Submitted by: Submitted by tanysachan
Views: 637
Words: 601
Pages: 3
Category: Other Topics
Date Submitted: 08/29/2010 12:59 AM
I recommend that Black and Drecker (B&D) should take steps to distinguish itself in the Professional-Tradesmen segment. B&D should redefine itself in this segment under a new brand name “DeWalt” and use new marketing campaigns to attract the tradesmen from Makita.
B&D is already a business leader in the Consumer Tools Segment ($530 million) and is growing at 7%. The Professional-Tradesmen segment ($420 million) is growing at 9% while the Professional-Industrial segment ($550 million) is seeing now growth. Thus, with these growth rates, the Tradesmen segment is expected to take-over the Industrial segment within 3 years. So, B&D needs to take steps to focus on this segment as this is the one where the largest revenues can be fetched from in future. The only major competitors for B&D in this segment are Makita (50% market share), Milwaukee and Ryobi. B&D has yet not been able to utilize its strength in the Consumer Tools segment to have a stronger market share in the Tradesmen Segment.
One main reason for the negative reviews about B&D coming from the tradesmen is that they perceive B&D tools to be consumer tools and thus these tools are not suited for their professional work. They may not be able to distinguish between the colors of the Consumer (Black) and Professional tools (Charcoal Gray) and thus end up buying consumer tools, which won’t last long for the type of professional work the tradesmen do. Thus, B&D needs to take steps to distinguish the tools for Tradesmen segment from those in Consumer Tools segment. Since quality, durability and long-term performance are the key factors for the Tradesmen segment and there is a lot of communication is happening, it makes all the more sense for B&D to ensure that quality is given utmost importance so that the tradesmen will have positive reviews for the product amongst themselves.
Since the perception of B&D tools being consumer tools has already been created, B&D should use a new brand name to target the tradesmen...