 from: http://money.cnn.com /2007/01/03/news/companies/home_depot/

Creswell, J. (2003). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Katz, J. (2014). Analyst Report on Home Depot. Overlay. Retrieved October 7, 2014 from: http://analysisreport.morningstar.com /stock/research?t=HD®ion=usa&culture=en-US&productcode=MLE

Marton, F. (1986). Phenomenography—A research approach investigating different understandings of reality. Journal of Thought , 21(2), 28–49.

ResellerRatings.com (2014). Lifetime Ratings, Review of History and Profile. Retrieved October 25, 2014 from: http://www.resellerratings.com /store/Home_Depot#tab3

The Home Depot Foundation (2014). Our Mission. The Home Depot Foundation. Retrieved October 7, 2014 from: http://www.homedepotfoundation.org /page/mission

The Home Depot (2014, a). Home Depot Security and Exchange Commission Annual Filings. Retrieved October 3, 2014 from: http://ir.homedepot.com /phoenix.zhtml?c=63646&p=irol-sec

The Home Depot (2014, b). Home Depot Investors Relations, News Release. Retrieved October 3, 2014 from: http://ir.homedepot.com /phoenix.zhtml?c=63646&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1964976&highlight=

Yahoo Finance. HD. (2014). Yahoo Finance. Retrieved October 7, 2014 from: http://finance.yahoo.com /q/mh?s=HD+Major+Holders

Download references

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Editor information

Copyright information.

© 2015 Angelo A. Camillo

About this chapter

Erskine, A., Camillo, A.A., Bajada, A.J., Holt, S. (2015). The Home Depot: A Competitor’s Strategic Audit, A Case Study. In: Camillo, A.A. (eds) Global Enterprise Management. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137510709_11

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137510709_11

Publisher Name : Palgrave Macmillan, New York

Print ISBN : 978-1-349-70215-2

Online ISBN : 978-1-137-51070-9

eBook Packages : Palgrave Business & Management Collection Business and Management (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

To read this content please select one of the options below:

Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, the home depot, inc..

Publication date: 13 February 2024

Teaching notes

The Home Depot case is a great story. It's about entrepreneurship, growth, CEO leadership, and the dramatic impact, good and bad, a CEO can have on a company's growth culture, strategy, and performance. Home Depot had faced market growth challenges for the last seven years as it tried in numerous ways to reignite its growth engine. The case explores the growth strategies of CEOs Bernie Marcus, Arthur Blank, and Blank's successor Bob Nardelli, a former GE executive. After examining Home Depot's growth history, the case challenges students to devise a growth strategy for the company under a new CEO.

Hess, E.D. (2024), "The Home Depot, Inc.", . https://doi.org/10.1108/case.darden.2016.000307

University of Virginia Darden School Foundation

Copyright © 2016 by the University of Virginia Darden School Foundation, Charlottesville, VA. All rights reserved.

You do not currently have access to these teaching notes. Teaching notes are available for teaching faculty at subscribing institutions. Teaching notes accompany case studies with suggested learning objectives, classroom methods and potential assignment questions. They support dynamic classroom discussion to help develop student's analytical skills.

Related articles

All feedback is valuable.

Please share your general feedback

Report an issue or find answers to frequently asked questions

Contact Customer Support

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

Download Free PDF

Home Depot in Chile: Case study

2006, Journal of Business Research

Retailing is rapidly becoming a global industry and many retailers are expanding to foreign markets. However, some retailers successful in their home countries have failed in emerging markets such as Chile. A case study of the failed operation of Home Depot in the Chilean market helps in understanding why retailers do not succeed in all international markets. This case study is based on expert and consumer interviews, and analysis of secondary sources such as the local press and company reports. The main objective is to assess the role of the foreign environment on the performance of international retailers, and the main mistakes made by internationalizing firms.

Related papers

Journal of Business Research, 2006

Many retailers are expanding to foreign markets, however not all internationalization attempts are successful. This study utilizes an institutional perspective to examine unsuccessful internationalization efforts. According to this approach, retailers are more likely to succeed when they adapt their retail formats to the norms of the local market and achieve legitimacy from the relevant social actors. Four cases of unsuccessful retail internationalization to the Chilean market by Home Depot, Royal Ahold, Carrefour, and J.C. Penney, were examined. Based on expert and consumer interviews, findings show that these retail firms defied local institutional pressures from consumers, suppliers, competitors, retail executives, and the business community. Management executives of these firms did not embed themselves in the broader social network. It was also apparent that the competition had anticipated and responded to their sources of competitive advantage. Finally, their scale was not big enough to command any advantages in the supply chain network.

International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 2004

The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 2004

International Marketing Review, 2009

IKEA is an internationally well-known largest furniture retailer. The purpose of this study is to study key determinants of IKEA's success. To reach the purpose of this research, we focused on the international strategy IKEA used to approach their customers and IKEA’s SWOT analysis. Besides, we also focus on how IKEA store layout influences consumer behavior. The primary data collection method was interviews conducted with IKEA customers by Google forms. This study found that IKEA’s unique management planning and marketing strategy attract customers to revisit the retail store.

Latin American Business Review, 2005

Journal of Global Marketing, 2011

Defending the local market against foreign competitors: the example of Chilean retailers Constanza Bianchi Joaquin Mena Article information:

The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 2009

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.

Przedsiębiorczość Międzynarodowa, 2017

The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 2012

European Management Journal, 2005

papers.ssrn.com

Emerging Markets Finance and …, 2003

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 1998

Journal of Asia-Pacific Business, 2010

Fallstudien zum Internationalen Management, 2011

Economic Themes, 2020

Springer eBooks, 2006

Management Theory and Studies for Rural Business and Infrastructure Development, 2015

International Journal of Business and Management, 2012

Related topics

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

• Harvard Business School →
• Faculty & Research →
• March 2008 (Revised March 2009)
• HBS Case Collection

The Home Depot, Inc.

• Format: Print
• | Pages: 28

More from the Author

• March 2011 (Revised June 2011)
• Faculty Research
• September – October 2010
• Production and Operations Management

The Effect of Product Variety and Inventory Levels on Retail Sales: A Longitudinal Study

• April 2010 (Revised April 2010)
• QuikTrip  
• The Effect of Product Variety and Inventory Levels on Retail Sales: A Longitudinal Study  By: Zeynep Ton and Ananth Raman
• Mercadona  

Home › Insights › Case Studies › Case Study: From Pain Points to Progress – Union Pension Fund Optimizes Operations

Case Study: From Pain Points to Progress – Union Pension Fund Optimizes Operations

Operational process mapping and optimization opportunities for improvement.

Download a PDF of this case study .

Executive Summary

A client in the union pension fund space offers various services including healthcare benefits, retirement and pension plans, disability and life insurance and advocacy support. The company faced challenges with its business systems – expressing a need for comprehensive and holistic general organizational process improvements. Withum was brought in to assist in identifying and optimizing improvement opportunities to reach future state goals through prioritized initiatives effectively.

Withum undertook a comprehensive operational diagnostic to pinpoint the root causes of the client’s business process pain points. This allowed Withum’s business and management consulting teams to offer change management solutions and optimize an efficient roadmap of prioritized initiatives. Withum’s thorough assessment of the client’s business processes aimed to standardize and define operations so the client could be confident in their business systems. Consulting engagement efforts culminated in opportunities for improvement deliverables with a central focus on prioritized initiatives and key actions that would deliver the most value to the client.

The Challenge

The company recognized the need for a comprehensive overhaul of its business processes, primarily due to challenges identified by Withum. These included:

• A manual workload and underutilization of system functionality
• Data unreliability and lack of insights visibility
• A reactive approach to work
• Challenges with cross-departmental communication
• Risk management
• Siloed systems

These hurdles presented a significant operational transformation and improvement opportunity, which were further uncovered in a comprehensive operational assessment.

The Withum team identified several challenges that required a comprehensive approach to address. The challenges were not just related to the systems themselves but were indicative of broader issues in the operational model. The project aimed to align technology investments with strategic growth goals, which involved prioritizing initiatives amidst competing projects and goals.

With a complex systems architecture and high investment in more technology solutions, the client was becoming more inundated with half-complete workflows and complex workarounds that grew as the technology environment became more complicated.

This was rooted in the organization’s ability to prioritize initiatives. The company often took a “big bang” approach to solving issues by layering more technology, time and initiatives to patch problems far and wide. Withum helped facilitate prioritization with the business to help them plan to allocate their resources effectively, allowing them to roll out phased changes.

The client suffered from execution challenges that significantly impacted the roll-out of organizational changes. They were in fire-fighting mode so much in the day-to-day that they were not tactically equipped to support the execution of strategies.

The client team recognized that addressing system challenges alone was insufficient and that an operational transformation required elevating people, optimizing processes and implementing data controls alongside technology changes. This holistic approach was necessary to maximize the organization’s yield and ensure investments were made in the right areas. Elevating people would include addressing low-hanging fruit, elevating roles and responsibilities to be more value-added across the organization and having leaders be able to operate above the weeds.

In terms of low-hanging fruit, the client had multiple systems and sources of truth that they struggled to tie together. Instead of building an entirely new architecture up front, the optimal choice was to fix what we have today through training and minor process improvements. This would result in quick wins for the client team, increasing morale and client buy-in which is imperative for the project going forward. Given the heavy resistance to change in this organization, it’s important to note that quick wins are not a replacement for long-term solutions – they help to build momentum for longer-term initiatives.

These challenges highlight the complexity of the system modernization project, the need for a strategic, disciplined, accountable approach to drive value through the new system and the evolution of people’s roles and responsibilities in the organization. The project’s success depended on the collaborative efforts of the team to address these challenges effectively.

The Approach and Solution

The engagement with this client consisted of a comprehensive operational diagnostic and concluded with an opportunity for improvement. Withum undertook a current-state strategic, tactical and operational process mapping review and an initiatives prioritization workshop to determine the ideal sequence of events for introducing organizational change. To support workshop initiatives, the Withum team also utilized surveys to perform general sentiment analysis and uncover pain points that may not have been freely shared in a workshop environment.

The operational assessment revealed critical themes and challenges that, once addressed, will significantly benefit the organization. These insights emerged from evaluating the company’s organizational structure, technological footprint, operational pain points and inefficiencies. With this knowledge, we aligned the company’s strategic vision with a streamlined process.

Withum discovered that the client suffered from people, process, technology and data themes that offered significant organizational improvement opportunities. To combat these issues, the Withum team created comprehensive opportunities for improvement along with a detailed roadmap for company success. The roadmap was phased first to stabilize, optimize and grow the operations’ efficiency and effectiveness. Change management was factored in to change the organization’s approach from a “big bang” model to one focused on quick wins and holistic solutions.

Additionally, a change management user adoption approach was vital to gaining more ownership and active participation, contributing to the growth path potential for functions and the organization. A hybrid waterfall and agile approach was adopted to address immediate challenges while laying the strategic groundwork for future changes.

Three overarching pillars were identified to achieve future state success:

The Results, ROI

Through a successful partnership between Withum and the client, a thorough assessment was conducted to evaluate the maturity of the company’s business systems and processes. This evaluation led to the formulation of valuable recommendations that, once put into action, promised to strengthen and enhance the company’s operations. The primary objective is establishing stability within the organization’s core activities and advancing its capabilities toward long-term financial planning, analysis and operational efficiency.

Over time, the company will automate manual and time-consuming tasks, leverage valuable insights from its data and pivot towards predictive and prescriptive analytics to contribute to its business planning and decision making processes. The roadmap to address this transformation is anchored in a strategic orientation incorporating quick wins to tackle immediate challenges. It also follows a phased project approach, designates change champions and establishes a robust project governance framework to ensure successful execution.

For more information, please contact a member of our team.

Advantages of Change-Driven Project Management Approach

A change-driven project management approach is a specialized offering that strongly emphasizes integrating change management principles into project management responsibilities. This approach not only ensures the successful execution of projects […]

Business and Management Consulting

Transform The Way You Work Transform the way your organization works and see the impact on your business and your bottom line. When you align your business strategy and goals with […]

Digital Workplace Solutions

Delivering personalized and agile Microsoft Cloud and AI-driven solutions that move your business forward. Technology continues to reshape industries. The cloud and AI have unearthed new business capabilities, while automation […]

Labor Unions

Focusing on all the areas of your labor union’s operations can hold many challenges. Government regulations are continually changing and keeping pace with those changes while having your members’ best […]

Search Withum.com