Retailing Case Study Walgreens

Walgreens has thrived in the pharmaceutical industry among many competitors in the 117 years at has done business to become one of America’s most respected companies and the benchmark of the retail drugstore business. (Our Past). Fast forward from 1901 to 2014 and Walgreens has transformed into a worldwide icon by completing a successful merger with Alliance Boots to become the publicly traded company

I chose Walgreens, Kroger, and Walmart for my grocery stores visits. There are obvious differences in each store. The major different in each store are the pricing and the layout of each store. The marketing strategies for each grocery store are similar but not exactly alike. Walmart is a superstore the store offers everything from a wide arrangement of items the household, garden, auto, electronics and beauty.

When it comes to Walgreens Business level strategy it seems they are focused on differentiation through strategic geographic easy accessibility. This strategy fits right in line with their mission statement “To be the most trusted, convenient, multichannel provider and advisor of innovative pharmacy, health and wellness solutions, and consumer goods and services in communities across America. A destination where health and happiness come together to help people get well, stay well and live well.” (Walgreens Historical Highlights). Walgreens strives to fit in locations where their competitors cannot fit.

Publix Market was founded in 1930 as a privately-owned company in Winter Haven, Florida by George Jenkins. The founder had two main focuses. The first was to create the best shopping experience for his customers. The second is to create the best working environment for his employees. They have continued to have growth in a very challenging retail space.

Interpreting Financial Results: Walgreens Corporation Walgreens Corporation is a global pharmaceutical company specializing in the wholesale and retail of prescription drugs and health and wellbeing products. The company boasts of a wide distribution network for pharmaceuticals, as well as the title of the largest purchaser of prescription medicine in the world. As of December 2014, the company is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Walgreens Boots Alliance, after a merger with Alliance Boots. Using ratio analysis, this paper seeks to analyse the financial statements of Walgreens Corporation and interpret these results against historical data, as well as industry benchmarks. Particular emphasis is on the balance sheet and the income statement from the year 2013 to 2015.

1. In the broader context (not specific to Dollar General), what is KKR’s investment strategy? What are the challenges KKR will encounter to make its investment in Dollar General successful? How could KKR add value to Dollar General?

More recently Walgreens plan to innovate and reinvent Walgreens was outlined by CEO Gregory Wasson at their 2014 Annual Shareholders Meeting. Named “plan to win” Walgreens, has decided to reposition itself as a health care company through convenience, pharmacy modernization and increased focus on customer care. The company has slowed the growth of new stores and instead they have remodeled their pharmacies, devoted more space to health care and introduced several new innovated features to include Walgreens Take Care Clinics (WTCC), a multipurpose room and a room for community-based health events (CBHE) in their stores. The WTCC allows customers to walk in and receive professional health care, the multipurpose room is where patients receive health screenings and immunizations and the CBHE room is where wellness events and biometric health fairs are held (EY, 2012). Dubbed the “Well Experience”, Walgreens has an increased focus on and invested in training so that employees are, “highly engaged in delivering extraordinary customer care with the right products and solutions in every community in America” (Walgreens, 2014).

Its purpose is to champion everyone’s right to be happy and healthy.” (Walgreens.com, 2017) Discussion of Business Problem According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index 2016, under Health & Personal Care stores category. Walgreens rank last in a 3 way tie with CVS and Walmart in customer satisfaction score of 76. (ACSI, 2016)

The first Lowe 's store, which was Lowe 's North Wilkesboro Hardware, was first opened in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina in 1921 by Lucius Smith Lowe. Lucius Lowe died in 1940 and the business was then inherited by his daughter Ruth Lowe. Ruth sold the company to her brother Jim Lowe. Jim took on Carl Buchan as a partner in 1943. Buchan predicted the dramatic increase in construction after World War II, and the two partners decided that the store should only focus on hardware and building materials.

Walgreens is the nation’s leading operator of hospital outpatient pharmacies, serving about 180 health systems nationwide. They offer patients a way to pay for all of this and maintain their prescriptions in one place without sacrificing the safety, service or convenience. Walgreens remains among the fastest growing retailers in the country with a growth rate of between 1.5 and 2.5 percent in 2013. In 2010 Walgreens acquired the Duane Reade drugstore chain in New York City, and began building many of its urban retailing and store design concepts into Walgreens stores across the country. Walgreens powered Duane Reade’s pharmacy operations with the best of Walgreens systems and expertise.

3. INTRODUCTION Today retailing services has become very much important in the competitive environment. Customer service quality has been widely used by the retailers as one of the important strategy. Retailing is the second largest employment provider after agriculture.

• Walgreens has aligned itself with AARP. Partnering together they have launched a multi-year program targeting seniors. Through events such as Ask About Your Medications organized by AARP and held at various Walgreen locations customers are able to listen to their pharmacist discuss and explain various medications. There is also a website for this program which displays both the AARP and Walgreens logos. Weakness: CVS: • Real Estate compared to walgreens.

1. Assess what the likely components of Wal-Mart’s system are. And explain how various networking concepts (bandwidth, routing, routers, and the client/server model) either are being or could be used to meet Walmart’s networking needs. The components of Wal-Mart system consist of the following: a)

I. Introduction Walmart Stores, Inc. - the American corporation which was established in 1962, is well-know for the globe’s largest multinational retailer (Walmart 2016). Walmart owns a chain of grocery stores, discount department stores and hypermarkets with about 11,500 retail stores over 28 countries. In 1998, Walmart entered Germany with the acquisition of Wertkauf and Interspar chain (Louisa 2006). Despite having the strongest economy in Europe and the third largest retail market in the world, Germany was not an ideal place for Walmart to achieve its ambition (Knorr and Andt 2003). After nearly a decade struggling to grow, Walmart decided to pull out of German market in 2006 with the loss of one billion dollars (Mark 2006).

Superior quality and innovation are important to achieving superior customer responsiveness. The ability to satisfy the needs of your customers will allow for your company to stay ahead of your rivals. Customers will be more likely to choose a company if they feel like their voice or opinion is being heard. Another part of this building block is the customer response time. Customers want their products quickly, so ability to deliver the product or service at a quicker rate is important.