Essay on Walgreen Co. Organization Resources

Walgreen Co. (Walgreens) and its subsidiaries operate a drugstore chain in the United States. “The Company provides its customers with multichannel access to consumer goods and services, and pharmacy, health and wellness services in communities across America” (Walgreen Company). The firm currently operates two mail-order facilities and has 7,752 retail drug stores located across all 50 US states, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia (Walgreens). Prescription drugs account

From 2002 to 2005, Walgreens reported a compounded annual growth rate of 10.1%, growing to $42.2 billion in total revenues. This strong revenue growth was primary driven by organic expansion through new store openings. Since 2002, Walgreens has added 1070 net new stores (22% increase) while CVS has added 1,384 net new stores (25% increase), of which 86%, or 1200 of CVS' store additions, were due to the 2004 acquisition of Eckerd. As a result, although CVS reported an impressive 21% increase in sales from 2004 to 2005 compared to Walgreens 12.5% (a decline from 15.3% in 2003 to 2004), it was primarily due to CVS experiencing the full effect of the mid-2004 acquisition of the 1200 Eckerd stores. Table 3 shows the year-over-year comparison of Walgreens total revenues to CVS'.

There are four important steps at Walgreens to ensure the prescriptions are dispensed accurately and safely. The four steps has its own buttons on the computer screen system and allows for the pharmacists and the technicians to see at what step the patients’ medications are. The first step is the Rx entry. All prescriptions in the Rx entry can be found by pressing the F1 key. This step is where all the prescriptions and E-scripts go in. All the patients’ information, insurance, and prescription information is entered into the system. All the refills, new scripts, and even insurances rejections are handled at this step. Once the prescriptions went through, any hardcopy prescriptions will be scanned onto the computer and will move on to the next step.

Walgreens was founded in 1901 measuring 50 feet by 20 feet by Charles R. Walgreen, Sr.. Mr. Walgreen was born near Galesburg, Illinois and his family later relocated to Dixon, Illinois at town about 60 miles north of his birthplace. Mr. Walgreens’ father was a farmer who turned into a businessperson and saw a great potential of the Rock River Valley (Walgreen, n.d., p.1). At age 16, Charles Walgreen had his first experience working in a drug store. He didn’t always have pleasurable experiences but it was a job with pay. He had an accident at a shoe factory that cut off his left middle finger from the top joint. This injury also stops him from playing any sports at school. After a year and a half with the

Walgreens’ principal activity is to operate a chain of retail drugstores that sells prescription and nonprescription drugs. The company also carries additional product lines like general merchandise including cosmetics, food, beverages and photofinishing. Walgreens is one of the fastest growing retailers in the United States and led the chain drugstore industry in retail sales and profits last year.

I am a pharmacist and currently working for Walgreens Pharmacy. Walgreens is the second-largest retail pharmacy chain in the United States. We provide services ranging from prescriptions medications, health and wellness products, beauty products, and photo services. Walgreens headquarter is located in Deerfield, Illinois. As of August 31, 2016, Walgreens operate a total of 8,175 drugstores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands.

Both CVS Corporation and Walgreen Company operate retail drug stores in the United States. In addition to having pharmacies and selling prescription and non-prescription drugs both retailers also sell general merchandise. This includes items like beauty and cosmetic products, convenience foods, household items and film & photofinishing services.

My second introductory pharmacy practice site experience was with Walmart Pharmacy located in Crestview, Florida. The pharmacy was initially added to the Walmart Supercenters so that patients may shop while waiting for their refills. This organization is 4th leading pharmacy in the United Sates by prescription revenue. Walmart Pharmacies generate about 17.9 billion in prescription revenue annually.

Utilization of an effective Leverage and Customer Relations Strategy positions Walgreens in a healthy location to remain a competitive industry force in healthcare and pharmaceutical delivery. Their leading market position provides an edge over present competition. (Walgreen Co., 2014) Remaining agile and coming fast to market with their newly adopted organization can be used as a significant benefit in gaining market share and a competitive advantage. In addition, leveraging the buying power and size of the WBA organization has the potential to realize significant savings that will positively impact the bottom line. (Zacks Equity Research, 2013) Walgreens needs to adopt the details of each strategy identified as updated store-layouts,

Strengths. As of 2008, Walgreen operated 6,934 stores in the U.S. and U.S. held territories, making it the largest retail chain pharmacy in North America (DataMonitor, 2010, p. 22). Walgreen’s recent acquisition of Duane-Reade, a prominent

Mirroring its main market competitor, CVS, Walgreens has also added Envision Pharma, a pharmacy-benefit management company, to its portfolio. (CVS acquired Caremark in 2007) (Bells, 2016) Due to previous acquisitions and mergers, Walgreens is currently the most accessible pharmacy retailer in the U.S., servicing 8 million customers each day and filling approximately 894 million prescriptions and immunizations, every year. (Walgreens, n.d.)

Primary weaknesses for Walgreens include cumbersome store layouts, competitive pricing, and on-line services. (Mullis, K.) Consumers don’t always reflect customer convenience when they enter a Walgreens store. (Mullis, K.) The front of the store tends to be clogged with seasonal or novelty items, while important health and beauty items tend to be in the back of the store. (Mullis, K.) It was noted the pharmacy was the furthest away from the consumer at the back of the store. (Mullis, K.) Pricing also remains a challenge for Walgreens. To remain profitable it is difficult to compete with big box retailers who have volume on their side for purchasing power. Walgreens is lagging in the on-line retailing arena possessing only 11.38% of market share behind Drugstore.com and MedcoHealth.com. (Mullis, K.) This is an arena that Walgreens needs to get serious about gaining market

We would like to thank you so much for all the hard work that you all have been doing. As Walgreens still continue being one of the top largest retail pharmacy in the United States. Our goal and vision has always been; to be America's most loved pharmacy-led health, wellbeing and beauty retailer and to champion everyone’s right to be happy and healthy and that also include our employees. With that being said we really appreciate your loyalty and the excellent work that you continue to do despite our current predicament.

Along with the company's strong market performance, the Walgreens Corporation continually shows considerable growth. 2006 ended with Walgreens' 32nd consecutive year of record sales and earnings ("Walgreen Co. reports..., 2006). Walgreens' 2005 sales of $47.4 were a 12.5% increase over the previous year and over $1.5 billion in earnings were a 15.5% increase over the previous year (Walgreens Corporation, 2006a). Furthermore, a new Walgreens store opens approximately every 19 hours (Carpenter, 2004). Consequently, the Walgreens name carries considerable brand equity as a nationwide retailer known for quality and convenience. In fact, Walgreens has positioned itself as the drugstore offering the most convenience (Walgreens Corporation, 2006c). As such, Walgreens offers drive-thru pharmacies in over 80% of its stores, and nearly 30% of stores are open 24 hours a day (Walgreens Corporation, 2006a). The company strives to offer a merchandise mix in line with this focus, providing customers with one-stop stopping for not only prescription drugs,

Walmart is the largest store retailer worldwide with over 11,500 retail stores in 28 different countries (Walmart 2017). Its headquarters are based in Rogers, Arkansas; which is the same location where the first Walmart store was open (Walmart 2017). The MNC of Walmart is divided into four main divisions; these are Walmart U.S.; Walmart International; Sam’s Club and Global eCommerce (Walmart 2017). All the Walmart retail stores that are located within the United States are wholly subsidiaries that belong to Walmart, but some of the stores that are located outside of the United States can be wholly or partly owned by Walmart as well as joint ventures with other entities that usually operate under different names other than Walmart (Lesson 6