Peak Garage Doors Inc.

INTRODUCTION Peak Garage Door Inc. has set a goal to increase their sales for 2004. Garage door industry is expecting a growth of 2.4% while the management of Peak is looking to increase company’s sales 26.4%. The company currently has 50 exclusive dealers and 300 non-exclusive dealers. Management has three proposals in front of them. The first suggestion is to increase the number dealers in their existing markets. The second recommendation is to develop an exclusive franchise agreement with existing non-exclusive dealers. The third recommendation is to decrease the number of dealers and focus company’s resources on increasing support for the existing dealers. Of course there is an option for them to leave everything as it is. My suggestion is to go with the second recommendation due to the fact that exclusive dealers produced 70% of company’s sales and non-exclusive dealers contributed only 30%. In order for Peak Garage Doors Inc. to reach their sales goal for ‘04 they will have to gain more exclusive dealers since they contribute much more profit to the company.
THE INDUSTRY The residential garage door industry sales for 2003 were $2 billion; 90% ($1.8 billion) of these sales were steel doors, the type of door the Peak specializes in. Projected industry sales for ’04 were $2.05 billion, representing 2.4% increase. The industry consists of large national manufacturers and smaller regional ones such as Peak. There has been a demand for steel doors from new homes, and from homes looking to replace older wooded doors. Richard Hawly, Peak’s Director of Sales and Marketing, conducted a survey to prospective garage buyers; he also commissioned a study to identify number of dealers that are in the same markets as Peak. The results of the survey found that brand awareness was very low showing that only 10% surveyed were able to provide a brand name. The survey also found that independent dealers did not sell all brands at an equal rate. For the dealers that sold