The document compares the websites of Home Depot and Rona for providing information to potential new suppliers. It finds that Home Depot's website provides more technical details and classifications of products than Rona's website. For lawnmowers specifically, Home Depot's website includes price ranges, consumer ratings, and technical specifications for each product, whereas Rona's website only lists brands and does not show prices or details without a postal code. Therefore, Home Depot's website provides better information for customers to purchase products.

1. COMPARISON HOME DEPOT WEBSITE & RONA
SHAHNAM TAHERI
August 2012
Sh_taheri@hotmail.com
1- What are some other renovation retailers in your area? Compare their websites
to Home Depot’s. Which site provides the clearest opportunity to new suppliers
to provide products to the company? Justify your answer.
There are different renovation retailers in my areas: Home Depot, Rona, IKEA, Home
Hardware and Lowe’s.
I compared their websites with each other. I found our choice is depend on what we want
to do according to our budget, time, material, and quality.
For kitchen cabinets, big stores such as Home Depot will be less expensive than
independent contractors and also other big stores. For countertop, depends on type of
materials we want. For stones, independent contractors are cheaper than big retailers. For
tile I found the Lowe’s has the best range of selection with decent price.
We compared the website of Rona and Home Depot together. There are some similarities
about purchasing and shopping on line. The classification of RONA is according to
Projects, Pointers (buyer’s Guide,greenwise,home101,How to demonstration, planning
Guides, preventive maintenance, seasonal colours),Shop(different items plus new items
and promotions),decoration
promotions),decoration(flooring,lighting,accessories,paint,window
design),Renovation(basement, doors, dry walling, flooring, garage, shades)
Horticulture(trees, shrub, gardening ,etc.).
The market of Home Depot is wider than Rona and it covers USA, Canada, and some
Europe and Asian countries. Since it buys huge amount normally for retailers is better
since they will have secure market and payment with low costs.
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2. 2- Do a search on lawn tractors at Home Depot and other retailers in your
neighbourhood. What type of customer information was provided? Which website
provides the best information that would lead you to go to the store and purchase
the product? Explain the differences in the information provided, support your
answer.
At Home Depot website we see different lawnmower according to brand: Mojack, Gardena,
Toro, Recharge Mower, Yard Machines, and Arnold. We can shop according to our budget
from less than $50 to $4000. If we click on each picture we can see all details such as
horsepower, safety and razor blade. We can also see the consumer rate to each of lawn
mower according to number of stars that customer have given to lawn mower.
At Rona website we can search lawnmower only according to brand names. There is not any
classification according to price range and budget.
When you go to the page related to each lawn mower there is no technical detail about the
product just only showing the picture. Whenever you ask about the price it doesn’t show up
they ask what your postal code is.
Totally Home Depot website is more convenient and informative with technical details in
compare to RONA.
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3. Gardina: Rona Recharge Mower: Home Depot
Case 9.2 Pages 298-299
1- Search for satellite communication operators and find out what services they offer.
What skills would be required to work for a satellite communication company?
The following is the list of main satellite communication operators is cited from
Wikipedia:
3

4. Rank Name of the Operator
2009
Revenue
2008
Revenue
2007
Revenue
2006
Revenue
Country
Satellites
in Orbit
Satellites
on Order
4

5. 1 SES
€1,70
billion
€1,63
billion
$2.37
billion
(€1,61 bl.)
$1.90
billion
Luxembo
urg
43 11
2 Intelsat
$2.50
billion
$2,40
billion
$2.20
billion
$2.10
billion
Bermuda 59 8
3 Eutelsat
€1,05
billion(09-
10)
€0,94
billion(08-
09)
$1.24
billion
$1.05
billion France 26 6
4 Telesat Canada
$787.0
million
$711.0
million
$684.7
million
$575.0
million
Canada 12 3
5 JSAT
$347.4
million
$326.0
million Japan 8 3
6 Star One
$207.4
million
$195.8
million Brazil 7 0
7 Hispasat
$188.6
million
$159.1
million Spain 3 1
8 SingTel/Optus
$172.2
million
$158.4
million
Australia 4 1
9
Russian Satellite
Communications
$161
million
$152
million Russia 11 3
10 Space communications
$151.4
million
$151.2
million Japan 4 1
11 Arabsat
$150
million
$150
million
Saudi
Arabia
5 2
12
Telenor Satellite
Broadcasting
$140.8
million
$106.5
million Norway 4 1
13
Thaicom/formerly Shin
Satellite
$133.7
million
$122.3
million Thailand 5 0
14 AsiaSat
$120.4
million
$119.6
million
Hong
Kong
3 1
15
Indian Space Research
Organization/Antrix
$120
million
$76 million India 11 6
16 Korea Telecom
$110.1
million
$119.6
million
South
Korea
3 1
17 Nilesat
$91.6
million
$79.8
million Egypt 2 1
18 Satmex
$80.25
million
$79 million Mexico 2 1
19 Gascom
$69.8
million
$47.1
million Russia 3 2
20 SES Sirius
$69.4
million
$58.7
million
Sweden 2 0
21
Broadcast Satellite
System
$66.3
million
$60.8
million Japan 3 1
5

6. 22 APT Satellite
$57.9
million
$54.9
million
Hong
Kong
5 0
23
MEASAT Satellite
Systems
$56.5
million
$38.9
million
Malaysia 3 1
24 Spacecom $56 million $56 million Israel 3 2
25 PT Telkom
$24.9
million
$32.8
million Indonesia 2 1
The satellite communication providers offer different services such as:
a) Monitoring location and map reporting of people and assets at worldwide (GIS, GPS).
b) Cable TV, internet, multimedia, data transition and distance learning.
c) Mobile telecommunication service
Many professions are needed for running a satellite communication company such as:
 Electrical and communications engineer
 Software and hardware engineer
 Networks administrator
 Satellite installer engineers
 Network operators and maintenance engineers and technicians
 Maintenance and technical supporting engineer
 Customer service agents
 Salesmen, administrative clerk
2- Look for statistics that are currently being used around the world. How many
satellites are due to replacement? Think about and list the different types of
maintenance that might be required on a satellite.
United States Space Surveillance Network (SSN) tracks satellites orbiting the earth. According to
NASA, there are roughly 3,000 satellites operating in Earth orbit, which approximately 8,000 of
those total are man-made objects. The largest man-made satellite currently in orbit around the Earth
is the International Space Station. Some satellites, called microsats, nanosats, or picosats, can be as
small as 10 cm (3.937 inches) in diameter and 0.1 kg (0.22 pounds) in mass.
6

7. As space technology matured, satellites were launched for military and commercial purposes. The
price of satellite launches has dropped to as low as a few million dollars for light satellites, and a few
tens of millions for heavy satellites. This put satellite technology within the reach of many nations
and international companies.
Satellites have an operating lifespan between five and 20 years. As of 2008, the former Soviet Union
and Russia had nearly 1,400 satellites in orbit, the USA about 1,000, Japan more than 100, China
about 80, France over 40, India more than 30, Germany almost 30, the UK and Canada 25, and at
least ten each from Italy, Australia, Indonesia, Brazil, Sweden, Luxembourg, Argentina, Saudi
Arabia, and South Korea. There are some cooperation project for making and sending satellite
between countries. We can mention Sea Launch Company which was formed as a joint of four
companies from the United States, Russia, Ukraine and Norway. Sea Launch has launched a few
satellites into orbit from international waters every year, although the company filed for bankruptcy
in 2009.
Running satellites needs regular maintenance. Operators do preventive maintenance checks and
services for all equipments and devices. Duties performed by preventive and maintenance
department includes: Installation, configuration, operation, align, conduction of performance tests,
and perform unit and direct support maintenance on satellite communications equipment and
associated devices. Conducts stressed and unstressed network operations. The maintenance team
performs quality control tests on circuits, trunk groups, systems, ancillary equipment and
communication security devices.
3- What are the new job opportunities available if space maintenance of satellites
becomes a larger industry?
Satellite Communication Systems Operator-Maintainers are responsible for making sure that the
lines of communication are always up and running. There are a lot of job opportunities are available
in installation, operations, maintenance, and repairing. There are some technical job for identifying
electronic jamming and deception. There are different levels of jobs from supervisors, operators and
repairs technicians.
There are varieties of job opportunities in satellite industries such as:
 IP Network Engineer: assists in the administration and maintenance of all technology
resources.
 Field Engineer: operates and maintains of various telecommunications systems.
 Facilities Maintenance Technician - Performs a variety of tasks under general supervision
to construct, operate, monitor, repair and maintain the Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing &
Fire Protection
 Fabrication/Assembly Specialist - Design, assemble, test, and/or modify electrical and/or
mechanical components, assemblies.
7

8.  Junior Program Manager - The Jr. PM has overall performance responsibility for
managing scope, cost, schedule, and contractual deliverables, which includes applying
project management methodologies for planning, tracking, change control, and risk
management.
 Mechanical Engineer - Responsible for providing mechanical design and engineering
expertise for the Mechanical Design Teams, Product and Project Business Teams including...
 Network Engineer - Conduct a wide range of IT related network infrastructure
implementation, as well as administration and implementation of WAN. Purchase software,
hardware, and other IT related peripherals as approved by the project manager...
 Proposal Administrative Assistant - Provide administrative support to Cachendo Program
Office, Government Sales Team, Marketing Communications and Technical Sales Support
Team for: proposal preparation activity, presentation preparation, meeting scheduling and
coordination
 Proposal Support Coordinator/Manager - Position entails being able to perform all facets
of proposal coordination/management including proposal requirements synthesis across the
range
 Senior .NET/Share point Developer - The Senior .Net/SharePoint Developer has a software
developer role on a team involved in the design, development, testing, deployment, and
support of custom Web, mobile, and desktop applications
 Senior Contracts Administrator - Review, edit, draft and negotiate all varieties of
contracts, including sales contracts, nondisclosure agreements, teaming agreements.
 Senior Flex Developer - Will be responsible for partnering with our technical architect,
product managers, UI designers and other developers to build our next generation client
applications
 Senior Systems Engineer - Provide RF Engineering skill and technical expertise to support
on-going operations and systems design engineering of ground segment systems...
 Teleport Operations Center Technician - Continuous improvement of the process defining
the development of GSM test/maintenance philosophies and processes
8