SWOTT Analysis: Swot Analysis Of Costco

The purpose of this paper is to do a value chain analysis of Costco, identify their resources and capabilities, to conduct a SWOT analysis to identify the opportunities in which they are lagging and to form a strategy to move forward using the recourses and capabilities in the direction of utilizing those opportunities.

SWOTT examination is a crucial systematic device used for evaluating both the external and internal elements, which have an influence over the company. In existing business conditions a corporation uses SWOTT analysis to assess it market standing regarding share of the market, competitive edge, and complete feasibility. SWOTT examination offers a company upgraded information about its achieved and unachievable weaknesses, strengths, possible opportunities, dangers, risks, and business trends. The main elements of SWOTT examination can be split under the heads of external and internal elements

Some main strengths of Trader Joe’s are the strong brand image, their employees, organic and private label products, customer loyalty, and offered unique products. Trader Joe’s strong brand image helps them to attract and retain more customers. Their private labels are named according to the background and nationality of food. They offered an extensive line of private label items with brand names such as Trader Joe’s, Trader Ming’s, Trader Jose, Trader Giotto. Due to their strong brand image, they established themselves as a leading retailer of food and non-food items in the US. Americans ranked Trader Joe’s overall as No. 1 retailer in 2013 (Ager & Roberto, 2014). Trader Joe's offered unique and high-quality products from different countries which attract customers to try new items and stocks of 4,000 items, 80% of which bear one of its own brand names. Trader Joe's describes itself as "your neighborhood grocery store" (Wikipedia, Trader Joe’s). Trader Joe’s claimed that 80% of its customers had attended college. The company described its target market as “intelligent, educated, inquisitive individuals” and they reach this customer by opening store among well-educated residents (Ager & Roberto, 2014). Their customers are too loyal towards their brand image so they keep coming back. Instead of targeting all customers, they need to target new customers in order to grow their business and to keep being a leader in the retail industry in the US. And also, their employee are valuable assets of the company, who led them towards the further growth of the company, therefore they are treated fairly and trained to provide the nice and friendly service to Trader Joe’s customers. Almost most of the people want to work at Trader Joe’s because they pay more than minimum wage and higher compare to other retail stores. New part-time hires earned $12 per hour and full-time employees earned approximately $50,000 per year which is above minimum wages. Plus, they contribute 15.4% of employee's salary towards retirement Saving. Furthermore, they offer good health and others benefits even to part-time employees (Ager & Roberto, 2014).

Publix serves over one million, mostly time-impoverished customers that are becoming more knowledgeable and demanding every day. These customers, who typically live in the nearby area for a generation, spend $5,000 on groceries per year, and many say they don't mind paying a little more to shop in Publix's customer oriented, clean stores staffed with well-trained and friendly employees. In addition, they are cost-conscious bargain shoppers who are turning towards store brands more and more. Finally, their customers are becoming increasingly more health conscious. About 70% of women and 54% of men consider nutrition an important factor in their food purchases (Mujtaba & Johnson).

Knowing the importance of a strategic vision, every company undertakes a complete analysis periodically. In order to create a strategic plan the parties involved must know every aspect of the industry and the company at hand. The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the retail drugstore industry and then focus on Walgreens, the industry leader in terms of sales. As part of the in-depth analysis of Walgreens, its major competitors will also be described and analyzed. The retail drugstore industry consists of all those stores that contain a pharmacy and sell prescription drugs. It also includes businesses that sell prescription drugs online and through the mail. Most retail drugstores also offer other

Walgreens headquarters is located on 200 Wilmot Road in Deerfield Illinois (Walgreens Corp. Office), they currently operate 8,173 stores in all fifty states, district of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands (Facts & FAQ). With this many locations they have a large workforce, employing over 240,000 people (Facts &FAQ). About 30% of employees are healthcare providers which include pharmacy technicians, pharmacists and other heath-related professions (Facts & FAQ).

CVS and Walgreens continue to fight as top competitors in a growing market. CVS has over 7,000 stores nationwide and is expanding, as is Walgreens today with over 8,000 stores. This market isn’t particularly easy to enter as a major player in the market early because of all the work that needs to be put in to install as many brick and mortar stores or get that much of the market share in a short amount of time. It takes many years to be truly established as a pharmacy chain as Walgreens has experienced, being founded in 1901 and CVS being founded in 1963. This is why the barriers to entry are somewhat high because of the high fixed costs with the construction of brick and mortar stores.

The early years of the Walgreens organization focused on expanding the footprint of the operation. (Wagner & Orvis, 2013) To support this expansion Walgreens used a “command and control” strategy as a means of exercising leadership and communicating with employees. (Wagner & Orvis, 2013) As the competitive landscape began to change, Walgreens recognized that it too needed a makeover. (Wagner & Orvis, 2013) New competition entered the market such as mail order pharmacies, big box retailer pharmacies, and internet options such as Google and Amazon were selling the same products as Walgreens. (Wagner & Orvis, 2013) The healthcare industry was changing. Heightened by the passage of the Affordable Care Act, Walgreens recognized that it needed

Walgreens has to have business objectives and they are to be the best pharmacy retail store, walgreens wants to be the first choice when it comes down to either Walgreens or CVS. Walgreens wants to offer many different types of services to cater any need a customer might need. Walgreens wants its employees to give ECC (Extraordinary Customer Care) to every single customer so it feels like a family oriented business. According to the Annual Report of 2015 the main goal for walgreens is “to help people across the world lead a healthier and happier lives”(Annual Report). Now talking about walgreens financial strategy according to Rob is the financial strategy is to try to sell everything for a price, meaning if an item is supposed to be B1G1

The first of Porter’s Five Forces that impact Costco is the threat of new entrants. The threat of new entrants into the wholesale and membership retail space is low. There are several reasons why the threat of entrants into the market is low. The leading reason why the threat of entry is low is because an emerging company will struggle to have the volume necessary to compete with Costco. Costco is the sixth largest retailer in the U.S. As a major retailer, Costco has the highest discounts on a majority of its

Costco currently has 503 U.S. stores, 91Canadian stores, 28 U.K stores, 12 Taiwan stores, 12 Korean stores, 25 Japanese stores, 8 Australian stores, 2 Spain stores, and 26 Mexican stores.

Strengths Strong global market presence Costco is the second largest retailers in the world with operations more than 670 warehouses, spread throughout United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Spain and Australian. Besides, Costco always offers high quality products to its members at the best possible prices. Offering the great values has allowed it to attract a very loyal customer base and grow its market share. Pricing Authority Costco provides its members high quality products with the best prices.

By conducting the analysis, an organization improves its effectiveness through strengthening its status, grabbing opportunities, and reducing weakness, and protecting business from threats. In context of SWOT analysis, key strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats of Costco Company will enlighten intelligibility about the company’s current position. The company pay close attention to every and has capitalize various strengths that to its success factors, including rapid turnover of the inventory, reduced cost of handling merchandise, organization of an efficient operating structure, and generation of high sales volume at each of its store. The Costco Company has a built powerful continues membership renewals, treasure hunt atmosphere, and extraordinary employees. Best practice in benchmarking analysis to provide transparency, provided with target date benchmarks collected of compliantly execute, and consensus-driven benefit distribution. The statistics congregated in the survey to form the basis is the benchmark glide path, which implemented with inert contact to each asset class. Effective utilization and powerful implications of strategies will result victory in any firm.

Walmart and Amazon have become global, household names in the US and for good reason: both of these companies have revolutionized the way in which we shop. Amazon offers a convenient experience, and an ever-expanding selection of products whereas Walmart has a wide network of store locations and famously low prices. As investments, these companies highlight the dichotomous nature of the retail industry – brick-and-mortar vs e-commerce; high growth vs steady growth; US vs International; actual vs market expectations. This report provides an in depth comparative analysis between Walmart and Amazon. We will first summarize the industry and these companies, followed by an analysis of market position and financials, and finally an

The low priced fair-trade cotton clothing could lead to price wars. In addition, there can be low profitability because of competitive moves for Tesco. Finally, international competitors like Wal-Mart could add a cotton line in Germany to compete with Tesco.