Costco
Programs, Budgets and Procedures
Costco's approach to financial improvement will come in the form of a two-pronged strategy. The first is to increase inventory turnover, and the second will come in the form of increasing market share. Inventory turnover is a standard ratio that refers to "how many times a company's inventory is sold and replaced over a period of time," ("Inventory Turnover," (n.d.). Increasing market share usually depends on a multifaceted process that includes "innovation, strengthening customer relationships, smart hiring practices and acquiring competitors," (Investopedia, 2015).
While it is understood that Costco has exceptional inventory turnover rates, improving these will shorten the cash conversion cycle, and thus have a positive impact on the company's bottom line. There are two potential approaches to lowering the inventory turnover rate. The first is that the company can open more stores and seek to reduce the amount of days' inventory in each store, thereby spreading the existing inventory level over more stores. The other thought is to seek a greater throughput in each existing store, thus increasing turnover without adding to fixed costs. This approach will, however, come with the downside of decreasing margin. That said, if Costco can reduce inventory as a percentage of its assets, this will result in more cash, which in turn can end up reinvested in the business.
The three-year budget shows how this can occur in the context of increasing sales. The three-year budget assumes steady sales increases that come from new stores. But over the course of this expansion, Costco will also gradually reduce the amount of inventory as a percentage of total assets, by way of increasing the inventory turnover rate. The objective of the strategy will be to...
Costco The case notes that Costco's mission is "bringing the highest quality goods at the lowest possible prices while providing excellent customer service and adhering to a strict code of ethics…" and then the mission outlines the code of ethics. The company's operations clearly stick to this mission statement. This is possible because the mission statement is clear, and it specifically relates to what the company does. It hits upon a
Costco's business model is to undertake a cost leadership strategy. The company operates with a warehouse store concept. The warehouse store concept focuses on offering large volumes of goods at low prices. A typical Costco warehouse has a relatively low number of SKUs available, and any given product is usually only available in a single SKU. Consumers are attracted to the low prices associated with volume buying. Each store has
Buyer power is high. Consumers are well informed and have a number of discount and warehouse options from which to choose. As such, there is a high risk of substitution or switching, lending the buyer high power on aggregate. There are high barriers to entry. Tremendous economies of scale are required in order to adequately compete in the low cost sector. Infrastructure buildout costs are high for any firm
Although not my firm, I see this in a company like Palm. Once dominant in its industry, the minute the industry dynamic shifted with the introduction of a new product and a new competitor (the shift to smartphones and the entrance of Apple), Palm was unable to adapt to compete. Blackberry management was able to adapt and that company has continued to enjoy a strong market position, while Palm
Research and Report for Costco What is Costco’s Competitive Advantage? Costco’s competitive advantage lies in the value attained from membership. The warehouse club's members pay for the desire of shopping there and that produces a difficult to disrupt circle that profits the company. In essence, paying for membership strengthens the customer’s associations to the brand while the fundamental value proposition either gives rise to an upsurge in usage levels or creates onus
S. Just like people, corporations can have biases and even forms of ethnocentrism inherent in their cultures, a prime example of this being WalMart (Hammond, Axelrod, 2006). Clearly further analysis is necessary to understand why Costco struggles in other regions of the world, yet the company's financial performance on a global level continues to be exceptional due to the factors cited earlier. What is needed is for the company to concentrate
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