Rei Company Overview

REI initially sold only climbing gear, expanding out to carry a wide range of products that varies from store to store to better match the regional activities available for their target demographic. This makes them a “one stop shop” for outdoor equipment, small retailer would not have as much selection positioning them as targeting a broad number of customer. REI has further differentiated themselves as “unique” by offering well informed sales associates, who are usually outdoor enthusiast themselves, about their products to help customers make informed decisions. This is seen by countless interviews conducted of REI sales associates that state “You can

The North Face was founded in 1966 in San Francisco, California by two hiking enthusiasts taking a chance on a dream. Douglas Tompkins and his then-wife, Susie Tompkins, sold their small, climber targeted, clothing brand to Kenneth “Hap” Klopp two years later. From a single storefront to a global brand, The North Face has enjoyed incredible success in their 50 years of existence. They produce high quality outdoor apparel, gear and footwear in countries all across the globe. The North Face is a market leader when it comes to technology and performance. It’s clothing and equipment lines are catered towards college students, climbers,

Dick’s Sporting Goods also known as Dick’s Clothing and Sporting Goods is a fast growing company that carries products ranging from Taylormade golf clubs to The North Face winter jackets. Dick’s Sporting goods was founded in 1948 by Dick Stack who in which was only 18 years old at the time. In 1948, Stack was working at an Army Surplus store in New York, where his boss asked his opinion on which new tackle products should introduced into the fishing business. Dick was an experienced fisher, when he gave his ideas to boss, his ideas were turned down. Stack was not happy and spoke to his late grandmother about the situation and she gave him the funds he needed to start his own tackle store. In 1958, Stack had created a business that is very much like what a typical Dick’s Sporting Goods is today. He was a driven young individual that felt his knowledge would allow him to be successful in the tackle business. Not only did his tackle business succeed, but what is now the Dick’s Sporting Goods Brand has greatly succeeded.

Each location has its own local network thus it is distributed across the company, however this has its pros and cons that can affect the company. With the implementation of a WAN as defined in Telecommunications Essentials “A wide area network (WAN) is a group of computer networks connected over long distances by telecommunications links, which can be either wireline or wireless.” (Goleniewski & Jarrett, 2007, p. 201) The benefits that a WAN will bring to Kudler Fine Foods is a centralized management of all systems and an ease of use communication from store to store. As stated earlier along with the WAN, each location will also be implementing a WLAN. This shall improve network coverage and give each location the ability to place computer systems or POS machines in locations that may have not been possible before due to the lack of a hardline or ability to install a new line. Wireless technology has greatly improved over the years and has transitioned from an additional layer that may not be needed or only added if there was room in the budget to a

Lloyd and Mary Anderson established REI as a cooperative in 1938 by signing up its first 23 members. At the time, the company was named Recreational Equipment Cooperative and its purpose was to serve mountaineers by providing them with reasonably priced, quality climbing and mountaineering equipment. The co-op grew and by 1940 they celebrated 200 members and annual sales of $3,000. In 1956 REI incorporated and changed its name to Recreational Equipment, Inc. By 1960, REI had 20,000 members and annual sales of nearly $500,000. As the years ticked by, REI continued to grow and by 1990, REI had two million members and annual sales topped $230 million per year. By 2006, REI was a $1 billion dollar company. “Celebrating 75 years of adventure”,

Susan Gregg Koger is the co-founder of ModCloth, a simple online shop where she sold the vintage finds she could no longer fit in her closet. She made a sale her first day. Today, ModCloth is one of the fastest-growing fashion and home ecommerce ventures to emerge in the past decade. The company did more than one hundred million dollars in sales last year, and is growing at a rate of 40 percent annually. The story of ModCloth begins when Eric, Susan’s then boyfriend, started a development business in 2000. They went to Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburg, and Susan stumbled over all these amazing pre-worn items at vintage sales. Eric had all of the technical skills to help Susan launch an ecommerce site. They thought they would get all of these gems

Dick’s Sporting Goods, Inc. is a prevalent retailer of many kinds of sporting equipment. According to the company’s 10-K form, the company first started in 1948 and since then has had the vision to, “build leading brands that serve and inspire athletes and outdoor enthusiasts around the world to achieve their personal best; create value for our stockholders through the relentless improvement of everything we do; and make a lasting impact in our communities through sport,” (2016). The company has strived to accomplish this by offering a wide variety of sporting equipment, offering more than one way to shop with them, and by offering not only name brand equipment but many. In the past couple of years, offering more ways to shop with them has been a large objective accomplished by investing and building a website and increasing eCommerce. They also manage several different stores in different specialties including Dick’s Sporting Goods carrying sporting equipment, Golf Galaxy who carry golf equipment, and Field and Stream stores which specialize in fishing equipment totaling 741 stores in all across the country. The company is meeting several different types of customers’ needs by offering a broader line

The company was created in 1920 as the Mount Monger Gold Mining company .so they could exploit the Kalgoorlie goldfield.

When they first visited their plant in China and started asking their vendors to break out the cost of packaging, they must have thought that he was crazy. But by investing the time and energy to invent a new box for their bicycles, with the ultimate goal of creating a closed loop system that extended the life of materials and avoided toxic materials or processes, ultimately saved REI money (approximately $1.25 million) by reducing packaging materials by 68%, while at the same time, influencing their counterparts in similar industries and solidifying their position as the industry leaders.

I have looked into the current concerns of REI’s top management on the subject of simultaneously meeting the financial objectives, keeping the company growing on the same rate and satisfying the sustainability goals that the Board of Directors has laid down for the company. The following gives my take on the issues at hand.

The company didn’t reach the global market until 1975 when it was introduced in the European market and then in 1977 in the United States. (MarketLine) Through the manufacturing of shoes, sportswear, and equipment

RSM is a private held company that mainly focused on serving the middle market with audit, tax, and consulting services. RSM is in the professional service industry and fall under the Certified Public Accountants section. The company is a limited liability partnership with about 760 offices and 38,000 employees across the world. In United State, RSM have 8,000 employees in 80 cities. RSM US headquarter is located in Chicago, Illinois, and the CEO is Joe Adams.

ImageFirst Signs will anticipate a savings of $99,300 per year. This calculation is based on labor costs, space utilization, reduction in rework, and inventory costs. These calculations can be seen in Table 8 below. Labor cost is calculated in two fold. First by multiplying the number of operators (17), number of weeks per year (50), average hourly cost per employee ($16), and the average number of hours anticipated to be saved with the implementation of the deliverables (2 per operator). Second by multiplying the number of shipping and receiving operator (1), number of weeks per year (50), average hourly cost per employee ($16), average number of hours anticipated to be saved with the implementation of the deliverables (5). Space utilization was calculated by considering the average monetary impact of bringing in two new machines. Per Dave, the facility needs to be preparing for two machines. One will be arriving in April and the other one is anticipated to arrive late summer. Reduction in rework was calculated by multiplying an average cost to fix a sign ($250) by the number of months in a year (12) by the average number of defects needed to be fixed per month (5). Lastly, inventory costs were calculated by considering the average number of extra material on hand (20) by the average cost per foot of the material. As seen below in Figure 19, ImageFirst can anticipate an 85% ROI for this

(This measurement was an overall company wide cost savings in all departments.) Another $1 million was saved in labor costs as a result of using electronic forms for the 401k plans, employee stock purchase plan, and the stock options plan. To implement the plan a total of twelve servers were used (hardware cost being about $300,000). Developmental cost over two years was approximately $8 million. Ongoing technology support runs $765,000 annually. By demonstrating this in his book he proves that by implementing a paperless society the cost effectiveness out weights the initial cost of establishing the paperless office.

The company was founded in 1888 by British businessman Cecil Rhodes, who was financed by the South African diamond magnate Alfred Beit and the London-based N M Rothschild & Sons bank. In 1926, Ernest Oppenheimer, a German immigrant to Britain who had earlier founded mining giant