Free Essays on Home Depot

Home Depot stores offer a broad assortment of merchandise and services, and serve three primary customer groups: do-it-yourself customers, do-it-for-me customers and professional customers. A typical Home Depot store stocks approximately 40,000 to 50,000 product items, including variations in color and size. Major product groups include building materials, lumber and millwork; plumbing, electrical and kitchen; hardware and seasonal, and paint, flooring and wall coverings. To complement the national brand name products it offers, the Company has formed strategic alliances with vendor partners to market products under brand names that are only offered through The Home Depot. As of fiscal year-end 2001, the Company offered products under more than 30 proprietary and other exclusive brands, including Thomasville kitchen and bathroom cabinets; RIDGID power tools; Behr Premium Plus paint; Mill's Pride cabinets; GE SmartWater water heaters, and Vigoro fertilizer. Founded in 1978, in Atlanta, Georgia, The Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement retailer currently operating 1,459 stores, including 1,312 Home Depot stores, 50 EXPO Design Centers, one Floor Store and three HD Landscape Supply stores in the United States, 84 Home Depot stores in seven Canadian provinces, seven Home Depot stores in Puerto Rico and ten in Mexico. The company reported net sales for fiscal 2001 of $53.6 billion and employs approximately 280,000 people. The Home Depot is credited as being the innovator in the home improvement retail industry by combining the economies of scale inherent in a warehouse format with a level of customer service unprecedented among warehouse-style retailers. Home Depot stores cater to do-it-yourselfers, as well as home improvement, construction and building maintenance professionals. Each Home Depot store stocks approximately 40,000 to 50,000 different kinds of building materials, home improvement supplies and lawn an... Free Essays on Home Depot Free Essays on Home Depot Home Depot stores offer a broad assortment of merchandise and services, and serve three primary customer groups: do-it-yourself customers, do-it-for-me customers and professional customers. A typical Home Depot store stocks approximately 40,000 to 50,000 product items, including variations in color and size. Major product groups include building materials, lumber and millwork; plumbing, electrical and kitchen; hardware and seasonal, and paint, flooring and wall coverings. To complement the national brand name products it offers, the Company has formed strategic alliances with vendor partners to market products under brand names that are only offered through The Home Depot. As of fiscal year-end 2001, the Company offered products under more than 30 proprietary and other exclusive brands, including Thomasville kitchen and bathroom cabinets; RIDGID power tools; Behr Premium Plus paint; Mill's Pride cabinets; GE SmartWater water heaters, and Vigoro fertilizer. Founded in 1978, in Atlanta, Georgia, The Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement retailer currently operating 1,459 stores, including 1,312 Home Depot stores, 50 EXPO Design Centers, one Floor Store and three HD Landscape Supply stores in the United States, 84 Home Depot stores in seven Canadian provinces, seven Home Depot stores in Puerto Rico and ten in Mexico. The company reported net sales for fiscal 2001 of $53.6 billion and employs approximately 280,000 people. The Home Depot is credited as being the innovator in the home improvement retail industry by combining the economies of scale inherent in a warehouse format with a level of customer service unprecedented among warehouse-style retailers. Home Depot stores cater to do-it-yourselfers, as well as home improvement, construction and building maintenance professionals. Each Home Depot store stocks approximately 40,000 to 50,000 different kinds of building materials, home improvement supplies and lawn an... Free Essays on Home Depot Basic Company and Industry Information Bernie Marcus and Author Blank founded Home Depot in Georgia in 1978. The first few stores were attached to Treasure Island stores and stocked around 25,000 products. What started out as a small neighborhood hardware store soon sprouted as the largest home improvement store in the nation. It wasn’t before long that Home Depot (HD) shares were being traded publicly on the New York Stock Exchange. Today, Home Depot is a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is one of the â€Å"Top Ten Most Admired Companies† by Fortune magazine, which also ranked The Home Depot as â€Å"America’s Most Admired Specialty Retailer† for the seventh consecutive year. This company only goes up with increasing net sales and net profit. The main ingredient to Home Depot’s success is not only the number of stores there are, but the diverse types of customers they attract. Home Depot attracts contractors, other retail stores, the do it yourselfer, and the average John Doe shopper. Home Depot is also attracting more and more women by increasing and expanding their EXPO Design stores which focuses on wall paper and other types of remodeling. So, whether you’re a contractor looking for lumber to build a house or John Doe who just broke his door handle and is looking to buy a new one, the Home Depot is your one stop superstore. What makes the Home Depot such a pleasant place to shop is the 201,000 friendly and knowledgeable sales associates. Home Depot forces their employees through a rigorous training program to ensure that which ever department they work in, they know the products they’re selling and have the customer service skills to sell it. Home Depot offers their employee’s stock options and 401(k) retirement plans. On the whole, this is just a few of the many reasons why Home Depot has such a low turnover rate on the average when being compared to other large retail chains. Even though Home D...

Steps to a Better Life essays

Steps to a Better Life essays The decision to quit smoking is one decision a person will never regret! Smoking causes around 419,000 deaths each year, just in the United States. Quitting smoking cuts the risk of lung cancer, many other cancers, heart disease, stroke, other lung diseases, and other respiratory illnesses. Quitting smoking, while pregnant, also increases the chances of survival for the unborn child. Quitting helps a person live a higher quality of life. Depending on how a person chooses to quit smoking, it can be done in under a month, cold turkey or not. Smoking harms and influences not just the smoker, but family members, coworkers and others who breathe in the cigarette smoke, which is called secondhand smoke. Beginning with infants and going up to 18 months of age, secondhand smoke is associated with as many as 300,000 cases of bronchitis and pneumonia each year. Second hand smoke from a parent's cigarette expands a child's chances for middle ear problems, causes coughing and wheezing, and worsens asthma conditions. If both parents smoke, a teenager is more than twice as likely to smoke than a young person whose parents are nonsmokers. In households where only one parent smokes, young people are also more likely to start smoking. Smoking during pregnancy can cause serious health problems to an unborn child. Smoking during pregnancy accounts for an estimated 20 - 30% of low birth weight babies, up to 14% of pre-term deliveries and 10% of all infant deaths! If all women quit smoking during pregnancy, about 4,000 new babies would live each year. Pregnant women who smoke or are exposed to second hand smoke pass three carcinogens to their fetuses: Benzo (a) pyrene which causes lung and skin cancer; (b) p-aminobiphenyl, which causes bladder cancer; and (c) acrylonitrile, which causes liver cancer. Levels of the chemicals were 4-5 times higher in passive smokers' babies and 10-12 times higher in the active smokers ...

Word Choice Around vs. Round

Word Choice Around vs. Round Word Choice: Around vs. Round Are the words â€Å"around† and â€Å"round† interchangeable? Yes. Except for when they’re not. The problem is that these terms have several uses between them, but only some uses overlap. To make sure your written work is error free, then, check out our guide to using these words correctly. Around and Round (Positions and Movements) We typically use â€Å"around† to describe the position or movement of something. This can include any of the following: Moving in a circular motion or following a perimeter Surrounding or being surrounded by something Being near to or in the general proximity of something In each of these cases, â€Å"around† works as either an adverb or a preposition. We can see how each use works in practice in the examples below: We started by walking around the edge of the field. There were trees all around. We checked to see if there were any farms around. We can also use â€Å"round† in any of these sentences. For instance: We started by walking round the edge of the field. There were trees all round. We checked to see if there were any farms round. When discussing the position or movement of something, then, you can treat â€Å"around† and â€Å"round† as synonyms. However, â€Å"around† is usually the better choice in formal writing. Approximations and Rounding Another use of â€Å"around† is as an adverb meaning â€Å"roughly† or â€Å"approximately.† For example, we could say: I have around $150 to last the next month. But even if we can use â€Å"around† in relation to numbers, this should not be confused with â€Å"rounding† a number up or down. Nor is it the same as describing something as a â€Å"round number† in math. Other Uses of Round The word â€Å"round† has other uses as a noun, verb, and adjective. As a noun, for example, it can mean any of the following: A stage in a process or competition (e.g., A round of golf†¦) Something cut into a circle (e.g., Pastry rounds†¦) Drinks bought for a group of people (e.g., I’ll get the next round†¦) A shot from a gun (e.g., They fired three rounds into the air†¦) As a verb, meanwhile, in addition to â€Å"rounding† a number, it can refer to: Moving around something (e.g., Rounding a corner†¦) Forming something into a circle (e.g., He rounded his lips and blew†¦) Finally, as an adjective, it can mean â€Å"circular† or â€Å"plump.† In short, â€Å"round† has a lot of meanings! However, we cannot use â€Å"around† in its place for any of these noun, verb, or adjective uses. Summary: Around or Round? While â€Å"round† can be an informal alternative to â€Å"around† when used to describe the movement or position of something, this is not the case with other uses of these words. Remember: Either around or round can be used to describe the movement or position of something. However, â€Å"around†Ã‚   is more formal. We also use around to say that something is a rough estimate, but we cannot use â€Å"round† as a synonym in this case. The word round has many other uses as an adjective, a noun, and a verb. However, you cannot use â€Å"around† in its place for these uses. So it is only with respect to movement or positioning that these terms are interchangeable. And if you’d like help checking you’ve used these terms correctly, just let us know.

Trauma and Human rights Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Trauma and Human rights - Essay Example s innately associated with human rights in the sense that the violation of any quintessential human right does connote to an individual an utterly stressful and distressing experience which could be called to be a trauma or a traumatic experience. The sense of trauma of any violated individual gets augmented manifold if one is deprived of one’s basic human rights owing to some essential and intimate aspect of one’s own identity. For instance denying justice to an individual owing to one’s race or persecuting and violating an individual owing to one’s gender are not only gross violations of human rights, but also amount to utterly traumatic experiences that could accrue intense emotional and psychological pain. Thereby, the very fact of being a human accrues one certain fundamental and basic rights and violation of any of these rights, by its very nature, content and intent could amount to be a traumatic

Benefits and pitfalls of globalization for business Essay

Benefits and pitfalls of globalization for business - Essay Example Anthony Mcgrew defined globalization as a â€Å"process of deterritorialization – as social, political and economic activities are increasingly stretched across the globe†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (n.d., â€Å"Ch.1: Globalization and global politics†). This comprehensive view gives a glimpse of the trend towards borderless economic societies of the future from the current nation-states based on political considerations. Given the vast differences among the different countries and their peoples in respect of socio-political and economic conditions, this trend gives rise to both promises and pitfalls for the global businesses. Globalization benefits can be expected from cross-fertilization of ideas, access to best available talent/resources, creativity and technological growth arising out of global competition, creation of networks of alliances, etc. while pitfalls include uncertainty of political conditions and economic policies, impact on local industry and employment, fear of dominance etc. (Ali, 2006, pp.78-81, 141-143). Cross-fertilization of ideas occurs when firms come across different ways of solving a problem or completing tasks, which are more cost effective or in identifying newer opportunities and demands. For example, housing shortage in poor countries can give rise to generation of fresh demand and exploitation of newer/locally available materials and methods of construction. Coming to talent, it is noted that many global firms employ foreign nationals at all levels of organizations recognizing merit. Again, global firms like Procter & Gamble compete at global level through heavy investment i n R&D and this in turn creates new technologies and products. Networking is another beneficial aspect of globalization by which global firms and local suppliers join hands to create value for customers. Global firms face uncertainty when political changes occur which may impact international agreements apart from operations. Stability of government policies on investments, employment, profit repatriation etc. is essential for a business to thrive. Competitive politics give rise to issues like job losses, exploitation, dominance, interference etc. Further, events in one country or a region will quickly impact business prospects of global firms in many other countries. For example, the recent downturn in the US economy is impacting firms across Europe and Asia. Given the above analysis, governments, businesses and organizations like WTO are working towards co-operation among nations by promoting democratic governments that respect international laws and strive for the economic prosper ity of their citizens. This means that global businesses take on the responsibility of actively promoting local industry, skills and employment to create a win-win situation. Q.2: Address to shareholders Dear Shareholders, In the competitive world of business, we have to constantly strategize our operations and our decision to invest in Franistan eight years ago was based on sound economic and business principles. That the decision was right is seen in the nearly 19% reduction in cost of manufacture of our products and the more than corresponding increase in the net profits over the last five years. As per our corporate policy, your

Summarize Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Summarize - Essay Example Zaltman’s Theory and the Development of Zaltman Elicitation Technique (ZMET): â€Å"People give us only what we give them the opportunity to provide.† (Zaltman). Because of his marketing experience and interdisciplinary background, Zaltman was able to apply the idea that people respond with what is below the surface of language, thinking in pictures and memories when deciding what it is they want. He used his study in Nepal to support his theory, saying â€Å"Everything we see hides something else we want to see.† (Zaltman). With that in mind, he moved from the University of Pittsburgh in 1991, to Harvard Business School, where funding was provided for him to set up his ZMET site and staff it appropriately. ZMET â€Å"combines neurobiology, psychoanalysis, linguistics and art theory† (Pink, 1998) to bring out what people really feel about a product. Once this is established, then sellers have an additional, creative marketing tool. The example of the Nestl e Crunch Bar is a good illustration. The chocolate showed up as a metaphor for ‘time’, as the images provided related to the simple, easy-going days of childhood. The product brought back happy memories; this was the metaphor the ZMET process turned up. The same test discovered women’s feelings about wearing panty hose, that dogs were a metaphor for safety and security and that executives identified ‘customer-focused’ as â€Å"having integrity, caring about customers in an authentic way, being a company worthy of trust.† (Pink, 1998). Application: Zaltman’s projects are treated as individual tests, which have consistently delivered â€Å"metaphor-based insights† (Zaltman) He believed that the technique is not going to solve every problem for every company but that it does provide a creative addition to other market research processes. He pointed out that in the final analysis, it is up to managers to

The Helmet-To-Helmet Rule Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Helmet-To-Helmet Rule - Essay Example It is seen that the new helmet-to-helmet rule works effectively in reducing the number of concussions. This is basically achieved through the measures introduced by the rule, which holds the players accountable for their actions. The defenders are thereby limited in their hard hits. Thus it is realized that the rule has reduced the head injuries that were a common occurrence in the early days before its implementation. The rule receives much support on the conventional view that it greatly mitigates the serious injuries while also punishing those who fail to observe the rules of the game. Such accountability, it is argued, is very important in bringing sanity into the game. It has been realized that the graduating students who join the National Football League (NFL) are becoming bigger and stronger yearly. In that regard, the number of injuries associated with the game is increasing. The game is also becoming more violent given these types of players. The rule is certainly very timel y considering that most of the rules that usually defined the game of football are seriously ignored. In the last few years it has been realized that that most defenders have practically shifted from the conventional methods of tackling and usually confront their opponents head fast. Such dangerous moves usually create crushing tackles. Well, football is certainly intended to be a violent game and most of the hard moves are certainly within acceptable limits (Wingate 78). Nevertheless, proponents of the helmet-to-helmet rule argue that some of the moves made by the defendants are practically unnecessary. As such, given the frequent concussions, it creates the need to control much of the game through the application of universal rules. The new helmet-to-helmet rule is therefore very appropriate and should be supported at all costs considering the important transformation it has brought into the game. One fundamental benefit of the helmet-to-helmet rule is the reduced number of head i njuries that have been associated with its implementation. In each football season, it is estimated that over 20 percent of high school players and 10 percent of college players usually sustain dangerous brain injuries each year (Carter 49). Well, such statistics are shocking and should therefore trigger a new sense of thought in that respect. The increase in the number of concussions is partly attributed to the increasing speed in the games and the defiance of the rules that guide the game. The new helmet-to-helmet rule is therefore perceived as a remedy to the cases of concussions, which usually cause long term effects on the affected people. Such effects include dementia, loss of motor skills and occasional memory loss. These are very dangerous effects that should be controlled at all costs. The imperative of this particular rule at this point in time cannot therefore be underestimated. The challenge is further compounded by the results revealed by new research and evidence which reveals much serious effects of concussions on the affected people. David Kusher in his research realized that cases of multiple concussions spanning over months or years might result into serious neuropsychological deficits. It is also realized that continuous concussions over shorter periods might translate to the second impact syndrome. In this case, a concussion obtained while a player is on recovery from a previous one might lead to a condition known as progressive cerebral edema. Three or more concussions are likely