Part of what has made the AS400 so attractive to Costco in the early years was the ability to add different applications depending on the needs of the business. At the beginning the program was used mostly for membership, location data needs, and to keep track of receiving and inventory. However, eventually Costco added more applications to process payroll, to connect locations as the company grew, to keep track of membership, etc. The AS400 even tracks every item purchased by every member. When members return an item, it is simple to look up the item they purchased, see how they paid for it, what the date of purchase was, whether the item was on sale or not, and what Costco location it was purchased from. Not only is this helpful for keeping
Renee McDonald (“Plaintiff”) allegedly sustained personal injuries on October 8, 2015 while shopping at a store owned and operated by Costco (“Defendant”) in Brooklyn Park, Maryland. According to the plaintiff, while walking through the store, she tripped on mop water which caused her to fall to the ground and suffer “severe bodily injuries.” The Plaintiff claims that her fall was caused by the mop water. The mopped area had been secured with a yellow caution sign that warned customers of the wet floor. At the time of the Plaintiff’s fall, however, the sign had fallen down and was lying on the floor. Plaintiff alleges that the store did not have proper signage to warn of the hazardous condition.
It was in the twentieth century that the world was first introduced to a now well-known household name, Costco. In 1976 that the first Costco was opened, formerly known as Price Club, in San Diego. The philosophy of this company is simply stated, “Keep costs down and pass the savings on to our members.” (Costco.com) It has held onto its philosophy of keeping prices low for almost half a century. Costco is self defined as a “membership warehouse club.” (Costco.com) It provides a wide variety of brand name products in their warehouse-style store, and strives to provide all members with the lowest prices that they can offer. Today, Costco is a well known and loved company by consumers.
The strategic objective of Costco is based on the concept of offering members very low prices on a limited selection of nationally branded and selected private label products in a wide range of merchandise categories while producing high sales volumes and rapid inventory turnover. This rapid inventory turnover, when combined with the operating efficiencies achieved by volume purchasing, efficient distribution and reduced handling of merchandise in no-frills, self service warehouse facilities, enables Costco to operate profitably at significantly lower gross margins than traditional wholesalers, discount retailers and supermarkets. (1)
In order for Costco to stay competitive in the market and ahead of its competitors, it is essential to venture into different products and services. Costco’s main products vary, which include: groceries and frozen products, fresh meats and produce, bakery goods, beverages and liquors, health and beauty products, seasonal goods, office products, appliances and electronics. To increase Costco’s product differentiation over its competitors and increase sales, Costco began to introduce other products; such as pharmacy, gasoline, auto insurance, and a food court. In addition, extends more services to executive card members that include check printing, payroll services, identity protection, free roadside assistance with Costco’s auto insurance, and traveling benefits.
What is Costco’s business model? Is the company’s business model appealing? Why or why not?
Save time and money and increase pricing competitiveness and productivity by utilizing automated features such as electronic forms.
The Costco strategy for getting into the wedding gown business is to have a set of touring trunk shows at its Western stores during the season where people are planning their weddings. Costco's typical pricing strategy is to undercut competition and make up for this with high volume sales. The company applies this strategy to the wedding gown business as well. Costco offers one of the lowest prices of any company on its wedding dresses. The company's business plan ensures that the details have been fleshed out, and that has led to the unique distribution strategy for wedding gowns.
Costco is one of the nation’s top three retailers and the world’s largest membership warehouse chain, Costco wholesale Canada operates about 80 membership warehouse clubs across Canada. The company never advertises, charges its 64 million members to shop there and doesn’t mark up any product more than 15 percent, even at this lowest profit margin, 15% for Kirkland private brand, the products were 20% lower than comparable to other brand products. Costco works with this business model and generating $93 billion in annual sales.
Application development: Having a real-time electronic interface with wholesalers created competitive advantages such as reducing cost.
Costco’s inventory management strategy focuses on three main points: (a) point-of-sales system (POS), (b) vendor managed inventory and (c) low volume of stock keeping units. Costco takes aid from innovative inventory system that provides real time inventory information called Collaborative Retail Exchange (CRX). The system monitors and re-orders at the optimum inventory as part of the continuous re-order system. The CRX system analyses the sales for the previous weeks and inventory level which acts as information to the suppliers. Costco Wholesale follows a Bulk-buying strategy. It aims at selling products in large volume and comparatively low prices. The company also follows lower number of stock keeping units (SKU’s), an average of ~4,000
It’s a very appealing business model because what it does for Costco is it enables them to secure vendor purchasing power in volume. With their large warehouse facilities this enables them to distribute products on their floors efficiently while being able to store any leftover in house. This increases the availability of turnover. Also, with their large warehouses and lack of design beyond what’s necessity, it enables them to provide customer service without over investing in design.
A Business week article makes an interesting statement that Costco belongs to the very short list of companies with a culture so favorable to employees that it gives the company a competitive advantage, and it’s most likely to keep on rising over many decades. Costco sees workers as an asset to invest in, rather than a cost that must be reduced. In the U.S. Costco pays workers an average of nearly $21 per hour, almost three times the minimum wage and about twice as much of what most competitors pay. They receive great benefits and are part of a safe and healthy working environment as well. At Costco they are committed to providing its employees with opportunities for personal and career growth. Costco has implemented a strategy for a competitive advantage by having a mix of low-cost providers and differentiation. Company differentiates itself by providing consumers with products in bulk at a low per unit cost. Costco offering two types of memberships- the regular and executive membership. With an executive membership, Costco gives a 2% reward on annual Costco purchases. A holder of the executive membership receives incentives for shopping there, which leads to more sales and higher customer visits. This is just one of the many reasons customers keep going back to Costco. It has made itself a highly successful company by offering quality products and excellent customer service.
Organizational culture has been described as shared values and beliefs that underline a company’s identity. A strong culture that encourages employees from the top to the bottom in adaptation and change can increase organizational performance by energizing and motivating employees, shape behaviors, unify personnel in the goals / objectives and align employee’s actions with the priorities of the company (Daft, R., 2013). Creating a constructive culture should be a manager’s top priority because the right culture will propel a company into a top performer in its industry.
HP in 1994 decided not to integrate the ABC in the Cost Accounting Information System (abbreviated CAIS) for a number of reasons. The first reason is that at that time the CAIS was implemented in all HP business units worldwide. This system was considered very complex and difficult to change. Because ABC was only used in one business unit it was thought to be insensible to change the whole system. The second reason is connected to the codification of the operations in the CAIS. If the ABC would be integrated this system would have to be reorganized and all the employees would have to learn to operate the new
Also by these systems the company reduced its business cost and maintains the information and the data very updated form.