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Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 3 1.1 Mission......................................................................................................................... 3 1.2 Vision ........................................................................................................................... 3 1.3 Strategic goal ............................................................................................................... 3 2.0 Costco‟s strategy and changes over decades ................................................................... 4 2.1 Costco‟s Strategy ......................................................................................................... 4 2.2 Changes in business growth strategies over decades ................................................... 4 2.3 Costco‟s strategic goals................................................................................................ 7 2.4 Influence of business growth strategies on Costco‟s strategic goal ............................. 7 3.0 Costco‟s strategies- „Realized‟ ...................................................................................... 10 4.0 Costco‟s success other than profit maximisation ........................................................... 12 5.0 Influence of stakeholders on Costco‟s objectives .......................................................... 12 6.0 Change of global ambitions ........................................................................................... 13 7.0 Costco‟s relationship with partners ................................................................................ 13 8.0 Costco‟s business success .............................................................................................. 14 9.0 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 16 References ............................................................................................................................ 17

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1.0 Introduction The Economist is a leading news magazine in the world which does not necessarily adhere only to economic affairs as its name suggests. The Economist is a pioneer in delivering news from all over the world covering the aspects of business, finance, science and technology. However, the name of the brand is often mistaken to be billion dollar business corporation is a pioneer in the field of retail and wholesale sales with the dedication to deliver high quality business through exceptional business values. Costco Wholesale Corporation operates with more than 700 warehouses throughout countries such as the US, the UK, the Asia-pacific region and Australia with a gross revenue of 116.2 Billion and a gross income of 15. The Economist is a leading news magazine in the world which does not necessarily adhere only to economic affairs as its name suggests. The Economist is a pioneer in delivering news from all over the world covering the aspects of business, finance, science and technology. However, the name of the brand is often mistaken to be the storage of items in large warehouse stores which offers its customers fresh and high quality products at a price lower than that of its competitors (Costco Wholesale, 2014).

1.1 Mission "To continually provide our members with quality goods and services at the lowest possible prices (Costco Wholesale, 2016)” 1.2 Vision “a place where efficient buying and operating practices give members access to unmatched savings (Lombardo, 2015)” 1.3 Strategic goal “reach 1000 warehouses by 2025 (Steinberg, 2012)”

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2.0 Costco’s strategy and changes over decades 2.1 Costco’s Strategy The Economist is a leading news magazine in the world which does not necessarily adhere only to economic affairs as its name suggests. The Economist is a pioneer in delivering news from all over the world covering the aspects of business, finance, science and technology. However, the name of the brand is often mistaken to be leadership model enables maximisation of warehouse space, maintenance of very small margins and reduction of operation costs in almost all aspects.

Table 1: Costco’s Strategies Strategies Product Strategy

Description The product strategy of Costco implies meeting the diverse needs of its customers through serving the products at lowest price which allows high volume purchasing by customers(Dalavagas, 2015).

The pricing strategy of Costco aligns the company‟s business strategy Pricing strategy wherein the name itself denotes „Wholesale‟ and the mission statement reveal „lowest possible prices‟. Furthermore, the firm also prices its products at 10-15 per cent lower than its market rivals. Other strategies include limited product SKUs, no advertisements, and low compensation costs of top management(Carr-Hilton, Mak, Luongo and Ho, 2014).

Inventory and Membership cards are provided to customers to increase the brand loyalty. The inventory strategy includes promotion of warehouse Membership environment to the customers thereby promoting bulk sales(Cheung, Strategy Qian and Carrillo, 2013).

The compensation strategy of Costco is different from the retail and Compensation wholesale leader in the US, the WalMart. It is claimed that the average strategy wages at Costco is around 21 dollars per hour which is double the compensation at WalMart (Yang et al., 2015).

Source: Adopted from Dalavagas (2015); Carr-Hilton et al. (2014); Cheung, Qian and Carrillo (2013) and Yang et al. (2015).

2.2 Changes in business growth strategies over decades The business growth strategies by Costco are explained in the following table: Table 2: Business growth strategies 4 © 2017-2018 All Rights Reserved, No part of this document should be modified/used without prior consent Tutors India™ Your trusted mentor since 2001 I www.tutorindia.com UK: The Portergate, Ecclesall Road, Sheffield, S11 8NX I UK # +44-1143520021, Info@tutorsindia.com

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Expansion of stores

-

Organic growth E-commerce

-

Costco intends to open another 100 international stores in the next decade The company aspires to launch stores throughout Asia, Europe and Australia, and local warehouses Provide high quality products at low price Increase membership count Expansion options through online marketplace may aid new establishments in foreign nations

Source: Adopted from Costco Wholesale (2014) The Economist is a leading news magazine in the world which does not necessarily adhere only to economic affairs as its name suggests. The Economist is a pioneer in delivering news from all over the world covering the aspects of business, finance, science and technology. However, the name of the brand is often mistaken to be company over decades which are almost based on the adoption of the business growth strategies.

Figure 1: Changes in business growth strategies of Costco over decades

Organic growth strategy

1976

First warehouse club

1985

First hot dog cart- high quality hot dog + soda sold at $1.50

1987

First bakery production initiated

1995

Kirkland signature brand introduced

2001

Costco Hot dog and soda still sold at $1.50

Expansion growth strategy

1976

First warehouse club

1986

First warehouse in Canada

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E-commerce strategy

1976

First warehouse club

1998

E-commerce business began

Source: Adopted from Costco-Business (2016) Figure 2: Expansion of Costco warehouses in Asia

YANGPYUNG, SEOUL

1994

1997

YANGJAE, SEOUL MAKUHARI, CHIBA

DAEJEON

1998

1999

DAEGU

HISAYAMA, FUKUOKA

SANGBONG, SEOUL

KANAZAWA SEASIDE, YOKOHAMA

2001

2003

2004

2007

AMAGASAKI, HYOGO

KAWASAKI, KAWASAKI

BUSAN SHIMISATO, SAITAMA

ULSAN, GWANGMYEONG TAMASAKI, MACHIDA,TOKYO KOBE SEISHIN, HYOGO

2009

2011

MAEBASHI, GUNMA KYOTO YAWATA, KYOTO ZAMA, KAWASAKI

2012

2013

2000

ILSAN, GYEONGG SAPPORO, SAPPORO IRUMA, SAITAMA

2008

EUIJEONGBU,GYEONGGI CHEONAN, CHUNGNAM HITACHINAKA, IBARAKI IZUMI, OSAKA

2014

KITAKYUSYU, FUKUOKA HIROSHIMA, HIROSHIMA TSUKUBA, IBARAKI CHIBA NEW TOWN, CHIBA CHUBU AIRPORT, AICHI

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Source: Adopted from Baek (2015) The Economist is a leading news magazine in the world which does not necessarily adhere only to economic affairs as its name suggests. The Economist is a pioneer in delivering news from all over the world covering the aspects of business, finance, science and technology. However, the name of the brand is often mistaken to be considered. Costco‟s expansion towards the east Asia, especially Korea and Japan had major issues such as shift in culture. Transnational business does not necessarily reveal fruitful results. However, in Japan the warehouse model with membership based sales was challenging and Costco achieved success by selling selected products of national brands which attracted the native Japanese customers. Costco provided selected range of products at low prices which lead the business model to success in Japan. In the Korean context, the company witnessed success when The Economist is a leading news magazine in the world which does not necessarily adhere only to economic affairs as its name suggests. The Economist is a pioneer in delivering news from all over the world covering the aspects of business, finance, science and technology. However, the name of the brand is often mistaken to be the retail warehouse segment in the country (Baek, 2015).

2.3 Costco’s strategic goals Costco Wholesale aspires to reach 1000 warehouses by the year 2022-2025. This is also considered to be a long term goal of Costco (Steinberg, 2012). With such a goal, the company aspires to become the number one global retailer surpassing Walmart, which is in the first position right now.

2.4 Influence of business growth strategies on Costco’s strategic goal The Economist is a leading news magazine in the world which does not necessarily adhere only to economic affairs as its name suggests. The Economist is a pioneer in delivering news from all over the world covering the aspects of business, finance, science and technology. However, the name of the brand is often mistaken to be warehouses by 2025).

The estimated values based on the historical data of Costco‟s increase of total warehouses using the FORECAST function in MS-EXCEL revealed the increased growth of Costco‟s 7 © 2017-2018 All Rights Reserved, No part of this document should be modified/used without prior consent Tutors India™ Your trusted mentor since 2001 I www.tutorindia.com UK: The Portergate, Ecclesall Road, Sheffield, S11 8NX I UK # +44-1143520021, Info@tutorsindia.com

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warehouses to reach 954 stores which is in line with the goal of Costco to reach 1000 stores by 2025.

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Figure 3: Actual growth of Costco’s warehouses over years

NUMBER OF WAREHOUSES 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0

540

2010

592

608

634

2011

2012

2013

663

686

715

2014

2015

2016

Source: Statista (2016) Figure 4: Estimated Costco’s warehouses growth

NUMBER OF ESTIMATED WAREHOUSES 1200 1000 800

744

766

795

821

847

874

900

927

954

600

Number of estimated warehouses

400 200 0 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025

Source: Author calculations

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3.0 Costco’s strategies- ‘Realized’ The Economist is a leading news magazine in the world which does not necessarily adhere only to economic affairs as its name suggests. The Economist is a pioneer in delivering news from all over the world covering the aspects of business, finance, science and technology. However, the name of the brand is often mistaken to be of Costco Wholesale Corporation are composed all together as shown in Table 3.

Table 3: Costco Wholesale Corporation- strategic goals, objectives and achievements No Goal/ Objectives 1

1

2

3

4 5

6

7

Description

Whether achieved at Costco?

GOALS Reach 1000 Costco Wholesale aspires to Costco‟s total number of warehouses by reach 1000 warehouses by the warehouses reached 715 in 2016.

2025 year 2022-2025 Estimated values return positive results (Figure 3,4) OBJECTIVES High quality at The services and goods sold at Low cost and high quality low prices the firm should be of good products are sold which is evident quality at low prices through “Kirkland signature”, products of Costco Management of Operations management Human resource training and Quality objective involving quality development programmes for control establishing consistency and quality control achieved at Costco Capacity and Capacities of storage should be Warehouse style design serves the process design maximised and operations in objective which ensures utilisation capacity management should be of spaces and capacities efficient Location Warehouse stores should be at Stores are located mostly in cities the reach of customers easily Layout design Appropriate use of company Warehouse style store designs spaces enable minimisation of extra spaces Human Highly productive employees Internal leadership programmes to resources are required to work at promote employees to the next warehouses and internal level. leadership should be nourished Management of Effective management of Combine operations of both retail inventory inventory and storage spaces in one place positively affect management of inventory 10 © 2017-2018 All Rights Reserved, No part of this document should be modified/used without prior consent Tutors India™ Your trusted mentor since 2001 I www.tutorindia.com UK: The Portergate, Ecclesall Road, Sheffield, S11 8NX I UK # +44-1143520021, Info@tutorsindia.com

-

8

Scheduling

9

Maintenance

Human resource utilisation Scheduling of jobs through should be maximised automated systems aids maximised utilisation of human resources.

Maintenance costs should be Warehouse style design aids reduced reduce the cost of maintenance.

Business model (Cost leadership model) is itself a maintenance cost reduction strategy.

Source: Adopted from Kissinger (2015) The Economist is a leading news magazine in the world which does not necessarily adhere only to economic affairs as its name suggests. The Economist is a pioneer in delivering news from all over the world covering the aspects of business, finance, science and technology. However, the name of the brand is often mistaken to be achieved through the adoption of cost leadership model which satisfies the strategic objectives of the company.

With new warehouses to be established in the near future, Costco‟s strategies were intended at the beginning and will deliberately become a realised one.

Figure 5: Costco’s ‘Realised’ strategy REALISED STRATEGY

INTENDED STRATEGY

Goals- Reach 1000 warehouses all over the world Objectives• High quality at low price • •

Appropriate management of

Total number of

Quality

warehouses till

Appropriate capacity and

2016- 715

process design •



Felicitous selection of location



Objectives of the

for Warehouse stores

company are

•

Appropriate layout design

satisfied through the

•

Appropriate management of

adoption of Cost-

human resources •

Appropriate management of

leadership model

inventory •

Appropriate scheduling

•

Appropriate maintenance

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UNREALISED STRATEGY - Advertisements - Merger with Price - Increased product SKUs

EMERGENT STRATEGY - Memberships, no advertisement marketing, sales of limited items,

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Source: Author, 2016 The Economist is a leading news magazine in the world which does not necessarily adhere only to economic affairs as its name suggests. The Economist is a pioneer in delivering news from all over the world covering the aspects of business, finance, science and technology. However, the name of the brand is often mistaken to be chain to adopt membership model in Taiwan (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2016). The number of memberships has even improved in the country which denotes the organisation‟s intended strategies (cost leadership with membership model, low pricing, compensation strategy) to be realised in the Asian region (Fruitnet, 2010). However, the organisation is examining whether they could acquire fruitful results with expanding into China which is a country where even WalMart is struggling to achieve success (Moskowitz, 2014).

4.0 Costco’s success other than profit maximisation Costco‟s business model has led the organisation to be known as the world‟s second largest retail chain (Farfan, 2016b). Apart from profit maximisation, Costco‟s „Kirkland Signature‟ appears to have acquired a brand name in the global market equal to other national and international brands (Costco, 2016).

5.0 Influence of stakeholders on Costco’s objectives Three levels of stakeholders are identified for retail stores and are the same for Costco. They are internal owners, employees and shareholders, Government, and community.

Internal owners and shareholders are the sole decision makers of the firm and set the strategic objectives of the firm.

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The Economist is a leading news magazine in the world which does not necessarily adhere only to economic affairs as its name suggests. The Economist is a pioneer in delivering news from all over the world covering the aspects of business, finance, science and technology. However, the name of the brand is often mistaken to be Employee relations had been a major concern with Costco. Though Costco provides many great benefits for its employees, the Teamsters unions which represent 16000 workers in the Costco wholesale are trying to reject contract with the company due to pension discrepancies. Such issues may affect the growth of the company. However, if the results of negotiations are better, then Costco will further be steered by committed employees (Reuters, 2016).

Government policies on certain cases of animal welfare had great impacts on Costco‟s brand name. An example would be the undercover investigation conducted by the Humane The Economist is a leading news magazine in the world which does not necessarily adhere only to economic affairs as its name suggests. The Economist is a pioneer in delivering news from all over the world covering the aspects of business, finance, science and technology.

However, the name of the brand is often mistaken to be 6.0 Change of global ambitions The goal of Costco is itself a global ambition to spread sales across countries in different continents. Costco has been embracing the expansion frenzy scenario since 2013 wherein the company had opened 200 new warehouse stores outside the U.S. (Farfan, 2016a).

7.0 Costco’s relationship with partners Costco strategically aligned with Price Club in the year 1993 and

named the

company as „PriceCostco‟. The strategic alliance improved the sales of the merged brand. However, the duo dissolved and an independent enterprise named Costco Wholesale began operations in 1997. The company has partnered with different companies such as Mypublisher.com to diversify their portfolio (Successstory, 2016).

Partnership firms with Costco enjoy great benefits which could be explained through a real time example. AmEx (American Express) which had partnered with Costco for 15 years is now losing its relationship with the company and claims to lose great revenue with this dissolution. This proves Costco‟s impact on its partner firms (Sweet, 2015).

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8.0 Costco’s business success Costco‟s business strategy which mostly adopts the cost leadership model has positive impacts on the company‟s growth over the years. An analysis to examine the growth of the company in terms of its sales reveals the organisation‟s presence as the second largest retailer in the US by sales. Following are the graphs to elucidate the sales of Costco comparing the same with its competitors and the estimated growth of the company in terms of sales -

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Figure 6: Sales Comparison

SALES (in billion USD)

600 500

483.84

400 300 200 100

71.6

92.03

112.4 61.09

39.41

117.94

15.67

0

Source: Adopted from Deloitte (2015) Figure 7: Estimated sales growth

SALES (in Billion USD) 140 135.48 135 130

127.25

125 120

Sales (in Billion) 118.72

115 110 2016 (A)

2017 (E)

2018 (E)

Source: Adopted from 4-Traders (2016)

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The tremendous growth of the organisation over the years and the estimation based on the analysis of historic data of sales growth reveal the company‟s growth in the retail market.

9.0 Conclusion Costco Wholesale Corporation is the second largest retail firm in the United States and identified to be one among the global pioneers in retail sales. The adoption of cost leadership strategy is identified to be the driving factor for financial growth of the firm. The cost leadership model supported the organisation to achieve all its strategic business objectives and positively influence all its stakeholders. Overall, the company‟s adoption of business strategies has been successful towards achieving its mission values and improved sales growth.

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