Business Analysis: Costco's Business Strategy

Benefits for employees are key to the worker’s future or retirement. Benefits are also another reason why many people choose to work at that specific place of profession. Employees with families have to look for the benefits to help with their children’s future and health. An excellent example of a workplace with employee benefits is Costco. Costco employee’s starting pay is $11.50 an hour. While it’s competitor, Sam’s Club, starts paying employees at minimum wage. Employee benefits are not the only motive that make warehouse companies differ from each other. Companies cannot survive with bad customer service and horrible employee treatment. That is another reason that companies are more successful than their competitors. Another reason warehouse companies differ from each other is their product prices and quality. Costco and Sam’s Club differ from each other with their companies’ employee benefits, product prices, customer service, and employee treatment.

In the review of the corporate level strategy, we can see many different competitive advantages branching from their use of corporate diversification and vertical integration. Going deeper into those strategies the three elements that allow for a competitive advantage for The Kroger Co. include operating into different markets, having a successful customer reward program, and by having many different locations nationwide under many different brand names. The VRIO analysis found that all three of these give Kroger’s a sustainable competitive advantage by being valuable, rare, costly to imitate and having the right organization structure business wide.

One of the main opportunities Costco has is more global expansion to specific targeted countries. Although operating in many countries, Costco is heavily dependent on the U.S. and Canadian markets. It still has the opportunity to expand into the Asian and Australian markets where it has a limited presence. Costco has the capability to operate about 100 stores in Taiwan, Korea and Japan combined and about 20 stores in Australia. It currently has 41 stores in Taiwan, Korea and Japan combined and 6 stores in Australia. There is clearly room for further expansion into these regions as well as the opportunity for massive expansion into China and India. When Costco enters another country it does everything in its power

Costco is a much different company regarding its business model which would lend credence to a higher price to cash flow ratio. One of the main differences between Costco and Walmart is that Costco is a membership driven business model while Walmart is open to public. “Analysts at Walmart have noticed that there is a tremendous difference between the way that Costco operates as a business and the way that Walmart operates with their business model” (Gelderman & Hart, 2017). There has been a push from the Walmart perspective to create a level of membership type stores in which only Walmart consumers can shop at while receiving a certain level of

Operating margin/Return on sales (ROS) is the ratio of operating income divided by net sales or revenue, usually presented in percent. According to gurufocus’ statistics (October, 2015), Costco’s operating margins (3.12%) ranked higher than 53% of the 359 Companies in the Global Discount Stores industry (2.99%). Just like Gross Margin, it is important to see a company maintains its operating margin over time. Among the same industry, a company with higher operating margin is more efficient in its operation. It is also more stable during industry slowdown or recessions. In addition, according to Business Insider (Ashley, 2014), Costco’s revenue percentage change is 127.8% which is significantly higher than Walmart (70.24%) and Target (60.94%)

In Costco’s macro-environment, a variety of factors could affect the company’s economic viability. External factors such as inflation, foreign currency exchange rates, levels of unemployment, reduced consumer confidence, and changes in tax policies could unfavorably affect the demand for Costco’s products and services. Prices of some goods and services including food products, are often variant and subject to fluctuations deriving from changes in domestic and foreign supply and demand, competition, taxes, labor costs, or delays in delivery which could significantly affect Costco’s sales. Therefore, the product’s costs and selling could also increase affecting financial results. Other important economic factors include the increasing international

Costco’s business model is centered around offering a smaller range of products at incredibly low prices which attracts the consumer. In order to supplement this lowered profit margin, they require their shoppers, both businesses and individuals, to purchase annual memberships. The membership fee accounts for a majority of the company’s profit. Furthermore, Costco operates its under a wholesale warehouse style which eliminates the need for excess handling and workers in the store. The stores are stocked to carry certain big ticket, ‘limited time offer’ goods so that customers feel the need to take advantage of the deal because it may not be there when they next return. The idea behind these strategic decisions is to offer high quality name

To be of value market segments must be measurable, substantial, accessible, differentiable, and actionable (Kotler & Keller, 2012). Segmentation of demographics for Costco is vast as the current product offerings include all genders, ethnicities, incomes. age groups, and social classes. When considering demographics, it is important to consider the average or typical characteristics of the target market. As mentioned earlier the target market or focus for this company is supplying the small- to medium-sized business and targets the middle- to high-end consumer with its private label brand Kirkland Signature. Categories of products currently include major appliances, furniture, electronics, luxury items, special events,

Target Corporation is one of the famous retail stores in the United States which is founded by George Dayton in 1902. Walmart is the main competitor to Target because these companies have similarities such as goods, services, business form, and customers. To compare Target to Walmart is logical because people can determine and analyze advantages and disadvantages in annual financial statement between Target and Walmart. Target and Walmart have different data on investment activities which are important to their companies. Investment activities are, uses necessary resources for operating of their companies which include computers, delivery trucks, furniture, buildings. These important resources are assets of a business that supports their companies in production and transportation.

Re-invention and targeted approach towards achieving competitive advantage were the key strategic actions taken to make Trader Joe’s (TJ) from a glorified regional convenience store to a nationwide specialty retailer, and that might just be the most important thing in the supermarket business. The footprint of this success lies in the efficient utilization of the company’s resources and their unique capacity to deploy its resource and capabilities(BB835). The result of such unique circumstances helped TJ to stay far ahead of its competitors in terms of customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. This TMA proposes that, through a company’s resources and capabilities TJ managed to imitate Key Success Factors (KSF) that created value,

Therefore, the source of competitive advantage for Barclays would be quality customer care as envisaged in their strategy in citizenship and continuous development of new and unique products for the market. The ability to enjoy economies of scale from supplies and large capital structure should also offer Barclays, a hand in increasing competition.

All resources that an organization has may not have strategic relevance. Only certain resources are capable of being an input to a value creating strategy which put the organization in a position of competitive advantage.

The purpose of segmentation is to allow the marketer to be better able to reach the consumer needs and wants which increases the positive responses for the brand. Segmentation is important during the promotion process, this is where the team decided who what and where as well as, age gender and things like buying patterns. Because of this, marketing g segmentation comes before targeting. By dividing the audience, it makes it easier to target exactly who and where to send the devices or what to do with their next model.

Under the resources-based view of strategic management, effective resources available to a firm, as well as the competency of a firm is responsible in affecting competitive advantage received by a firm. The competitive advantage received by a firm will likely

Zara can be identified as one of the largest international fast-fashion organizations which is owned by the fashion group Inditex. Their first store was opened in 1975 and from that point of time, they have had an unstoppable growth throughout the years as up to now. After 42 years of operations, today Zara has been able to expand themselves with 2169 stored over 82 countries all over the world. Rather than they were a high fashion brand in the country, Zara has focused themselves as a fast fashion brand where they will change their fashions at a great pace where no one can reach them. Also, the most attractive thing is that all those latest fashion designs are introduced to the public at an affordable price. This generates