...Nova Southeastern University Wayne Huizenga Graduate School of Business & Entrepreneurship Assignment for Course: MGT 5090 Entrepreneurial and Strategic Thinking Submitted to: Ron Steffel Submitted by: Georgette McIntosh N01 Xie Luxuan Dorquidia Alemany Date of Submission: May 3, 2015 Title of Assignment: Costco Case Study CERTIFICATION OF AUTHORSHIP: I certify that I am the author of this paper and that any assistance I received in its preparation is fully acknowledge and disclosed in the paper. I have also cited any sources from which I used data, ideas of words, whether quoted directly or paraphrased. I also certify that this paper was prepared by me specifically for this course. Student Signature: Georgette McIntosh ******************************************* Instructor’s Grade on Assignment: Instructor’s Comments: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY he purpose of this report was to examine the implications on employees motivations used at Costco Wholesale Corporation. Research for this report included a review of he purpose of this report was to examine the implications on employees motivations A. Problem Statement: State the main problem facing the firm (or industry) in one, succinct sentence. B. Analysis: Summarize the main findings of your analysis. You may use bullet points, bold, italics – any means to convey and highlight the key factors you have determined based on your analysis. C. Alternatives:...
Words: 3517 - Pages: 15
...COSTCO WHOLESALE CORPORATION FINANCIAL STATEMENT ANALYSIS The important thing for stockholders is to review their investments on regular basis. So Margarita Torres wants to reconsider her analysis determine If Costco was still operating efficiently. There are some reasons why Torres should keep her investment and should continue to maintain her investment in Costco. * Year over year, Costco Wholesale Corporation has been able to grow revenues from $71.4B to $77.9B. The company has been able to reduce the percentage of sales devoted to selling, general and administrative costs from 10.21% to 10.09%. This was a driver that led to a bottom line growth from $1.1B to $1.3B. Costco provides high sustainable growth through high return on equity and reinvestment on earnings. * Costco has operating efficiency . They provide that with high return on assets, high inventory turnover and lower operating expenses than competitors. * Costco has high value creation. There are some reasons why Torres should reconsider her investment and should not continue to maintain her investment in Costco. * Costco has approximately 1 on debit/equity ratio. This can result volatile earnings as a result of the additional interest expense . * Costco has low market matrix In conclusions, Torres should continue to support her investment in Costco. Due to maintaining low margins by selling items in bulk, keeping operating expenses to a minimum, and turning inventory over rapidly...
Words: 280 - Pages: 2
...Do all three warehouse club rivals-Costco, Sam’s and BJ’s wholesale – have highly similar strategies? No; What differences intheir strategies are apparent? Costco is providing items in bulk and at low prices; consumers gravitate toward discounting hoping to get the most out of their money. Sam’s is decreasing product costs by buying from low cost labor countries like China and Mexico. BJ’s is focusing on retail shoppers offering more grocery items and smaller quantities of packaged goods. Does one rival have a better strategy than the others? I think Costco has the best strategy due to the cost efficient distribution through the use of the cross dock distribution. Cross docking allows the club has the ability to minimize inventory, improve product quality and increase responsiveness to any changes in the market conditions. Does one rival have a somewhat weaker strategy than the other two? Yes; BJ’s because they’re not as popular and they’re concentrated in the Eastern United States, which allows the company tostreamline distribution and marketing. They’re also not benefiting from the economies of scales, because the margins are very thinand making low costs/high volumes are essential to profitability. 3. Which of the three warehouse club rivals has the strongest financial performer in recent years? See attached. Sam’s has a favorable Operating Profit Margin and CAGR operating income; Costco has a favorable Asset Turnover and CAGR Total Assets and BJ’s has favorable CAGR...
Words: 755 - Pages: 4
...Costco Corporation By: Tiffany Cosby Professor Aleakhue Yekpabo Human Resource Management 01/24/2014 I decided to research and write about Costco warehouse. I can relate to this company because my husband is employed there and it has become one of my favorite stores. Costco has the best prices. It is a membership warehouse club, providing its members with the best possible prices on brand name quality merchandise is one of their priorities. They offer a refund on membership if a customer is not satisfied and will guarantee satisfaction on every product or your money back. This says a lot about the brand of the company. The founder of Costco Sol Prince stated that his secret is to sell things as cheap as possible. Since resuming the name Costco in 1997, the company has grown worldwide with total sales in recent fiscal years exceeding $64 billion (Costco). As of December 2013, the Company operated a chain of 648 warehouses in 43 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico (461 locations), nine Canadian provinces (87 locations), Mexico (33 locations), the United Kingdom (25 locations), Japan (18 locations), Taiwan (ten locations), Korea (nine locations), and Australia (five locations). The company's online business operates websites in the U.S., Canada , U.K, and Mexico. The membership format is designed to reinforce member loyalty and provide continuing fee revenue. Members can utilize their membership at any Costco location in any country. The two types of memberships...
Words: 1410 - Pages: 6
...Costco Wholesale Corporation Costco Wholesale Corporation - Financial and Strategic Analysis Review Reference Code: GDRT28577FSA Publication Date: 10-Oct-2014 Company Snapshot Company Overview Key Information Costco Wholesale Corporation (Costco) is membership warehouses chain operator. The company's product portfolio includes sundries, hardlines, food, softlines, fresh food and ancillary. It offers two types of memberships, namely, business and gold star to its customers. Costco operates gasoline stations in the US and Canada. Costco offers its products online through websites including costco.com in the US and costco.ca in Canada. The company carries out the manufacture of products through Costco Wholesale Industries and operates about 663 warehouses. Geographically, the company operates in various countries including Taiwan, Korea, Mexico, Australia, the UK, Canada and Japan. Costco Wholesale Corporation, Key Information Web Address www.costco.com Financial year-end September Number of Employees 103,000 NASD COST Source : GlobalData Key Ratios Costco Wholesale Corporation, Key Ratios P/E 27.81 EV/EBITDA 18.25 Return on Equity (%) 18.82 SWOT Analysis Debt/Equity 0.48 Costco Wholesale Corporation, SWOT Analysis Strengths Weaknesses Operating profit margin (%) 2.90 Diverse Product Mix Dividend Yield 0.01 Dependence on the North American Market Value-Added Services Note: Above ratios...
Words: 2105 - Pages: 9
...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...
Words: 1040 - Pages: 5
...Buy is through customer service and when it replaces the high paid workers, it lost the customer service too. 2) Do you believe that the compensation changes at Best Buy are a major reason for its current difficulties? Since Best Buy is making cuts in departments that will not affect customer service, one can determine that the compensation changes are not a major reason for Best Buy’s current difficulties. The major reasons for Best Buy’s difficulties are increased competition from discount stores like Amazon, Wal-Mart and Target. 3) Why are Walmart, Sam’s Club and Costco doing better than Best Buy (Circuit City)? Do they have high pay? Walmart, Sam's club and Costco are performing better than Best Buy due to the fact of better priced products, skilled staff, and better management. In an article written by Forbes.com shows that the pay scale of employees between Walmart and Costco are...
Words: 703 - Pages: 3
...Business Analysis Part II R. Butler MGT/521 October 22, 2012 Melany Felton Business Analysis Part II The company chosen to research was Costco Wholesale, looking at the financial health of Costco Wholesale I had to determine their cash flow and how they fair with other similar organizations in the industry. When reviewing Costco Wholesale’s income statement/balanced sheets they showed a total net income of 609,000 from continuing operations and liabilities for the quarter, according to assets quarterly data for the period ending 8/2012. The cash equivalents, marketable securities, accounts receivables, other inventories and, current deferred income taxes accounting for other earnings. Costco had total current assets of 13,526,000 for this quarter. The income balance sheet for the period was 609,000 with the total revenues year to date of 1,709,000 (www.costcowholsale.html.com). A review of Wal-Mart/Sam’s club, Costco’s number one competitor, showed a quarterly balance for operating income after depreciation for the same period was 6,698,000 and income total revenue of 114,296,000 for the quarter (Wal-Mart, NYSE.WMT). A review of Target’s finance and total revenue is compared to Costco and Sams Club/Wal-Mart; however, Target does not operate the same type of warehouse store as its other competitors, but they do operate something similar in Target Super Stores. Target has over stores 1700 stores in 49 states and more than 240 Super Target stores. Balance sheets and...
Words: 1935 - Pages: 8
...CPIM Certified Advanced Facilitator Assuming the role of a Mutual Fund Manager, Costco Wholesale, a Fortune 500 company, has been chosen for analysis to decide whether to invest funds with the organization. This paper will high-light the results of a SWOT analysis, the internal and external stakeholders, their wants and needs, and finally, how their wants and needs are being met by the company. Costco Wholesale Company is an acknowledged market leader and was listed 28th in the top 100, most successful businesses in the world, in 2010, and 25th in 2011. “In 1975, a Mr. Solomon Price, sold his company Fed-Mart to begin a new retail venture, aimed at small businesses called the Price Club. Mr. Price invited Jim Sinegal, owner of Costco, to help him open the first Price Club Warehouse in 1976. Sinegal learned from Price the business of a high-volume warehouse with only a limited number of products, and left Price in 1983 to start Costco, with partner Jeff Brotman. Costco merged with Price some years later, and Sinegal bought Price out and remained as CEO of Costco. Today, as of August 31st, 2012, Costco has 608 warehouses, 66.5 million cardholders, 160,292 full and part-time employees world-wide, and a revenue of $88.9 billion annually” (Corona, 2012, p. 558). One cost advantage for Costco is that they sells in bulk; allowing customers to purchase goods at a cheaper price, no big fancy shelving or customized...
Words: 1245 - Pages: 5
...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...
Words: 6603 - Pages: 27
...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...
Words: 13869 - Pages: 56
...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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...
Words: 42703 - Pages: 171
...STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS CASE: A-186A DATE: 06/19/03 CosTco WHOLESALE CORPORATION FINANCIAL STATEMENT ANALYSIS (A) INTRODUCTION Margarita Torres first purchased shares in Costco Wholesale Corporation in 1997 as part of her personal investment portfolio. Between 1997 and 2002, she added slightly to her holdings from time to time when the company sold stock for what she felt was a reasonable valuation, and up to that time she did not sell any of her shares. Having watched Costco grow from 265 warehouses to 365 worldwide, and from sales revenue of $21.8 billion to $34.1 billion, she wondered what factors led to such successful growth. She also wanted to determine whether those factors would hold consistent going forward. At this point, Costco was one of a special breed of retailers called wholesale clubs. Unlike other retailers, wholesale clubs required that customers purchase annual memberships in order to shop at their stores. Costco operated a chain of warehouses that sold food and general merchandise at large discounts to member customers. The company was able to maintain low margins by selling items in bulk, keeping operating expenses to a minimum, and turning inventory over rapidly. Costco’s closest competitors were SAM’S Club (a division of Wal-Mart) and BJ’s Wholesale, which both operated as wholesale clubs. Other competitors included general discounters (such as Wal-Mart), general retailers (such as Sears), grocery...
Words: 12628 - Pages: 51
...------------------------------------------------- To: Margarita Torres, Investor in Costco ------------------------------------------------- From: MSF Analyst ------------------------------------------------- Date: 6th November 2013 ------------------------------------------------- Subject: Evaluation of Costco Operational Forecasting Purpose: The purpose of this memo is to provide an analysis and valuation of Costco’s forecasted operational performance over the next 10 years. Appropriation of the Five Factors: Given that the market is highly competitive, the forecast undertaken for the number of warehouses was a conservative approach along with a 5% increase in the no. of US stores. Refer to Appendix 1. Sales per store are considered a significant factor in determining profitability and shareholders’ equity. According to the forecast stated by Margarita Torres, the management expectations might be overestimated ($118m in the forecast, $125m-$150m). The membership per store is a relevant factor in determining the future performance of Costco, given that Costco’s goal is achieving low gross margins. The membership base will contribute directly to the net income and promotes a sustainable income for each store. The pre-tax margin defined by the management is achievable; hence the forecasts in the common size analysis state that the pre-tax margin will be range from 3.12% to 3.53% in 2002 and 2006 respectively. The international expansion should...
Words: 1278 - Pages: 6
...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...
Words: 8726 - Pages: 35
