Operations management is considered as a psychology which cannot be overlooked in this 21st century to attain desired performance in any organization. This type of management relates to zones like planning, process design and control issues involving capacity and quality. After a very thorough research and thinking I choose COSTCO which is one of the leading whole sale and retail service providers. Costco wholesale is a multi-billion dollar company and a global retailer for eight countries. Washington CEO magazine named Costco as one of the three leading companies in the state of Washington. Costco opened the first ware house in Seattle and became the first company to grow from zero to $3 billion in sales in six years. This company follows …show more content…
This is first and important step to any organization is maintaining good quality which meets the needs and expectations of consumers. A good service with an excellent quality is the critical factor and continuous monitory effort to a business successful.
Costco’s key factor to success is to maintain high quality products and focus on attracting more customers their excellent family or business services. The ware house is known to carry only branded products with an affordable price. Their service with gold, platinum membership services with cash back points on the purchases makes it easy and accessible for customers to choose Costco as their main shopping preference.
Principle 2
Adapt new philosophy
Practicing the culture of inheriting and adaption can be another critical factor to success of the organization. This creates more jobs, healthy competition and improved service in the company. New philosophy is the creation to new strategy from which there is high possibility to
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Maintaining good quality helps the organization to avoid focus on rework and loss. Quality attracts customers and acts as detour to other suppliers. Most organizations fall for huge supplier list and spend their time in negotiating for costs over quality. It is a good practice to maintain minimum of approved most trusted suppliers than to promote huge suppliers list.
As Costco concentrates more on quality, the company doesn’t promote a huge list of suppliers. Costco has paired up with Kirkland signature brand to provide equal to or even better than some high end brands. Most of the products in Costco are through Kirkland which helps the company to focus on constantly improving the quality and reduce the dependency of inspection. Kamauff states that, “If quality is to be truly a strategic issue for an organization, the people in that organization must commit to continuous improvement” (p. 85).
Conclusion
Costco is a named for its continuous growth despite of having Wal-Mart or Target that are considered as huge competitors to the company. It’s business model works well for today’s economic and high-end consumers. Their minimal marketing strategy brands them unique and makes them focus on improvement of the organization and set their goal in the
Promotion: Costco doesn’t have any conventional marketing/ promotion strategies like their competitors as they are not big on advertising. They email and mail their members flyers and product descriptions which help them maintain their customer retention. However, they don’t actively advertise to new customers, primarily relying on their current customers to advertise by word of mouth like Kimberley Peterson, the
In the early 2000’s Lowe’s was rapidly intensifying its presence nationwide. The company carried a varied assortment of home improvement products and catered to the needs of retail as well as commercial business customers. Lowe’s expanded their reach by acquiring a 41-store chain, Eagle Hardware and Garden, and engaging in a strategic alliance with HGTV to obtain a more profound existence in their market (Rouse, 2005). By 2004, Lowe’s operated almost 1,000 stores with plans to continue expansion across the nation (Rouse, 2005). The company has a core competency in helping customers meet their home improvement needs at a low price. In order to use this core competency to gain a competitive advantage, the company has focused on key functional strategies. To continue their success, Lowe’s must specifically focus on marketing, logistics, and human resource management strategies.
Operations management is essential for the survival and success of any organization. According to Heizer & Render (2011), operations management (OM) is the set of activities that creates value in the form of goods and services by transforming inputs into outputs. Operations managers today contend with competition, globalization, inflation, consumer demand, and consistent change in technology. Managers must focus on the efficiency and effectiveness of processes such as cost, dependability, distribution, flexibility, and speed. The intent of this paper is to discuss the processes and operations management of the Kroger Company.
Costco’s business strategy is different from their competitor’s in the wholesale retail industry because their purpose is to keep overhead down and pass the savings to their customers. They do this by choosing not to advertise, sell fewer brands and having an innovative approach by having their own manufacturing facilities for a variety of merchandise. Costco does not market their warehouses and their marketing is through word of mouth from current customers who also must have a membership to shop at Costco. When compared to Walmart Costco sells four brands of toothpaste and Walmart sells sixty brands of toothpaste. Costco can buy more for less from the manufacturer of the four brands of toothpaste and pass the savings on to their customers. Costco’s strategy is to sale a limited number of items because this strategy according to (Lutz, 2013) “increases sales volume and helps drive discounts.” Because of Costco’s profitability in the retail market they have managed to continue to be profitable even in an oppressed economy. Costco’s focus is on high-end customers indicated by some of the brands they carry such as Coach Handbags. Costco offers three different levels of membership and is only open to customers who have a membership. Costco’s philosophy is they do not advertise or markup items more than 15% in order to save their customer’s money. These practices lowers the overhead costs and continues passing the savings to the customer. Costco is an international company and has (Costco Wholesale Corporation, n.d.) “462 locations in 43 U.S. States & Puerto Rico; 87 locations in nine Canadian provinces; 25 locations in the United Kingdom; 10 locations in Taiwan; 9...
Costco Wholesale Corporation was an uncommon type of retailers called wholesale clubs. These clubs differentiated themselves from other retailer by requiring annual membership purchase. Especially in case of Costco, their target market is wealthier clientele of small business owners and middle class shoppers. They are now known as a low cost or discount retailer where they sell products in bulk with limited brands and their own brand. The company is competing with stores like Wal-Mart, SAM’s, BJ’s, and Sears.
Costco was founded on September 15th, 1983 by Jeffery Brotman and James Sinegal (Chesley). It became renowned for its warehouse club retail model, pioneered by former competitor Price Club. After a major merger in 1993 with Price Club, Costco expanded to 206 locations, doubling the size of the company (“Costco Wholesale Historical Highlights”). The decision was based on the fact Costco and Price Club shared similar business philosophies, operations, and the looming threat of being taken over by Sam’s Club. Operating as PriceCostco, international expansion began with development of stores in Mexico, the opening of two stores in England, and the licensing of a Price Club in South Korea ("Costco Wholesale Corporation").
Continually provide our members with quality goods and services at the lowest possible prices. “Our goal is to give the customer the best value we can.” – Jim Sinegal, CEO & Founder of
In the warehouse segment, Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club competes harshly with Costco. Costco has fewer warehouses but greater sales and revenues. Costco customers also shop at Costco more frequently than Sam’s Club customers and, on average, spend more each visit as well. Costco’s dominance may be the result of better innovation. Costco offers luxury items and was the first to sell fresh meat and produce, and gasoline. This is important because innovation is a key factor in assessing competitors in an industry.
Costco has many competitors with the primary two being Sam’s Club, a wholesale business being managed by Walmart, and BJ’s wholesale club. Sam’s Club is offering the same services as Costco. They offer their customers lower prices than traditional stores and like Costco they sell their products in bulk to keep members interested. What makes them a threat to Costco is the cost of becoming a member to shop at their stores. For Costco’s basic membership, known as a Business membership, a price increase had to occur to outweigh price increases from their suppliers. This led to the Costco Business membership annual fee being set at $55. When looking into the case study assembled by Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, and Strickland (2014) they point out that Sam’s Club is able to offer similar benefits ...
Customers are able to trust Costco. The company makes sure that people will know the better quality goods that it sells than other companies. The first thing that customers
Being a stocker for Costco Wholesale is a straightforward job. The stocker comes in each morning and presented with the day 's’ tasks. The stocker is monitored throughout the day by the department manager to make sure all tasks are being met in a timely manner. Costco Wholesale works less like a business and more like a well tuned machine. If one cog in a machine is faulty or rusty then the whole system will run inefficiently. Managers need to work with subordinates to further improve productivity. To avoid ineffective managers, managerial candidates should be democratically elected by future subordinates.
Nguyen, A. (2013, April 12). Costco: From Concept to $1 Billion in Three Years. Costco Wholesales Corp. . Retrieved April 6, 2014, from http://lindaperry.us/aec3033/AdNguyen2.pdf
Under this element, the company integrates different technologies into its processes, and this, in turn, leads to an increase in the efficiency of the operations of the company. For example, in its distribution system, Costco utilizes the cross-docking technology to help in the conveyances of products in the different locations. This ensures that there are no product delays in the respective markets (Guo, 2016). Accordingly, Costco can attract more customers who prefer the warehousing services provided by the company. Overall, Costco exploits the Porter’s value chain elements to increase the productivity and efficiency of its operations while also lowering the cost of margins related to the operations of the organization (Guo, 2016). These benefits result in different competitive advantages to the company which in turn increases the profitability of the organization. For each of the Porter’s value element, the different stakeholders of the company are also impacted
At present, every organization believes that operations management plays a pivotal role in establishing and maintaining global leadership, and is a part of the overall organizational strategy. The strategic part that operations management plays in hierarchical execution can be seen as more companies are moving towards dealing with their operations from a value chain viewpoint. There are many reasons that support, operations management an important element for the success of the business. It encompasses manufacturing and services, and its essential in adequately and effectively dealing with the productivity as every company ought to have high productivity which can prompt economic growth and development and help the company’s work force in getting high wages, as well as lead to a rise in organization's profit. Operations management is likewise imperative as it plays a major role in any company’s
“Excellent customer service is the process by which your organization delivers its services or products in a way that allows the customer to access them in the most efficient, fair, cost effective, and humanly satisfying and pleasurable manner possible”, (Jack Speer, 2005).