Introduction
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 consumer goods and services to augment the low margin earned on prescription sales. To be considered a member of the retail drugstore industry requires sales of prescription pharmaceuticals to the end consumer. Many convenience, food and discount stores sell over-the-counter medicines, but these stores would not be considered retail drugstores because they do not also sell prescription medicines.
Relevant Environment
Competition: The relevant environment, which consists or interactions between the task environment and task environment, has been changing over the past 25 years. As competition has increased among grocery, discount and mass merchandising chains, blurring of channels has occurred. This is due to stores selling an increasing variety of goods to try to broaden their customer base and provide “one-stop” shopping. Many of these stores have added pharmacies as a source of convenience for their customers, and to increase store traffic, usually positioning the pharmacy in the back of the store. In response to this pressure, both independent and chain drugstores have greatly increased the variety of their retail product offerings. The sale of cosmetics, along with health and beauty aids, has become an important profit generator for retail drugstores. Many are now also positioning themselves to compete with convenience stores by offering snack food items, beverages, and staple items. The move to stand-alone stores located on major roads with ample, close-in parking has been an important factor contributing to convenience.
Customers: As indicated by the type of competition seen in the retail drugstore ...
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...Top Performing Companies.” March 24,1998.
www.riteaid.com. “Rite Aid Reports 6.6 Percent Same-Store Sales Increase For May.”
June 7,2000.
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Our Past.
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Our Past.
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Our Past.
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Walgreens/Walgreens Joins Katie Couric in National Campaign.
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Walgreens/Walgreens Joins Katie Couric in National Campaign.
The substitutes is another big issue for Walgreens. The supermarket like Walmart has been going into drugstore business. As a supermarket, their products and services are wider, and they can provide the lower price due to bigger supplier and distribution network (Baeb, 2001). Currently, Walgreens has been fighting with specific medical services that has been mentioned in value chain section; prevention & wellness, treatment, and monitoring & management. To reduce the threat of substitutes, Walgreens would rather emphasize its business-level strategy. Also, it is better for Walgreens to have functional-level strategy to support its business-level strategy as well. The emphasized strategy from Porter 's generic strategies has been discussed later in this
Mr. Walgreen knew if he was going to be successful in the pharmacy business, he had to learn as much as he could from other pharmacists. Mr. Walgreen worked a series of jobs with the top leading pharmacists named Samuel Rosenfeld, Max Grieben, William G. Valentine, and Isaac W. Blood. However, Mr. Walgreen found that these pharmacists were teaching him old fashioned complacent methods of running a drugstore. He asked himself, “where was the selection of goods that customers really wanted and what about the customer service?” Mr. Walgreen c...
Rite Aid Corp. operates in the highly competitive retail drugstore industry. “In the sale of prescription drugs, they compete with, among others, retail drugstore chains, independently owned drugstores, mass merchandisers, supermarkets, discount stores, and mail order pharmacies.
Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduce life expectancy and/or increased health problems. Obesity has been a health problem ever since infectious disease had began in the first half of the 20th Century. The person with obesity is not the only person who is affected by their disease. In the case of childhood obesity, It can affect the parents because they might be the cause of the child’s issues. It can also lead to many different health problems such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and respiratory problems, and it can also even lead to death. Obesity has affected the world in many ways: task forces have been formed to address the issue, people are suffering from health problems due to obesity, and others suffer psychological and social issues.
The purpose of this memo is to show the affects of how Albertson’s is trying to implement many strategies in order to try, and compete with its powerhouse competitor Wal-Mart. This memo will contain information on steps Albertson’s is taking to gain back some of the market share that Wal-Mart has swallowed up. It will also describe Albertson’s planned innovations that will be what determines their success. Lastly it will discuss how through IT as well as a successful implementation of satisfying consumers demands, will possibly allow them to compete with the ever so powerful Wal-Mart.
Since the founding of our nation, government has constantly been changing and developing as the United States has been evolving. What started out as thirteen colonies rules by another country expanded into fifty states of an independent country each with its own ideas and people to look out for. With this expanding country it was important that the government expand but also that the American people felt like they had a voice. Their voice can be heard in the varying types of participation of the political process at the national, state, and local level. Mona Field’s California Government and Politics Today and Ann O’M. Bowman’s State and Local Government: The Essentials both discuss the topics of the importance of state government, the levels and types of political participation done by Americans, and the increasing importance of state governments.
In the United States as in other developed nations, the level of obesity goes up every year. Obesity is a great issue as it affects individuals, society, and the government itself. In every kind of people, the number of obese increases everyday which increase the risks of getting obesity related diseases? Based on research done by Elissa and Steele, the number of young obese people has doubled in past two decades. (12) This is not surprising because as the United States industry food aggressively markets high-fat, high-sugar, super-sized food. Many schools dropped physical education, many children spend a lot of time playing computer games instead of playing sports and even fattening snacks food is sold onto campus. Family and school education on obesity awareness is the main path to decrease obesity epidemic among young people and children beside diet and physical exercises improvement. It is necessary to improve health education in American schools and families to help kids to be aware of obesity and obesity related diseases.
With the Walgreen's proposed acquisition of Rite Aid, we posed 3 questions to our members. Here are the questions and the results:
Obesity has not only targeted children of a certain age group but at this time obesity is in all ages including preschooler. The statistics taken by The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey have shown that children with obesity are from non-Hispanic black and Hispanic ethicists. Obesity could be lead by many reasons, since very one’s body is not the same. According to the nutrition examination survey obesity is associated with “negative physical and mental health consequences”.
Some researchers claim that more than 300,000 Americans are dying due to obesity every year and the number is rising annually. That is a huge number and it can be fixed a number of ways but some individuals are lazy some can’t lose the weight because of medical reason. Obesity causes disease from diabetes to heart disease and in some cases death. Obesity in children is growing problems to children who are obese have a higher chance to get diabetes or heart failure. The school environment is one of several settings that can influence children’s food choices and eating habits. Schools can ensure that the available food and beverage options are healthy and help young people eat food that meets dietary recommendations for fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and nonfat or low-fat dairy products.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is in the discount, variety stores industry. It was founded in 1945, Bentonville in Arkansas which is also the headquarters of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart operates locally as well as worldwide. It operated 1209 discount stores, 1980 super centers, and 567 Sam’s Club by January 31, 2006. It has also extended its operations to many international countries. It runs its retail stores in two forms: Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart Stores. The Sam’s Club sells assorted product lines such as hardwares, electronics, jewelry, and to mention a few. The Wal-Mart stores also offer similar products in addition to the following: health and beauty products, apparel for women, men and children, household appliances etc (www.yahoo.finance.com). The Vision Statement, Mission Statement, Values and Code of Conduct, Corporate Governance: Directors, Executive Management, Committees and Stakeholder will be the key elements that will discussed in this report as it relates to Wal-Mart. In addition to that, the major trends in the general/macro environment and industry will be analyzed.
The purpose of this presentation is to provide a comparative analysis of business activities of two well-known representatives of the US retail industry, Target and Walmart. My research is focused on a business strategy of these largest and most experienced American merchandising companies; particularly, on their activities in Canada. Based on the data collected from the various sources, I would like to detect, analyze, and demonstrate the obvious causes that have lead to a catastrophic failure of Target in its unsuccessful attempt to win a Canadian market.
Given the dominance and fiercely competitive nature of Wal-Mart and Target within the big box discount retail industry, Dollar General avoided competing head-to-head with these larger rivals by differentiating a classic generic bu...
Wal-mart has been able to achieve respectable leadership in the retail industry because of its focus on supply chain management. Discuss in detail the distribution and logistics system adopted by Wal-Mart.
The most natural thing for a human being to do is fall in love. So what do we do when we find that person who we can't live without for the rest of our lives? We ask them to marry us. But what happens when the love of your existence just happens to be of the same gender as you? The argument of whether gay marriage should be legalized or not is very controversial. According to an article from the Human Rights Campaign, there is nothing wrong with allowing homosexuals to have the same rights as everyone else. Every individual person should be given the opportunity to have equal rights, no matter what their sexuality. Gay marriage should be legalized in all states and has been postponed for much too long.