...2010 the nearly $215 billion discount warehouse and wholesale club segment within the North American retailing industry consisted of three major competitors (Thompson, C55-73). These competitors included Costco Wholesale, Sam’s Club which is also a Wal-Mart subsidiary, and BJ’s Wholesale Club. All three of these warehouse clubs also competed with a wide range of other types of retailers such as retailer discounters like Wal-Mart and Dollar General, general merchandise chains like Target and Kohl’s, specialty chains like Office Depot and Staples in office supplies and Best Buy in electronics and DVDs, supermarkets, gas stations, and even internet retailers (Thompson, C55-73). The competitive forces which influence these wholesale businesses are the suppliers, substitute products, buyer, new entrants, and rival firms. The strongest force out of these five competitive forces is rival firms. Costco, Sam’s Club, and BJ Wholesales are all competing for equivalent buyers within the North American wholesale club industry and market. BJ while on the smaller scale, does still have competition from both Costco and Sam’s Club, however they have not been as affected by their competition on the East Coast. Unlike BJ Wholesale Costco and Sam’s Club are both international. Even though Costco has a considerable market share they still have pretty stiff competition when it comes to Sam’s Club. The reason being is because both Costco and Sam’s Club are domestic as well as international...
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...HBS Case Study 2: Costco Wholesale Corporation Financial Statement Analysis (A) Lee Hathaway MMS 185: Managerial Finance Professor Veraldi September 27, 2007 It is important for stockholders to continuously re-evaluate their investments. Although some investors do this more frequently and thoroughly than others, the majority of shareholders do so at least once each year. Therefore, Torres’ desire to update her analysis in order to determine whether Costco was still operating efficiently makes perfect sense. After thorough examination, my analysis proves that Costco remains one of the industry’s leading competitors and there seems to be no reason for Torres to sell her shares as long as she wishes to retain holdings of a retail wholesale club in her portfolio. The common-size financial statements evaluating the period 1997-2001 (exhibit 9) reveal valuable information regarding Costco. Torres noticed that there were two revenue lines: net sale of goods and membership fees. She decided to use net sales of goods as the point of comparison and express other line items, including membership fees, as a percentage of net sales in order to allow for a clearer reflection of gross and operating margins. This format enabled her to analyze the profit and asset structures of Costco over time. To begin, Margarita Torres’ common-size financial statements for Costco demonstrate a rise in membership fees and other sources of revenue from 1.82% in 1997 to 1.93% in 2001...
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...Costco Wholesale Corporation | Table of Contents The Problem and Assumptions 2 The Problem 2 Assumptions 2 Qualitative Analysis 2 Quantitative Analysis 3 Industry Trends 3 Costco Strategy Expansion 3 Income Statement Industry/Competitor Comparison 3 Balance Sheet Competitor/Industry Comparison 5 Common-Size Analysis 6 Ratio Analysis 6 Statement of Cash Flow 9 Preferred Action Plan with Alternative Actions 11 The Problem and Assumptions The Problem Margarita Torres purchased shares in Costco Wholesale Corporation in 1997 and now it is 2002. She has decided to analyze her investment to see if Costco will continue to be profitable at a sustainable growth rate. The main question she needs to answer is how the company had been affected by growth. Had its operational efficiency changed? And how had it financed the growth and how its capital structure evolved? Assumptions For the year 2001 a recession occurred. This occurrence is considered when reviewing the financial numbers and statistics during this year. Qualitative Analysis The first step in analyzing Costco Wholesale Corporation is analyzing the relative qualitative data. Based on the data provided within the case the points below summarize how Costco is performing: * Industry: Wholesale clubs grew 12-15% in the 1990s and Costco is currently the largest wholesale club in the industry. * Strategy: Costco targets wealthier clientele of small business owners and middle...
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...stoAnnual Report 2010 2010 year ended august 29, 2010 THE COMPANY Costco Wholesale Corporation and its subsidiaries (“Costco” or the “Company”) began operations in 1983 in Seattle, Washington. In October 1993, Costco merged with The Price Company, which had pioneered the membership warehouse concept, to form Price/Costco, Inc., a Delaware corporation. In January 1997, after the spin-off of most of its non-warehouse assets to Price Enterprises, Inc., the Company changed its name to Costco Companies, Inc. On August 30, 1999, the Company reincorporated from Delaware to Washington and changed its name to Costco Wholesale Corporation, which trades on the NASDAQ under the symbol “COST.” As of December 2010, the Company operated a chain of 582 warehouses in 40 states and Puerto Rico (425 locations), nine Canadian provinces (80 locations), the United Kingdom (22 locations), Korea (seven locations), Taiwan (six locations, through a 55%-owned subsidiary), Japan (nine locations) and Australia (one location), as well as 32 warehouses in Mexico through a 50%-owned joint venture. CONTENTS Financial Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Letter to Shareholders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Map of Warehouse Locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...
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...1. Introduction. Summarize the current situation facing the firm and other relevant issues. Wal-Mart is an organization which is subject to increasing levels of change and volatility in their business. While it is fact of business life, it also reflects that it drives a relentless increase in the proportion of an organization’s activity that is dedicated to change in meeting the new challenges. Wal-Mart has become one of America's most successful retail giants generating about ROI was 18.6% and 19.2% for fiscal 2012 and 2011, respectively. (Wal-Mart Annual Report, 2012). It is well know as the leader in thinking outside the box, anticipating market opportunities and executing effective strategies to capitalize on them. It has over 10,800 stores worldwide. Businesses have to face the challenge of too many competitors, partly originated by the globalisation, all competing for same objective of making highest profit. So, increasingly companies are not merely asking themselves the management question of ‘Are we doing the right?’ but are having to regularly ask ‘Are we still doing it right?’ They have been seeking a more holistic means of doing this than traditional means of delivering products and services to the customers. In a volatile world, decision makers need options on the future and the ability to change direction as strategic opportunities. Although, business as usual (BAU) performance change is providing a short term success but they are typically faced with a less...
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...Costco Pharmacy POM Audit Team 7 Executive Summary Design of Goods and Services- Costco can be seen to be in their maturity stages of their life. Therefore, it is recommended for Costco to expand its Pharmacy department by at least 50%. Process Design-Costco processes prescriptions and provides the prescribed drugs to customers. For each prescription, pharmacists carefully review the dosage along with other drugs you may be taking in order to prevent any chance of medications interacting with each other. They also ensure you do not receive any medication which could result in an allergic reaction. It is recommended to introduce E-prescribing in the near future as it would reduce the duration for each prescription process. Layout-The Costco Pharmacy Layout can be defined as a Retail Layout. The main objective of a retail layout is to maximize profitability per square foot of floor space. However further research will need to be conducted to make a recommendation Capacity- Even though the pharmacy department is not operating at 100% efficiency, it is still using and managing their facilities effectively, operating at 72% efficiency on a daily basis. However, future capacity planning is required as the efficiency capacity is increasing as population grows. Productivity- The labor productivity is currently5 units per labor hours while the multifactor productivity is 0.040 units per dollar. After auditing Costco’s productivity it was found that Costco should aim to increase...
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...Annual Report 2012 2012 YEAR ENDED SEPTEMBER 2, 2012 THE COMPANY Costco Wholesale Corporation and its subsidiaries (Costco or the Company) began operations in 1983 in Seattle, Washington. In October 1993, Costco merged with The Price Company, which had pioneered the membership warehouse concept, to form Price/Costco, Inc., a Delaware corporation. In January 1997, after the spin-off of most of its non-warehouse assets to Price Enterprises, Inc., the Company changed its name to Costco Companies, Inc. On August 30, 1999, the Company reincorporated from Delaware to Washington and changed its name to Costco Wholesale Corporation, which trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “COST”. As of December 2012, the Company operated a chain of 622 warehouses in 41 states and Puerto Rico (448 locations), nine Canadian provinces (85 locations), Mexico (32 locations), the United Kingdom (23 locations), Japan (13 locations), Korea (nine locations), Taiwan (nine locations, through a 55%-owned subsidiary) and Australia (three locations). The Company also operates Costco Online, electronic commerce web sites, at www.costco.com (U.S.), www.costco.ca (Canada), and www.costco.co.uk (United Kingdom). CONTENTS Financial Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Letter to Shareholders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...
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...Whole Foods an Organic Food Mogul 1. Discuss the trends in retailing of organic foods and the impact of these trends on Whole Foods Market. There has been a major trend change in the retailing of organic foods. Those trends not only affect Whole Foods Market but the organic food industry as well. In an article written by the Good Food World Staff, they listed 14 trends that the organic industry and Whole Foods Market should lookout for. Listed are just a few that would have a serious impact on Whole Foods Market. • The Economy: with the economy slowing and the job market showing very little promise consumers are still wanting a healthier lifestyle. Low-income families have also joined in on a healthier lifestyle and learn to budget by saving money and using coupons. Although organics are here to stay consumers are wondering were the next dollar will come from. The natural /organic companies that can stay afloat will countinue to do well. • Social Networking: in the world of marketing word of mouth is one method of getting information out quickly. Internet tools such as Facebook and Twitter can help build social networks for the organic markets growth. They give insight on what other companies are selling and at what price. Social networking can also help with brading of certain products. • Organic and Climate Change: all to often society blames global warming for every thing. But there are many other factors that come into play like greenhouse gas emission. However...
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...selling carefully chosen, good quality goods with low margins, and achieving volume sales (relatively speaking, at least) through Michael Marks' Penny Bazaars in the North West of England. This strategy was overwhelmingly successful, and continued to be the central tenet of M&S strategy for many years. M&S sailed through the depression and several recessions, but at the end of the 1990's something went severely wrong. Profits were falling year on year and the footfall in the stores was lower than it had been for several years. From the year of 1991 to 1998 it started to regain its profit again. But from 1999 the situation started to worsen again. This report sets out many of the reasons for that failure then concludes by suggesting and evaluating the strategic options open to the organization going forward. The report concludes that drawing on the substantial capital resources of M&S, brand and product development are the appropriate measures to take in order to put M&S back on the retail map. 1|Page Part 02 Strategic Profile and Case Analysis Purpose Strategic Profile The case study provided several descriptions on the basic elements of the company. It has been described as a company that adheres to top-down management approach compounded by the close supervision provided by its former CEO. This has worked well with the company for several decades, however in the latter part of the 1998s a noticeable decline in the sales as well as in the overall performance of the...
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...4021 REV: MARCH 1, 2010 ERIK STAFFORD JOEL L. HEILPRIN JEFFREY DEVOLDER Hansson Private Label, Inc.: Evaluating an Investment in Expansion Introduction On a frigid Sunday night in late February 2008, Tucker Hansson pored over a proposal developed by his firm’s manufacturing team. It called for investing $50 million to expand production capacity at Hansson Private Label (Hansson or HPL). For Hansson, a private company, this would be a significant investment. The company had not initiated a project of that magnitude for more than a decade, and the expansion wasn’t without significant risk. It would be likely to double HPL’s debt and to greatly increase customer concentration. This was a critical juncture for the firm Tucker Hansson had carefully built over 15 years. He wondered whether the return on investment would be large enough to justify the effort and risk. He also wondered about the best means of evaluating the potential investment. HPL manufactured personal care products—soap, shampoo, mouthwash, shaving cream, sunscreen, and the like—all sold under the brand label of one or another of HPL’s retail partners, which included supermarkets, drug stores, and mass merchants. The firm, whose sales had grown steadily over the years, generated $681 million in revenue in 2007. Three weeks earlier, HPL’s largest retail customer had told Hansson that it wanted to significantly increase HPL’s share of their private label manufacturing. Given that HPL was already operating near...
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...Positive Impact of Business Ethics & Corporate Social Responsibility On an Organization Abstract Corporate social responsibility and business ethics have become the focus of an increasing amount of attention from the business sector and academicians following the scandal-ridden era of Enron and others during the 1990s. Although the findings from the research to date are mixed, there is a growing body of research in this area that has lent support to the notion that ethical business practices and corporate social responsibility initiatives have a positive impact on companies in terms of profitability as well as other less quantifiable areas. This review of literature examines these issues systematically to identify current trends and to describe the positive impacts that ethical business practices and corporate social responsibility programs can have for companies of all sizes and types. The Positive Impact of Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility on an Organization To act in a socially responsible way requires organizational leaders to consider the effect of their decisions on the well-being of society; thus, managers must ask themselves what their actions do to society and what their actions do for society. – Ronald Sims, Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility: Why Giants Fall 2003, p. 66 Chapter Two: Review of Literature The epigraph above makes it clear that today, there is a growing recognition among the business community that they...
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...www.hbr.org SPOTLIGHT ON REINVENTION Because companies can now interact directly with customers, they must radically reorganize to put cultivating relationships ahead of building brands. Rethinking Marketing by Roland T. Rust, Christine Moorman, and Gaurav Bhalla • Included with this full-text Harvard Business Review article: 1 Article Summary Idea in Brief—the core idea 2 Rethinking Marketing Compliments of: Reprint R1001F SPOTLIGHT ON REINVENTION Rethinking Marketing Idea in Brief Companies have powerful technologies for understanding and interacting with customers, yet most still depend on mass media marketing to drive impersonal transactions. To compete, companies must shift from pushing individual products to building long-term customer relationships. The marketing department must be reinvented as a “customer department” that replaces the CMO with a chief customer officer, makes product and brand managers subservient to customer managers, and oversees customer-focused functions including R&D, customer service, market research, and CRM. These changes shift the firm’s focus from product profitability to customer profitability, as measured by metrics such as customer lifetime value and customer equity. This organizational transformation will uproot entrenched interests and so must be driven from the top. COPYRIGHT © 2009 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. page 1 This article is made available to you with compliments...
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...Pivot of Supporting The Loan th The 17 “Hanju” Cup Financial Case Analysis Contest Analysis Report FINANCING ALIBABA’S BUYOUT： Case Report Name： Title： SYNDICATED LOAN IN ASIA PIVOT OF SUPPORTING THE LOAN Team Name： WINNERS DATE: 2014/10/20 1 Pivot of Supporting The Loan Context Abstract ..................................................................................................................................................3 1. Macro and Industry Analysis .....................................................................................................4 1.1 PEST Analysis Macro Environment .................................................................... 4 1.1.1 Political Environment ......................................................................................... 4 1.1.2 Economic Environment ...................................................................................... 5 1.1.3 Social Environment ............................................................................................. 7 1.1.4 Technological Environment ................................................................................ 8 1.2 Industry Analysis – SWOT Analysis .................................................................. 10 1.2.1 Strength ............................................................................................................. 10 1.2.2 Weakness ...................................
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...Stephen J. Hoch, Xavier Dreze, & Mary E. Purk EDLP, Hi-Lo, and Margin Arithmetic The authors examine the viability of an "everyday low price" (EDLP) strategy in the supermarket grocery industry. in two series of field experiments in 26 product categories conducted in an 86-store grocery chain, they find that a 10% EDLP category price decrease led to a 3% sales volume increase, whereas a 10% Hi-Lo price increase led to a 3% sales decrease. Because consumer demand did not respond much to changes in everyday price, they found large differences in profitability. An EDLP policy reduced profits by 18%. and Hi-Lo pricing increased profits by 15%. in a third study, the authors increase the frequency of shallow price deals in the context of higher everyday prices and find a 3% increase in unit volume and a 4% increase in profit. Finally, they draw a conceptual distinction between "value pricing" at the back door and EDLP pricing at the front door. R etail formats come and go with changes in consumer tastes, lifestyles, and trends in demography and the economy. Recently it is the "everyday low price" (EDLP) format that has experienced rapid growth and media popularity. The prototypical description of an EDLP pricing policy is as follows: The retailer charges a constant, lower everyday price with no temporary price discounts. These constant everyday prices at the EDLP outlet eliminate week-toweek price uncertainty and represent a contrast to the "HiLo" pricing of promotion-oriented...
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...growww.businessmonitor.com Q4 2010 AUStrALiA food & drink report INCLUDES 5-YEAR FORECASTS TO 2014 iSSn 1749-2580 published by Business Monitor international Ltd. AUSTRALIA FOOD & DRINK REPORT Q4 2010 INCLUDING 5-YEAR INDUSTRY FORECASTS BY BMI Part of BMI’s Industry Report & Forecasts Series Published by: Business Monitor International Copy deadline: July 2010 Business Monitor International Mermaid House, 2 Puddle Dock, London, EC4V 3DS, UK Tel: +44 (0) 20 7248 0468 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7248 0467 Email: subs@businessmonitor.com Web: http://www.businessmonitor.com © 2010 Business Monitor International. All rights reserved. All information contained in this publication is copyrighted in the name of Business Monitor International, and as such no part of this publication may be reproduced, repackaged, redistributed, resold in whole or in any part, or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by information storage or retrieval, or by any other means, without the express written consent of the publisher. DISCLAIMER All information contained in this publication has been researched and compiled from sources believed to be accurate and reliable at the time of publishing. However, in view of the natural scope for human and/or mechanical error, either at source or during production, Business Monitor International accepts no liability whatsoever for any loss or damage resulting from errors...
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