...Costco Inc. 2012: A Wholesale Membership Industry Analysis Using the Porter’s Five Forces Model Costco’s Company Background Costco is the third largest retailer in the U.S. as well as the seventh largest retailer in the world. It is leading the discount warehouse and wholesale club segment of the North American retailing industry. As of 2012, Costco had a total of 598 warehouses internationally. Costco’s fiscal 2011 total revenue was $88.9 billion and net income was $1.46 billion. Additionally Costco had $1.9 billion of membership fees revenue acquired from 25 million households and 6.4 million businesses making it the leader in the wholesale, membership industry. The annual sales for one of Costco’s competitors, Sam’s Club, averaged $146 million with a $78 million average per store. Costco’s business model aims to generate high sales volumes and rapid inventory turnover by offering fee-paying members attractively low prices on a limited selection of nationally branded and selected private-label products in a wide range of merchandise category. Rapid inventory turnover, low operating costs through purchasing high volumes, efficient distribution, and reduced merchandise handling costs are the major factors that make Costco profitable with relatively lower gross margins than other wholesale competitors. Also, the membership fee required from customers is a major revenue source thataccounts for approximately 70 percent of its total revenue annually. Additionally, Costco...
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...The purpose of this report is to conduct a comprehensive business performance analysis using financial historical information/analysis of Costco. While Costco may not seem to have the revenue, assets and market share like similar and larger companies such as Wal-Mart and Target they are without a doubt a very profitable and successful company. What Costco lacks in high margins, they make up for in being a highly efficient company boasting high asset and equity turnover while maintaining optimum liabilities and debt to equity ratios. Costco is a great company that is seeing profitable success due to their business model that prioritizes quality for both its customers and employees. However, emerging with the 21st century are new ways of doing business. Online companies like Amazon.com are quickly taking market share not just from Costco but also their biggest competitors: Wal-Mart and Target. In order to stay relevant, Costco will need to maintain their business growth in the coming years and also find ways to compete against online retail giants like Amazon.com. 1. Company Background Costco is a multi-billion dollar warehouse company that operates on a global scale. Consumers can frequent Costco to find merchandise including but not limited to groceries, electronics, furniture and home goods, pharmaceuticals and gasoline. Costco specializes in purchasing its merchandise wholesale and re-selling to consumers. Consumers who frequent the warehouse club are required to pay...
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...Eddie Alvarez, Dana Huigen Chen, Jason Nguyen, Morgan Thomas, Charleen Binsol, Amit Shukla, Daniel Cho, Miko Xinyuan Shan Professor Macaulay MGMT 425 2/16/16 Costco Executive Summary This paper conducted an external analysis of Costco which is in the retail industry, more specifically, variety stores. The five forces of this industry include Threat of New Entrants, Bargaining Power of Buyers, Bargaining Power of Suppliers, Threat of Substitutes, and Intensity of Rivalry. After having conducted research, the intensity of each of the forces are as follows: Threat of New Entrants – moderate; Bargaining Power of Buyers – weak; Bargaining Power of Suppliers – weak; Threat of Substitutes – strong; and Intensity of Rivalry – weak. Furthermore, the greatest concern involves threats from online purchases, due to the convenience and ease of the transaction. Although, suppliers that have large economies of scale are working with Costco in securing preferential prices. Threat of New Entrants The first of Porter’s Five Forces is the threat of new entrants, which refers to the likelihood of new competitors entering the industry. The strength of this force depends on the levels of barriers to entry. When barriers to entry are high, the threat of new entrants are low, and vice versa. We determined the threat of new entrants to be moderate for the Variety Stores industry. The first two barriers to entry are large economies of scale and high capital requirements. When consumers...
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...Terry Porter’s five forces model. The analysis will then narrow the industry into segments and focus on how key players in the segment exhibit distinct advantages. A discussion will follow on how the leading company achieves competitive advantage by means of their distinct competencies and whether they can sustain it over time. The chosen industry for this report is the retail industry, specifically the discount merchandiser segment. The key companies discussed in this paper will be Costco and Wal-Mart, two of the biggest discount merchandisers in the USA. While Costco and Wal-Mart operate under two very separate business models, they carry similar products and compete in similar geographical areas. The life cycle stage of this industry is in the mature stage where the market is now saturated with notable players aside from the two mentioned. Growth in this market is demonstrated by expanding into different geographic and other markets to increase their overall market shares. Under the maturity life stage, minimizing cost and expansion into different segments can develop a competitive advantage over other big box retailer competitors. Currently, Wal-Mart is the industrial and segment leader because of its ability to minimize their expenses and expand quickly in global and online markets. Wal-Mart Wal-Mart is a mass-market retailer operating in three segments: Wal-Mart USA, Wal-Mart International and their online stores. Their different business models including supercenters...
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...2015-03-16 Case Assignment & Guiding Questions for Case Analysis Prof. Park Strategic Management Course Requirements & Grading Attendance/Class Contribution Mid-term(in class) Real Case Analysis (Final Group Project) * replace the final exam * Adjusted by peer evaluation Case Report and Presentation (Group Project) * Adjusted by peer evaluation 20% 30% 35% 15% Total 100% 1 2015-03-16 Case Report and Presentation (Group Project) • We will discuss around 10 business cases in this class. • Teams will be assigned to analyze the case and present the results in class. • For your analysis, there will be guideline questions to discuss. • Presentation time: around 15-20 minutes • # of presenters: one or two students • Each team need to bring 2‐3 questions and lead class discussion. (After your analysis, you may have some questions that you want to share with classmates) List of Cases and Presentation Schedule Case Related Topics Presentation Day 4th Week(Mar 23) 5th Week(Mar 30) Smartphone War b/w 1 Samsung and Apple 2/3 Apple 2010 4 Costco 5-Forces model Internal analysis Differentiation Strategy Cost Leadership 6th Week(Apr 6) 8th Week(Apr 20 or 21) 9th Week(Apr 27) 10th Week(May 4) 11th Week(May 11) 12th Week(May 18) 13th Week(May 26) 13th Week(May 26) 5 The Walt Disney Company Corporate-level Strategy 6 Samsung Sony JVC 7 Daimler Chrysler 8 Two‐Sided Markets 9 10 Strategic Alliance M&A Platform Open Innovation Open Innovation P&G's...
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...COMPANY BACKGROUND Costco was founded by Jim Sinegal and Seattle entrepreneur Jeff Brotman. Operation of the first store of Costco began in 1983. There were nine Costco stores in five states by end of 1984. Costco became a public company for raising additional fund for business expansion in December 1985.Costco successful to reach one billion dollar in sales in less than six years which make the company the first ever United States (U.S) that reach that huge amount of sales. Costco merge with Price Club in year 1993 and came out with name of PriceCostco. Later, the name was changed to Costco Wholesale Corporation in August 1999.This warehouse club chain have 57 million members. It sales volumes only based on its members as it only open to their members and guests. Costco is the fourth largest retailer in the US and is the seventh largest in the world. Currently, Costco holding market share or in other words industry standing of US and Canada is about 55% . Whereas its close competitor Sam's Club market share is about 36% and 9% by BJ’s Wholesale Club. Costco offer tremendously lower price products with good quality and branded name. The price which are offer by Costco much lower compare to other conventional wholesale or retail that sell similar items and products. Profit generated by the company from its membership fees is about one billion with E- commerce sales contributing about five hundred and thirty four million. It was estimated that the renewal rate of the card...
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...1. What is Costco’s business model? Is the company’s business model appealing? Why or why not? - Costco’s business model is all about generating high sales and rapid inventory turnover by offering the customers that pay fees to have attractively low prices on many products that have a big named brand labels on them spreading through a wide variety of merchandise categories. A second element of their business model allowed it to sell and receive cash for their inventory all before having to pay most of its merchandise venders. - I feel that the company’s business model is very appealing to many customers seeing the fact that in January of 2012, they had a total of 598 warehouses spread out across the world. They also recorded record high revenues of $88.9 billion and a net income of $1.46 billion. The fact that people can go in and see very familiar products at a lower price makes them want to buy it there over other places. Society is all for trying to find the lowest priced goods. 2. What are the chief elements of Costco’s strategy? How good is the strategy? - The main strategy for Costco were their ultra-low prices, a selection of nationally branded and private-label products, a “treasure hunt” shopping environment, strong emphasis on low operating costs, and geographic expansion. - I think the strategy is perfect for a company like this because society is about saving money and finding the lowest priced goods. Their products range from all types of food...
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...Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT-NYSE) is a worldwide retail stores, which is the largest retailer in the world, found by Sam Walton in 1962.There are three major segments: Walmart US, Walmart International, and Sams Club. These retail stores include discount stores, hypermarkets, supercenters and others. Industry Analysis The major business revenue of WMT is from supercenters and Sam’s Clubs. So we focus on the industry of supercenters and warehouse clubs in the US. 1. Define the industry----Supercenter and Warehouse club industry Supercenters are some large department stores that retail various goods and service to customers such as groceries, apparel and accessories. Supercenters and warehouse clubs are different. Warehouse clubs provide membership programs to customers, which charge the membership fees and then offer many goods in bulk with discount price. The market size of the industry is estimated as $453.8 billion, and the profit is $21.3 billion in 2016. The annual growth rate from 2011 to 2016 is 1.8%. The customers in this industry are householders. Based on the market research, 55% consumption of customers is food and beverages, 23.1% consumption of customers is food and appliances. The technology development in the industry is steady. For example, point-of-sale (POS) systems and radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology are used to improve the efficiency of operation. Revenue in 2016 | $453.8bn | Profit in 2016 | $21.3bn | Annual Growth...
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...LAMAR UNIVERSITY - COLLEGE OF BUSINESS MGMT5380 - STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT Brad Mayer: Galloway 204 (880-2383); bradley.mayer@lamar.edu Office Hrs: MWF 9:20-10:20 AM (and by appointment) The mission of the College of Business at Lamar University is to provide a quality education to a diverse student population from Southeast Texas and beyond, resulting in well-rounded business professionals who are prepared to meet the challenges of a dynamic global environment while upholding ethical values and encouraging civic and social responsibility. The faculty promotes an environment supportive of applications-oriented learning by engaging in a balance of discipline-based, business pedagogy, and practice-based intellectual contributions. I. Catalog Description: The capstone course for the MBA. The course assumes that the company success depends upon formulation of an astute “game” plan and the ability to implement and execute that game plan proficiently. The purpose of the class is to enable students to “think strategically,” consider the total enterprise, and to make long-term decisions in a global market environment. A prerequisite for the Integrative Case Study. II. Prerequisites: - Student must be in last semester of course work and have approval of advisor. - Justification: This is a capstone course that draws upon all of the MBA core courses and stresses complex and interdisciplinary applications of the combined theories and experiences of these...
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...November 1, 2006 Kyle Barkel Kyle.Barkel@ttu.edu Jerry Boroff Jerryjboroff@hotmail.com Ryan Campbell Ryancampbell85@yahoo.com Peter Carini Peter.J.Carini@ttu.edu Leslie Mitchell Leslie.Mitchell@ttu.edu Camille Ricci Camille.N.Ricci@ttu.edu Table of Contents Executive Summary………………………………3 Business & Industry Analysis Company Overview……………………………………...…5 Five Forces Model ……………………………….….6 Competitive Analysis……………………………………...12 Industry Conclusion……………………………………….15 Accounting Analysis Key Accounting Policies………………………………….15 Accounting Flexibility…………………………………….17 Accounting Strategy……………………………………...19 Quality of Disclosure……………………………………..19 Screening Ratio Analysis…………………………..……21 Potential Red Flags……………………………..………..25 Undoing Accounting Distortions…………..………...26 Ratio Analysis and Forecast Financials Financial Ratio Analysis……………………….……….27 Time Series Analysis…………………………...……...28 Cross Sectional (Benchmark) Analysis…….……..32 Financial Statement Forecasting Method..……...47 Analysis and Forecasting Solutions………..……...49 Valuation Analysis Method of Comparables……………………………….50 Cost of Capital…………………………………………….51 Discounted Dividend Models………………………...53 Discounted Free Cash Flows………………………...54 Abnormal Earnings Growth Method……………….55 Discounted Residual Income Method….…………56 LR Average RI Perpetuity Method…………….…..57 Altman’s Z-score………………………………………...59 Enterprise Value/ EBITDA……………………………59 Appendixes Appendix A ………………………………………………..62 Appendix B…………………………………………………63...
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...1. What is Costco’s current business model and why is it appealing? Costco’s business model is predicated on a best-cost theme. They take the low-priced supplier approach and mix that with creating price of the many stakeholders by targeting on wonderful client service, a severe code of beliefs, treating staff like family, concerning suppliers, satisfying shareholders, and a robust intelligence of environmental place. They need to enforce distinctive cost-saving methods in their production, operations, and selling that has allowed them to draw in the foremost affluent customers in discount selling. The central focus of their business model turned around high sales volumes and fast inventory turnover by giving fee-paying members beautifully low costs on a restricted choice merchandise that include a mix of across the country branded and illicit private-label products in an exceedingly wide selection of merchandise classes. This is an awfully appealing business model because it provides the power to control fruitfully at a lot of lower profit margin by securing marketer volume getting agreements, economical distribution, no-frill self-service warehouse facilities and supplemental membership fee revenue. Another magnet is because of the high sales volume and fast inventory turnover style of this business model, the accelerated money conversion cycle permissible Costco to gather the funds for inventory before marketer liabilities changing into due. This provided for marketer finance...
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...Costco case study and strategic analysis Costco Wholesale Corporation (Costco), one among the few largest wholesaler giant differentiates itself applying unique strategies relating to production and operations, and marketing which make it stand out from the rest of the retailers who are also said to be competitive in the retailing and wholesaling business globally. Costco is one of the innovative wholesalers teamed by very dynamic management team and dedicated, motivated and satisfied workforce with the mission “to continually provide its members the best quality products at the lowest possible prices” (Costco Annual Report 2006). Some of the fundamental principle of the Costco is that they obey the law, they take care of their members, they take care of their employees, they respect their suppliers, and finally they reward their shareholders. Some of the reasons how Costco can serve those highest quality goods of national brands for the lowest possible prices is that they eliminate different cost associated with delivery expenditures, account receivable, inventory, sales people, and fancy buildings. And they successfully operate themselves in the competitive environment serving not only an individual customers but also a legal customers (a company), and small business customers. Costco believe that society and the community is one of the key factors of their success. Therefore, they are willing to give back to their community and the society in terms of quality goods in...
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...Value Chain and its impact on Business Strategy Michael Porter presented the value chain concept as the whole series of activities that create and build value in his 1985 book Competitive Advantage (NetMBA, 2010). Porter developed the five forces model that many businesses and organizations utilize to address how well they can compete in the marketplace (Harvard Business School Press, 2005). In his book, Porter suggests that activities within an organization add value to the service and products that the company produces. These activities should be running at the highest level if the organization expects to gain competitive advantage over its competitors. If the organization is run efficiently, the value obtained should exceed the costs of running them. He suggests there are primary and support activities that make up the value chain concept. Primary activities include inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and service. Support activities help the primary function and include procurement, technology development, human resources management, and firm infrastructure (Porter, 1985). To establish a successful product for an organization, a value must be included in each activity that the product life cycle. A successful organization contains all the required functional departments to perform these activities, and effective communication is necessary to synchronize the activities of these functional units efficiently. Technology Impacts a Value...
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...Company G 3-Year Marketing Plan Jessica Chapman – 000200084 Western Governor’s University MKT1 Table of Contents Introduction 3 Mission Statement 3 The Product 3 Consumer Product Classification 4 Target Market 5 Competitive Situation Analysis 5 Analysis of Competition using Porter’s 5 Forces Model 5 SWOT Analysis 6 Strengths 7 Weaknesses 7 Opportunities 7 Threats 8 Market Objectives 8 Product Objective 8 Price Objective 8 Place Objective 9 Promotion Objective 9 Marketing Strategies 9 Product Strategies 9 Price Strategies 9 Place Strategies 9 Promotion Strategies 9 Tactics and Action Plan 10 Product Action Plan 10 Price Action Plan 10 Place Action Plan 10 Promotion Action Plan 11 Monitoring Procedures 11 Introduction Company G has a long standing reputation of quality and innovation in its products. This reputation stems from the consumer confidence the company has delivered since its inception in 1981 by the inventor, Ash Williams. Mr. Williams always valued the consumers who were willing to use new, unfamiliar products. He felt that these new products needed to be convenient and of the highest quality, as not to disappoint these courageous consumers. Company G has never faltered from this tradition as it has grown, and the Shop Smart line is set to promote Company G’s reputation to even greater heights. Mission Statement “We enable consumers to improve the quality and convenience of their lives by providing...
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...Company G 1-Year Marketing Plan Student Name: Laura Bunch Student ID: 423467 Date: 1/20/2016 Student Mentor Name: Aleece Bell Table of Contents Introduction 3 Product Description and Classification 3 Product Support of Mission Statement……………………………………………………………………………………………….….3 Consumer Product Classification 3 Target Market 3 Competitive Situation Analysis 3 Analysis of Competition using Porter’s Five Forces Model 3 SWOT Analysis 4 Strengths and Core Competencies 5 Weaknesses 5 Opportunities 5 Threats 5 Market Objectives 6 Product Objective 6 Price Objective 6 Place Objective 6 Promotion Objective 6 Marketing Strategies and Implementation 7 Product Strategies 7 Price Strategies 7 Place Strategies 7 Promotion Strategies 7 Explanation of Strategies………………………..……………………………………………………………………………………………….7 Implementation Plan 7 Product Tactics 8 Price Tactics 8 Place Tactics 8 Promotion Tactics 8 Monitoring Procedures 8 Introduction Company G is a well-established firm, we have engineered and designed a new line of top-quality small appliances. This is the one year marketing plan for the 4 in 1 coffee maker. Product Description and Classification Product Description and Support of the Mission Company G Mission Statement “We enable consumers to improve the quality and convenience of their lives by providing high-quality, innovative electronics solutions.” The 4 in 1 coffee maker, is designed with 4 Drawers for brewing flexibility: Cup drawer...
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