MGMT 1006: Fundamental Marketing
Group 4– RONA
RONA – Group 4
Kaur, Gursifat
Perez, Phoebe Anne
Tse, Sui Hung
Wang, Zhifang
Zalameda, Marianne
Accounting Diploma, Vancouver Community College
MGMT 1006: Fundamental Marketing
Instructor: David Kuch
September 20, 2022
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MGMT 1006: Fundamental Marketing
Group 4– RONA
CREST Analysis for RONA Company
Created in 1939, RONA is a banner of Lowe’s Canada, one of Canada’s leading home
improvement companies with head office located in Boucherville, Quebec. (Rona Inc., 2022) one
of the largest retailers and distributors which supply hardware, building materials, home
renovation, gardening products, installation services, and offers financing help (Inc, 2021). It
owns more than 20,000 employees and annual revenues are almost $4072.4 million in 2013 (Inc,
2021). RONA is known for its wide in-store or online businesses and services including
installation assistance with regards to buildings and construction projects.
Under the analysis of the CREST model, what are the things that could affect RONA in each
of the CREST dimensions? There are five factors that determine a company’s marketing
strategy. They are competitive, regulatory, economic,social, technological, and factors.
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MGMT 1006: Fundamental Marketing
Group 4– RONA
COMPETITIVE
Competitive factors cover how businesses who offer similar products or services affect each
other. Factors affecting includes:
• Customers- Company is coming up with new strategies that focus on the customers needs.
This is a good strategy in order to satisfy the customers. Therefore, conducting surveys to make
sure that the customers are well satisfied.
• Supplier - In this supplier also plays a major role as they have unique products or services.
If anything happens and they are out of the market different strategies have to come.
• Competitor - In this, they are also playing a big role as the actions of competitors are
carefully examined. The best way they are coming with a strategy is predetermined that how they
are reacting with particular actions.
• Products- Products became obsolete because this is changing due to technology. Therefore,
in this strategy the company is changing its products instead of prices.
RONA Competitors include The Home Depot, Lowe’s Home Improvement and Canadian
Tire. RONA ranks 1st in Customer Net Promoter Score on Comparably vs its competitors.
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MGMT 1006: Fundamental Marketing
Group 4– RONA
RONA compares to its competitors with:
CEO Rank : 4th
Product quality: 2nd
Pricing Rank: 2nd
Customer Service: 2nd
What actions are RONA taking to deal with competitors?
• RONA is offering them quality products and services in order to meet the demand of
RONA customers and business partners.
• RONA encourages free and open competition with respect, meaning that not describing a
competitor to the public in a misleading manner.
Rare competitors are shown based on the data from crunchbase.com. There is one similar
company to RONA, which is Marketstar located in the United states.
REGULATORY
Identifying regulatory factors is a long process and a very sensitive matter when it comes to
business. Implementing laws, rules and regulations needs crystal-clear policies and procedures as
it can be used in legal or political issues, no matter how small or big the company is. To analyze
one’s regulatory factors, it requires it to be lawfully operated.
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MGMT 1006: Fundamental Marketing
Group 4– RONA
Here are 3 examples of Regulatory factors that highly affect the company:
Competition Act
● The Competition Act contains both criminal and Civil Provisions aimed at preventing
anti-competitive practices in the marketplace. (Competition Bureau, n.d.)
● -to provide an equitable opportunity in Canadian Economy
● -to supply the consumers with different prices and merchandise etc.
Business Taxes
●
In Canada, it is important to impose and follow accordingly with taxation rules in
business and individuals.
● Not only to avoid future problems while running the company but also to keep the
business on track of legalities and promote economic growth.
Legal Rights & Responsibilities (Businesses, Employee, Consumers)
● ·
Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA)
● ·
RONA Human Resource Code of Ethics
● ·
RONA Responsible Procurement Policy
● Vision & Principles
● - Scope and Responsibility (as a company)
● -Protection and Processing of Information (confidentiality)
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MGMT 1006: Fundamental Marketing
Group 4– RONA
ECONOMIC
Consumers' income is a key demographic variable marketers use to make target-market
decisions. Due to COVID 19, the unemployment rate is high. Some people encounter a great
drop of monthly income. They prefer saving money for buying food and daily necessities to new
furniture, new home decoration or appliances. People are becoming more economically
conscious. However, we cannot ignore it when some home appliances are out of order. It must
need a replacement.
So, RONA tactically provides flexible financing solutions that meet customers’ needs. The
first one is a deferred payment plan. Customers can take advantage of 0% interest on purchases
of $299 and more before taxes or pay in 3 months 0% interest on purchases of $99 and more
before taxes. The second one is a multi purchase plan. Customers purchase home improvement
projects into a single financing plan, get 2 months interest free of all purchases and returns
related to the project. The last one is an equal installment plan. Customers can enjoy 24 or 60
months equal installments with low interest which are applicable on transactions of $1,499 and
above.
In addition, purchasing power depends on the discretionary income. Discretionary income
means people’s income exceeds their cost of living. When the discretionary income is high, the
purchasing power is high as well . Unfortunately, continuous inflation reduces consumers’
purchasing power. In fact, Rona offers discounts and promotions to attract more customers to
spend money on their products, at the same time, that help boost its company profit in order to
offset the cost of goods and services.
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MGMT 1006: Fundamental Marketing
Group 4– RONA
They offer free parcel shipping, everyday low price, weekly deals, clearance and newsletter
subscription promotion . Rona even pays taxes for customers. Buying products reached to an
amount, RONA will charge and return applicable taxes. Then they deduct an amount equal to the
tax which customers were charged from the product price . Promotion code and coupons are
offered for online shopping. Some are applicable in store. This is how a company reacts to
external economic factors.
As corporations and companies try their best to import materials at the lowest cost, inflation
can lead to a rise in the cost of raw materials. It is important for a company to carefully manage
to develop strategies to maintain its profit gain. What RONA can do is to raise their prices of
products in order to offset the potential loss triggered by inflation. Moreover, high inflation can
also lead to higher interest rates. Companies which are in debt and in need of a loan for store
decoration construction, are forced to pay a higher interest.
From the strategies Rona adopted to deal with the external economic factors, we can
conclude that it is important for managers of companies to be proactive about consumers' income
demographic, purchasing power and inflation.
Since inflation is continuous and avoidable. Is it just a devil to us? Does it have any positive
impact on corporations and companies? If companies are able to shift those increased costs of
goods to customers, more profit can be grained. And, it helps businesses to maintain themselves
competitive and productive to prevent close down. To some extent, inflation is a good, long term
and vigilant reminder for all companies.
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MGMT 1006: Fundamental Marketing
Group 4– RONA
SOCIAL
As the saying goes, change is the only constant in this world and RONA manages to quickly
respond to the changing needs of the consumers and adapt their offer to each market. (Pierre
Dandoy, 2009). The wide selection of home improvement and construction products has given
the Canadian consumers a place where they can satisfy their needs for their homes.
#EveryonesAnExpert campaign is one of the things that RONA did to inspire consumers since
every generation is now more inclined into Do-It-Yourself for their home improvement projects
because they want to have a high-end look without the hassle of paying expensive contractor
costs. To help consumers, RONA offers personalized services, free advice from the on-site
designers and coaching for their home improvement projects.
Sustainable and environmentally friendly products are now very important for all the
consumer groups, and RONA is committed to become one of the leading Canadian industry’s
recognized leaders in sustainable development. Consumers will now have a range of eco-friendly
products that are now available to them. They are doing business with suppliers that also
proactively address environmental sustainability. To be accepted into the RONA ECO line, a
product must have a lower ecological footprint than comparable conventional products
throughout its entire life cycle.
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MGMT 1006: Fundamental Marketing
Group 4– RONA
TECHNOLOGICAL
Information technology currently is considered as an essential composition of the operation
of a business. Based on the philosophy of marketing of “Doing it right, RONA is a large
corporation which initially introduced the internet as early as 2001 when google search engine
became a household searching tool and the concept of cloud computing appeared. It not only
uses information technological tools into its inside department but also integrates with outside
technology companies to facilitate the operation of the business. RONA’s virtual sales was built
in 2001 (Analytics, 2022) and began to track inventory with software at the same time
(Gonsalves, 2001). It now has its own information technology department to manage enterprise’s
operation contents, covering every transactional activity within its stores or distributors. For
example, RONA can be able to track its sales, inventory, cost, and procession of supply chains,
etc (RONA, 2016).
In addition, there are two ways to work with external technological companies. One is that
RONA cooperates with other companies to access and analyze big data when making marketing
decisions. RONA adopted big databases from both the ESRI technology and Statistics Canada
information to develop a geographic information system (GIS) to effectively distribute flyers,
significantly save cost, and remarkably improve the sales (Menezes, 2010), which dramatically
increased its new customers. The other is that RONA uses both social media and mobile phone
technology to sustain and increase relationships between business and customers. VIP Pro APP,
the current RONA’s APP, may be a good sales tool for loyal customers. Apart from APP, RONA
utilizes social media platforms to sell products to all new or potential customers who can access
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MGMT 1006: Fundamental Marketing
Group 4– RONA
mobile phones, such as Instagram (RONA, 2022b), Facebook (RONA, 2022c), Amazon (RONA,
2022a).
References
Analytics, E.-c. R. (2022). https://ecommercedb.com/en/store/rona.ca
Baldwin, C. (2021). How voice search will change the digital marketing landscape.
https://www.wsiworld.com/blog/how-voice-search-will-change-the-digitalmarketing-landscape
Competition Bureau. (n.d.). Examining the Canadian Competition Act in the Digital Era.
Retrieved from Government of Canada:
https://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/00020.html
Gonsalves, A. (2001). Retailer To Suppliers: Track Inventory, Restock Shelves.
Informationweek, 844(24).
Inc, C. p. R. (2021). Company profile RONA Inc. John Carpenter House,. Retrieved
September 16 from https://web-s-ebscohostcom.ezproxy.vcc.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=a4f111c9-96b440b2-9f57-a429a0dbb40e%40redis
Menezes, J. P. (2010). RONA maps a pathway to success. Retrieved September 17 from
https://www.itbusiness.ca/news/rona-maps-a-pathway-to-success/15123
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MGMT 1006: Fundamental Marketing
Group 4– RONA
RONA 2009 Annual report" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-07-05.
Retrieved 2010-05-17.
Rona Inc. (2022). About Us: Rona. Retrieved from Rona Ca Website:
https://www.rona.ca/en/about-us
RONA. (2016). RONA annual information form for the financial year ended December
27, 2015.
RONA. (2022a). https://www.rona.ca/en/brand/amazon
RONA. (2022b). rona.ca. https://www.instagram.com/rona.ca/?hl=en
RONA. (2022c). @ronainc Building Material Store. https://www.facebook.com/ronainc/
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