COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE ANALYSIS

Competitive Advantage Analysis- Home Depot Vs Lowes



Table of Contents

Introduction2

Discussion2

Home Depot:2

Lowe's:3

Supply Chain Management:3

Five selected factors of supply chain:3

Comparison of Home Depot and Lowe's on the basis of the five selected factors:4

Fulfilling Customer Demands:4

Matching Demand with Supply:4

Implementation of JIT (Just In Time) techniques:5

Using location/allocation:5

Traditional logistics optimization:5

Conclusion6

References7

Competitive Advantage Analysis- Home Depot Vs Lowes

Introduction

Traditionally, capital, technology or physical location acted as variables differentiating between companies. Currently differentiation based on the same parameters is practically impossible, regardless of the sector in question. Greater financial and human efforts result in small variations in products and technologies that are quickly copied and even improved by competitors. This paper is a competitive advantage analysis of the selected companies (i.e. Home Depot and Lowes). The paper selects five important supply chain functions by which these competitors are compared to each other. In addition to this, the paper carefully explains which of the two selected companied is superior in each selected function of supply chain and what are the reasons behind its superiority.

Discussion

Before doing a competitive advantage analysis this paper first offers an overview of each selected company.

Home Depot:

Home Depot is a U.S. retail chain, which is the largest in the world for the sale of tools for repairing and building materials. The company was founded in 1978 in Atlanta by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank founded. It grew rapidly and in 1986, sales rose to an annual 1 billion U.S. dollars. The company headquarters is located in Vinings. The company employs 355 thousand people. The network operates 2,144 stores in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and China. The key competitor of home Depot is Lowe's.

Lowe's:

Lowe's is the American retail company, which owns a chain of stores selling products for home improvement. The company was founded in 1946 in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina. The headquarters is located in Mooresville, North Carolina. Today the company serves more than 14 million customers a week, having a 1,616 thousand stores in the United States and Canada. Lowe's employs approximately 185,000 employees. The company is the second largest network in the United States for the sale of hardware products after Home Depot.

Supply Chain Management:

Supply Chain Management is the planning and management of all tasks in supplier selection, procurement, conversion and all tasks of the logistics. In particular, it includes the coordination and cooperation between the participating partners (suppliers, distributors, logistics service providers, customers).

Five selected factors of supply chain:

The five important supply chain functions that are selected for comparing home Depot and Lowes are as follows:

Fulfilling customer demands.

Matching demand with supply.

Implementation of JIT (Just In Time) techniques.

Using location/allocation.

Traditional logistics optimization.

Comparison of Home Depot and Lowe's on the basis of the five selected factors:

Fulfilling Customer Demands:

The demands of customers are fulfilled by the most effectual utilization of resources, which includes labor, capacity and inventory. Nowadays, customers in the home improvement sector demand cheap ways of getting energy for powering their homes. Lowe's has effectively utilized its resources and has responded to the demands of the customer by offering affordable and convenient process for getting solar ...