B&D Hbr Case

Black & Decker Case Memo From my point of view, Joe Galli should pursue a “build share” strategy by dropping Black & Decker name from Proffesional Tradesmen segment but promote DeWalt brand with serviced and distributed by B&D with an “Industrial Yellow” color. Underlying cause of B&D low market share on power tools is the consumer perception that: “tradesmen doesn’t want a tool that has the same name as his wife’s toaster. Trademan basically viewed B&D as for use at home rather than on the job. Product research, both lab tests and “blind” field testing conducted that B&D has a highly competitive product quality on majority of the categories. So the issue is all about the branding. On the other hand B&D has a higher score for customer services as opposed to market leader Makita as highlighted on the table below, that B&D should exploit those weakness of Makita.
Neither buyers nor distribution channels of Consumer and Professional-Industrial Segments has any intersection with the Professional-Tradesmen Segment thus dropping B&D name from tradesmen segment will not have negative effect on other segments buying behaviour. On the contrary, tradesmen will be pleased to hold a poer tool differentiated with brand name and color from the home applicances that the wife uses.
Also note that DeWalt has a higher awar eness rating than B&D and it has achieved scoring better than B&D on “one of the best” agreement for tradesmen segment. Since using the current B&D name with a copycat strategy will not get internal support from Nolan Archibald and GaryDiCamillo, going with DeWalt alternative most likely to please upper managent. From the retailer perspective, current situation is unsatisfactory in terms of sales therefore such an alternative to build share will also please retailer.

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