Black and Decker Case

BLACK AND DECKER CASE

In this case, Galli shouldn’t consider pulling out of tradesmen market. That would be pointless for a brand like B&D which is well known by customers. Galli can turn brand’s fame-whether it is good or bad- into his advantage. These are my suggestions to Galli for improving B&D’s sales and its fame in Tradesmen market.

-Keeping the name of the tradesmen products as B&D is not the best idea. Tradesmen will keep their negative thoughts about products when they see the same name even Galli changes the colour of products. Galli should consider the DeWalt idea which worked well before. He should find a new name for Tradesmen products, maybe he can add ‘provided by B&D’ at the end. Also in this strategy, customers will need some time to recognize the new brand name which can be considered as the one and only bad side of this. However, if Galli adds ‘provided by B&D’ at the end, this time will be shorter.

-Since charcoal grey seems a little ordinary for a product, B&D should chose yellow as its new product colour. Yellow is a unique, bright and distinguishing colour for B&D. Products will catch customers’ eyes easily and when they see a yellow product, they will know that its B&D.

-As is seen from exhibit 2, tradesmen sales coming mostly from Home Centers and Two-Steps but B&D has a poor performance in these channels. Galli should improve it. If he does that, tradesmen will get better customer and technical services and they will have a chance to get B&D products easily. Also large amount of stocks will be available so retailers will be happy too. B&D will make profit also. Everyone will be happy.

- Even B&D, Makita and Milwaukee are almost the same in terms of quality, tradesmen think that B&D produces bad quality products. Galli can fix this pointless and bad reputation by going for a change. It is a fact that