Birthplace Of Silicon Valley – The HP Garage

Birthplace Of Silicon Valley - Hewlett Packard

With only $538 as investment in 1938, a time when the long fingers of the Great Depression still stuck the nation by its financial gullet, two aspiring entrepreneurs named Bill Hewlett and David Packard used a one-car garage as a part-time workshop in Palo Alto, California, to birth a company intended to become a world leader in engineering measurement and computer technology. From such unpretentious beginnings, the two Stanford University alumnae and close friends molded an organization that for half a century would outpace its competitors through groundbreaking products, progressive employee policies, and an enduring commitment to quality and customer satisfaction.

In 1938, Dave Packard left his job at General Electric in New York and returned to Palo Alto while Hewlett looked for a place to set up shop. Hewitt found a great place in suburbs, with the 12×18 foot garage the main selling point of the property on Addison Avenue. The home had a three-room, ground floor flat for Packard and his wife Lucille, while Hewlett got the shed out back. The rent was $45 per month.

In 1989, during the 50th anniversary of the recognized Hewlett-Packard corporation, the State of California termed the one-car garage first used as a workspace by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in Palo Alto as the “birthplace of Silicon Valley.” This historic landmark also represents the beginning of innovation, chance taking, and common sense policies in a company that would bourgeon as few have before or since.

367 Addison Avenue in Palo Alto - Hewlett Packard.jpg

367 Addison Avenue in Palo Alto, California, is the house and one-car garage—dubbed the “birthplace of Silicon Valley”—where William (Bill) Hewlett and David Packard began making their first product in 1939. Mr. Packard died in 1996, Mr. Hewlett in 2001. HP bought the property in 2000, 13 years after the garage was designated California Registered Landmark No. 976.

 

This garage is the birthplace of the world’s first high-technology region, “Silicon Valley.” The idea for such a region originated with Dr. Frederick Terman, a Stanford University professor who encouraged his students to start up their own electronics companies in the area instead of joining established firms in the East. The first two students to follow his advice were William R. Hewlett and David Packard, who in 1938 began developing their first product, an audio oscillator, in this garage.

California Registered Historical Landmark No. 976

California Registered Historical Landmark No. 976 - Birthplace Of Silicon Valley

Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with Hewlett-Packard Company, May 19, 1989.

The Hewlett-Packard House and Garage is also National Register Listing 07000307.

Although the garage has become Silicon Valley legend, Hewlett and Packard only stayed at the garage a mere 18 months. The company was officially founded in 1939, with HP outgrowing the garage by 1940. The company moved to a larger property nearby on Page Mill Road. The garage was bestowed the honour of the birthplace of Silicon Valley in 1989, with HP buying the property in 2000.

Warren Buffett on Time Management: “All You Need Is … Time”

Warren Buffett on Time Management: Warren Buffett once said on time management, “The rich invest in time; the poor invest in money.”

Buffett is currently the fourth richest men in the world. He can buy practically anything he wants to, and more than nearly everyone else could ever dream of.

Nevertheless there’s one thing that even Warren Buffett cannot buy, and that is time.

Here’s a brief transcript from a Charlie Rose interview:

Warren Buffett: I mean I can buy anything I want basically, but I can’t buy time.

Charlie Rose: And so to have time is the most precious thing you can have?

Warren Buffett: Yes, I better be careful with it. There is no way I will be able to buy more time.

Warren Buffett's Interview with Charlie Rose (Time Management) Charlie Rose: And living in Omaha makes that easy?

Warren Buffett: That makes it a lot easier. I, for 50 whatever, well for 54 years I spent five minutes going each way now. Just imagine that was a half an hour each way. You know. I know the words to a lot more songs and that’s about it.

Charlie Rose: It adds up. Doesn’t it?

Warren Buffett: It really adds up. Now if you’re doing an hour a day difference coming and going that’s two and a half percent of the person’s work week. That means 40 years you’re talking about a year.

An undisciplined mind will find every reason to do what should not be done and every excuse not to do what should be done. Warren Buffett once said, “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.”

Ira Glass Time Management Technique

This American Life‘s Ira Glass talks with Lifehacker about how he works. When asked what his best time-saving shortcut or life hack was, he responded:

I’ve got nothing. Reading other people’s answers to this question on your website today made me realize I live my life like an ape. I eat the same breakfast and lunch everyday, both at my desk. I employ no time-saving tricks at all.

Though come to think of it, I guess my biggest life hack—and this is the very first time I’ve attempted to use the phrase “life hack” in a sentence—is that my wife and I decided to live just a few blocks from where I work. We did this because of our dog. Since I spend at least an hour every night walking the dog, I didn’t want to spend another 60 or 90 minutes a day commuting. I don’t have the time. Like lots of people, I work long hours.

FedEx’s ZapMail Service: Failure to Foresee

Innovation is Not Without Risk

How Federal Express's Zapmail System Works

One of the defining characteristics of great leaders is their knack for seeing into the future.

Innovation is not without risk. There are plenty examples of failures at companies. However, on the other side of the coin, if you’re too cautious and too late—all you have is a dinosaur business. Navigating that fine line between risk and innovation is very important.

FedEx's Zapmail System Case in Point: ZapMail Service was a system that used fax machines at FedEx offices to transmit documents for clients in different cities. After being introduced in 1983, when FedEx was known as Federal Express, the service was soon eclipsed by the rise of fax machines priced cheaply enough that most offices could purchase their own. In addition, ZapMail was based on satellite technology, which needed the space shuttle to work effectively. However, the space shuttle blew up, dealing a body blow to FedEx’s plans. FedEx folded ZapMail in 1986, taking a costly write-off.

No Innovation Without Experimentation

Commenting about FedEx’s ability to integrating new acquisitions into its fold after its purchase of Paul Orfalea’s Kinko’s franchise, journalist Michael Copeland commented in the Autumn-2006 issue of Booz & Company’s Strategy & Leadership magazine:

As with other acquisitions, Fred Smith saw something in Flying Tigers and American Freightways that others didn’t because his point of focus lay far beyond theirs. Mr. Smith doesn’t always get it right when he looks into the future. His expensive and ultimately failed experiment in ZapMail, a dedicated fax network that couldn’t compete in the early 1980s with the new, inexpensive consumer fax machines, is proof. “A guy like Fred Smith doesn’t build a company like FedEx without taking some risks and making some mistakes,” says Mr. Hatfield, the Morgan Keegan analyst, “but clearly the successes far outweigh the failures.”

Federal Express's Zapmail System There can be no innovation without experimentation, and there can be no experimentation without the risk failure. In addition, taking risk goes against the grain of many companies’ cultures. In the corporate world, there are powerful incentives for people to play it safe. However, leaders must work particularly hard to offset these forces and give their teams the consent to fail and the assurance to make their case and go out on a limb. Leaders must not only promote experimentation, but also encourage people to terminate faster on projects that are not working without fear of reprisal. That is to repeat the cliche “fail, but fail as fast as possible” and take the lessons learned to the next experiment.

Billionaire Li Ka-shing’s Path to Success: Biography and Timeline

Billionaire Li Ka-shing's Path to Success

At 88, Li Ka-shing (b. 29-July-1928) is the richest man in Asia, with a networth of almost $35 billion, and one of the most powerful people in the world, but he began life as a impoverished war refugee.

Here is a chronicle of Li’s systematic rise from poverty and life as a plastic flower salesman to one of the world’s richest individuals with investments in banks, container ports, digital and traditional media, energy, property, and various other businesses.

  • 'Li Ka-shing Hong Kong's Elusive Billionaire' by Anthony B. Chan (ISBN 0195900766) 1928: Born in Chaozhou in China’s Guangdong Province to a school-principal father.
  • 1940: With the Japanese invading, his father packs up the family and flees to Hong Kong. Dad dies from tuberculosis two years afterward; at 12 Li joined an uncle’s plastic-watch-strap company watch company to help with his household’s rent. “The great tug of war and the taste of povert—-they are hardly memories one can forget,” Li says.
  • 1950: He quits and starts his own small business making plastic toys, shortly switching to plastic flowers. More than a decade later, riots in Hong Kong push down property values, giving him the chance to buy up commercial real estate on the cheap. As time wore on and the war ended, young Li weighed where his future lay. The Chinese nationalists were finished, he calculated, so he laid business stakes in Hong Kong. With money tight, he skipped movies and shaved his head to extend the time between haircuts, he says. What he didn’t forgo was reading–used books, manuals, leftover journals. He credits superior preparation–he was often self-taught–for his gains. When he famously gained a manufacturing foothold with the plastic flowers in the 1950s, he says, he was able to engineer critical molding machinery with an injection process made using a Coca-Cola bottle and a plastic straw, using something he saw in Modern Plastics as a guide.
  • 'Li Ka-shing No Accidental Success' by Li Yongning (ISBN 751134352X) 1972: Li lists his holding company Cheung Kong Ltd., in Hong Kong. Investors can’t get enough. The IPO is oversubscribed more than 65-fold.
  • 1978: Li visited China, after Deng Xiaoping’s reforms had begun. He later recalled, “I went to see some friends in the guesthouse. They would write notes to me because they were afraid of being eavesdropped on. They had been scared by the Cultural Revolution. Today they can openly criticize the government.”
  • 1979: Li becomes the earliest ethnic Chinese to buy a controlling stake in one of the old British trading houses, the then-struggling Hutchinson Whampoa.
  • 1979: Li begins his foray into the port business began, when he bought control of Hutchison Whampoa, a British trading house that had long dominated Hong Kong’s economy but had been struggling. One of the assets was a successful container-terminal operation in Hong Kong.
  • 'Asian Godfathers Money and Power' by Joe Studwell (ISBN 0802143911) 1986: Acquires a controlling stake in Canada’s Husky Energy. That investment plus his other assets earn him a spot on Forbes’ first ranking of the world’s billionaires a year later. “My life has been filled with challenges. But I must say, fortune has indeed bestowed many opportunities.”
  • 1990: Less than a year after the bloody Tiananmen Square incident in Beijing, Shanghai’s mayor asked Li to invest in its port operations, a congested environment where ships had to wait up to seven days at sea before gaining dock access.
  • 1999: Jackpot! Hutchinson does its biggest deal ever: selling its stake in telecom Orange Plc. to German Mannesmann for nearly $15 billion.

Li Ka-shing Biography

  • 2006: Pledges to bequeath one-third of his wealth to the Li Ka Shing Foundation to support education and health care around the world. “We all know the importance of identifying the right capital investment. Social capital is the key”
  • 'The New Elite' by Jim Taylor, Doug Harrison (ISBN 0814400485) 2007: Goes with his gut and invests in Facebook within five minutes of hearing the pitch for the fledging business. The social network scores a big valuation ($15 billion) despite scant revenue. “A person investing in technology will feel younger.”
  • 2010 to 2014: Li trims some Chinese and Hong Kong investments and looks to Europe instead. In all, his companies spend more than $28 billion buying assets on that continent, including a water company, utility firms, and two mobile phone operators. “Businesspeople in general shouldn’t have an overly narrow view of their industry.”
  • 2015: Perceiving that more of his attention is directed overseas, the government-controlled media questions his loyalty to greater China. Li issues a three-page response denying the allegations.

Through his publicly listed Hutchison Whampoa and Cheung Kong holdings, Li ka-shing controls more than $60 billion worth of assets in telecommunications, real estate, infrastructure, ports, retailing and manufacturing, energy, and technology.

Recommended Reading

Is Costco threatened by Amazon?

Is Costco Wholesale threatened by Amazon?

The North American retail landscape appears entirely different today than it did even ten years ago. The method that consumers make purchasing decisions has radically changed: they stand in stores, using their smartphones to match prices and product reviews; family and friends instantaneously chip in on shopping choices via social media; and when they’re ready to buy, an ever-growing list of online retailers deliver products directly to them, occasionally on the same day.

Brick-and-mortar retailers such as Costco simply focus on selling items that Amazon can’t beat them on. Some products do not lend themselves to package delivery since they are too big, heavy, cheap, fragile, or reliant on fitting properly. Likewise, lawn chairs, boots, thumbtacks, bags of cement, frozen shrimp, and thousands of other items are difficult to move via ecommerce channels.

Paradoxically, Costco is not one of the many companies that accuse Amazon for uninspiring growth or stagnation. Amazon can easily take bites out of the edges of Costco’s market share, and that’s all it takes to flatten out comparable sales, an important metric in the retailing industry.

Costco is remarkable at staying in stock on the goods it sells, but when it comes to general merchandise, you have to mostly grab what they have. Want Fancy Feast cat food? They’ve got it, but only in one specific flavor combination packet. If your cats don’t like it, so it goes. However, you can get precisely the flavors you want from Amazon, without waiting in lines.

Then there’s items like deodorants. While I’m happy to buy in quantity, I was unsure if Costco sells the brand I like. I ordered a four-pack from Amazon and it was here when I got home. Same with shaving cream. Women won’t find “Edge” shaving cream to have anything like a feminine smell. I bought it once. That was that: another item, gone to Amazon.

Costco established the warehouse club retail model, which depends on customer-friendly average markups on branded products (in the low double digits, compared to the high teens at WalMart and the mid-20s at most grocery stores), high throughput, bargaining power, a no-frills shopping environment, and supply-chain effectiveness.

Costco-Amazon Competitive Analysis

I still like Costco, and I’ll definitely continue re-upping my membership. The treasure hunt can be fun and the moveable feast is great. But quantity purchases of exactly the household items I want aren’t available often enough. It sells one kind of almond butter, two kinds of detergent. These are items that have forever left my Costco basket, and have actually caused a reduction in trips, as well.

Costco has lots of options left available to it. It rarely advertises. It can change that. It has been a real laggard in omnichannel retailing…any relationship between items on the website and items in stores is purely coincidental (or opportunistic). I think the company has to change that. There are some items that have to be touched and seen, even if the sale consummates on-line.

The company’s business model remains sound, but the assortment on certain items and sundries might have to broaden. No one wants to go on a treasure hunt for deodorant. That’s a seriously risky proposition.

In May 2016, UBS analyst Michael Lasser and team argued after Costco’s quarterly results that the quarter was so good that it “refutes the bear case that centers on the potential that Costco is losing customers to Amazon.com”:

We think this provides evidence that refutes the bear case that centers on the potential that Costco is losing customers to Amazon. Further, Costco’s op. margin was in line w. our expectations showing how well it’s managing in this tough environment. A lower than expected tax rate added ~$0.01 to EPS. While Costco’s sales slowed in 3Q, we think the deceleration was largely due to the pending transition of its credit card. We believe its sales will pick back up once the transition occurs on June 20. This provides a visible NT catalyst. Plus, there’s a secondary catalyst next year when Costco is likely to raise its membership fees. We think buying shares ahead of these catalysts is a prudent move.

Grocery One of Coscto's Advantages in comparison to Amazon

In July 2016, UBS analyst Michael Lasser and team explained why shares of Costco Wholesale soared after the company reported same-store sales for June:

While there was no mention of a disruption from the credit card transition, we believe it had some impact. So, the result would have been even better without this effect. Further, it’s probably too early for the shift to Visa (V) to have that much of a benefit. The gains should build in the coming months, driving an acceleration in Costco’s US comp. Even so, the company still generated a 3% increase in its global traffic. This type of performance warrants a premium valuation, in our view.

With the credit card switch in effect, spend/member is likely to pick up as private-label credit-card customers take advantage of the new card’s more attractive reward structure (2% cash back at Costco vs. 1% prior). Also, we think Costco’s reliance on grocery & gas sales (~2/3 of total sales) helps insulate it from Amazon.com (AMZN). These factors support our forecast of 4% core US comp growth in July, which would match its highest growth rate since Nov ’15.

Costco has long been known for giving higher wages and presenting more liberal benefits than its competitors —and producing superior sales per square foot, too. The benefits of the good old days are unreasonable because of rising costs and an aging population. Lifespan job tenure is obsolete and most people embrace workforce mobility. Yet in a consumption-based economy, workers must be able to afford more than the basics, and they deserve a certain measure of security.

Citing a recent report from Cowen’s Internet analyst John Blackledge, Cowen analyst Oliver Chen wrote that Amazon Prime members are expanding their shopping well beyond books, clothing and movies. Data shows that 22% of those Amazon Prime members shopping on the web site 3.5 times each month buy groceries on the web site.

As detailed in the Ahead of the Curve: Amazon Dominates “Prime” Time 50-page report by Cowen’s Internet Analyst John Blackledge), AMZN’s aggressive growth of Prime is both impressive and has wide ranging competitive implications given broad HHI, permeation across media and appeal among young consumers. How can bricks-and-mortar retail compete?

  • The key competitive weapon remains transformation towards a consumer-led supply chain which integrates physical stores to drive convenience—Buy online pick up in store, return in store, ship from store, and car pickup along store need to be utilized across chains;
  • proprietary relationships with vendors and vertical integration such as owning factories and direct sourcing capabilities;
  • frequency of store traffic based on inventory turns and product assortment;
  • emotional, brand-lead lifestyle contact;
  • categories which are not easily replicated online (jewelry, physical fitness); and
  • fashion & curation leadership.

Citi Costco Credit Card Citi’s new Costco Anyway card is significantly more appealing than Amex’s TrueEarnings Costco card. Costco’s management has stated that the terms Citi offered were too compelling for Costco to stay with Amex; to protect/ insure continued customer service levels in transition to Citi, there are significant and specific requirements associated with the portfolio.

Amazon.com Prime Compared to Costco Membership

Morgan Stanley’s Simeon Gutman and team conducted a survey and suggest five reasons that Costco Wholesale should remain Amazon.com-proof:

  • Amazon.com (AMZN) and Costco Are Not Mutually Exclusive. Of the 23% who are Costco members (628 respondents), 45% (285 respondents) are Amazon Prime members as well, which suggests the two retailers fulfill different consumer needs. Of the 33% surveyed who are Prime members (893 respondents), 32% (285 respondents) are also Costco members…
  • Grocery One of Coscto’s Advantages. 12.5%/11% of Costco members call out increased spending on packaged/fresh grocery, well ahead of the 5%/2% of Prime members….
  • Only 8% of People Shopping at Both Costco and Amazon Plan to Shift Dollars Away from Costco. Of the 14% (285 respondents) who shop at both, only a net 8% (32 respondents) plan to shift shopping away from Costco towards Amazon. This represents just 1% of total consumers surveyed.
  • Sticky Members with Higher Spend…with Amazon Scoring Higher on Multiple Qualitative Factors. 94%/95% of surveyed Prime/Costco members intend to renew their memberships, which speaks to high loyalty and low churn. Further, 49%/26% of Prime/Costco members indicated shopping more frequently over the past 12 months and 85% of surveyed members attributed “Retailer I Trust” to Amazon and Costco. It is also notable that Amazon scored materially higher than Costco in perceived prices, selection, convenience, quality of checkout and ease of navigation…which will be important to monitor going forward as these advantages could tilt Costco members’ toward Amazon over time.
  • Costco Members Younger than Perceived. The average Costco member is 49 years old vs. 44.5 for the average Amazon Prime member. This four-year gap seems insignificant, in our view, and is counter to the bear case that Costco does not resonate with millennials…

Implications: The survey results should be a positive step in alleviating the greatest investment debate for Costco, that the club model/Costco is at risk from Amazon.

Given that membership fees represent about 70% of Costco’s operating profit and renewal rates stand at about 90% in the U.S. and Canada, Costco’s long-term revenue and profit growth could stagnate. There is little room for additional household penetration because Costco by this time has around 80 million members; historic sales and earnings growth predictions may not be maintainable. Also, new club openings in current markets could cause cannibalization of sales from older locations. Not to mention of challenges in acquiring appropriate real estate choices for 140,000-square-foot warehouse clubs in urban regions.

Costco’s Winning Business Model Strategy

Costco Logo: Costco's Winning Business Model Strategy

Costco has built a devoted foundation of customers with low prices and workers with high wages. The discount warehouse services industry is highly competitive. There are several warehouse operators across the United States and Canada that offer similar merchandise quality, selection, and price.

At the end of financial year 2015, Costco managed 480 membership warehouse clubs in the United States, 89 in Canada, 36 in Mexico, 27 in the United Kingdom, 23 in Japan, 11 in Taiwan, 12 in Korea, 7 in Australia, and one in Spain. Base and executive memberships cost $55 and $110 per year, respectively. The company operates 557 warehouse stores, 406 of which are situated in 40 U.S. States and Puerto Rico. The rest are in Canada, Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and the United Kingdom.

The internet has made it immeasurably easier for shoppers to chase for the latest deal—and a lot more demanding for brick-and- mortar retailers to command customer loyalty. However, Costco has managed to resist the tendency—with only 3% of its retail sales occurring from e-commerce. In reality, it outclasses other retailers when it comes to dependably increasing sales from its millions of loyal shoppers.

At the warehouse stores, forklifts relocate pallets into racks such that the first time an item is actually touched is when the consumer contacts into the shelf to collect the item and places it into their shopping cart.

Costco's Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Costco’s Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Costco’s objective has been to increase sales while cutting long-term costs (by trimming freight expenses, scaling its merchandise, negotiating prices with vendors, and reducing packaging) with the intention that it can pass those savings down to members. Costco has said that its “rule of thumb is to give 80% to 90% back to the customer.” Those efforts have paid off, with memberships reaching an all-time peak of 81 million members in 2015.

Shiny steel caskets exhibited amongst the stacks of snow tires and pallets of heavy applesauce, rose-scented toilet tissue, mentholated shaving cream, and mild-flavored salsa. However, in time, people may grow familiarized to the sight. By including these special deal items to the cart, the total spend at the cash register expands. This behavior diverges severely with the type of consumer who has the self-control to fill up on everyday consumables at everyday low prices. The latter type of consumer does win in the end even if the cost of the membership is factored into the equation. As one (rather demonstrative) instance, when reviewing the 1999 Kroger-Fred Meyer merger, the FTC vindicated this definition by asserting,

Supermarkets compete primarily with other supermarkets that provide one-stop shopping for food and grocery products. Supermarkets primarily base their food and grocery prices on the prices of food and grocery products sold at nearby supermarkets. Supermarkets do not regularly price-check food and grocery products sold at other types of stores and do not significantly change their food and grocery prices in response to prices at other types of stores. Most consumers shopping for food and grocery products at supermarkets are not likely to shop elsewhere in response to a small price increase by supermarkets.

What Makes Costco Successful

What Makes Costco Successful

Renewals of Costco’s $55 annual memberships stand at a remarkable 91%—a record high. On the word of financial analysts, the low price of memberships and a stable return of loyal members is what sets Costco apart from big box and department store retailers which persist to fight for market-share gains in a altering landscape of increased competition from online retailers led by Amazon. Costco’s ability to dependably drive increases in traffic is a key differentiator.

Everything at Costco is continually being evaluated for productivity. Costco manages a mix of distribution facilities to accomplish the overall objective of operating with an efficient supply chain. The company lately substituted the form of their milk cartons to get rid of the empty space at the top. They can fill thinner jugs all the way to the top, so they can get more gallons onto the same amount of space on a freight truck. The loss-leader abilities of Costco’s business model ought to endure to drive market share advances over the long term. However, it is possible that incumbent grocers could react to Costco, Sam’s Club, or Walmart Supercenter entry along one or more of these non-price dimensions, in which case their prices could continue unaffected or rise.

Costco’s philosophy is to provide its members with quality goods at the most competitive prices. It does not concentrate its efforts on maximizing prices in the short term, but instead focuses to maintain a perception among its members of “pricing authority,” or constantly providing the most competitive prices. This question is actually quite complex in that it has multiple answers that boil down to individual consumer behavior. The reality is that Costco has perfected a purchasing strategy known as the “treasure hunt” which means that there are always new items and tempting deals that extemporaneously come and go. The consumer who walks every aisle knows what I mean by this because they are subconsciously on the treasure hunt.

During the next 10 years, warehouse openings should move the number of primary cardholders to 65 million–75 million, up from 45 million in the most current fiscal year. In spite of having warehouses that spanned three acres, and piles of merchandise stacked to the ceiling, Costco carried only 4,000 carefully chosen products at a time. Three-quarters of the items were such “basic” products as batteries, laundry detergent, and instant noodles. Then there were the “high-end” name-brand products, which might be stocked at Costco one day and then gone the next.

Costco Employees Happier with Wages and Benefits

Costco Employees Happier with Wages and Benefits

While Walmart and Target just recently began increasing take-home pay for their employees, Costco has been an industry trendsetter for years. With starting hourly pay at about $11.50 and a company average of $22 per hour, Costco’s compensation costs beat the competition. Costco has asserted that paying employees well can be more advantageous eventually by keeping turnover low and capitalizing on employee efficiency. Actually, turnover stands at about 10% compared with the industry average of 55%. For employees who have been there more than one year turnover drops to just 6%. Employees rarely leave: The company turnover rate is 5% among employees who have been there over a year, and less than 1% among the executive ranks. Costco management has asserted that loyal employees bring about better customer service.

Costco purchases the majority of their merchandise promptly from manufacturers and routes it through a network of cross-docking facilities, which act as merchant consolidation points to move goods in full truckload volumes to the stores. Sam’s Club carries about 4900 items and Costco around 4000; by comparison, the normal grocery store carries approximately 50,000 and the average Walmart about 100,000. Furthermore, the shopping experience at warehouse clubs is unusual—members pay a fee for access to goods stacked high and sold in wholesale quantities in low-amenity environments. Warehouse clubs are very spartan in their accommodations. They do not bag consumers’ purchases, and a club employee checks all shoppers’ carts and receipts on exit.

Secret to Costco's Success Lies in Supply Chain Efficiency

The Secret to Costco’s Success Lies in Supply Chain Efficiency

Big-box retailers Costco, Sam’s Club, BJ’s Wholesale, and Walmart, along with full-service and fast food restaurants, are significant contributors to the nation’s obesity outbreak. Costco continues to productively increase its businesses, on account of its low prices and robust customer loyalty. Its ability to provide quality products, at a reasonable price, should appeal to most consumers in North America and around the world. While competition in the market remains ferocious, Costco’s leadership is taking the right steps to guide the company into the future. Over the years, Costco added departments, growing further than the traditional discount warehouse offerings. A large majority of the stores featured a drugstore, an optical-dispensing center, one-hour photo services, a food court, and the ever admired and low-priced hot-dog stands. More than half-offered hearing-aid centers and a handful were equipped with print shops and copy centers. More generally, not all big-box chains are created equal. The big-box retail literature has fixated almost exclusively on Walmart, examining its effects on a wide range of outcomes, including prices, labor market consequences, small business activity, time use, obesity, and social and cultural pointers.

Using city-level panel grocery price data matched with an exclusive data set on Walmart and warehouse club locations, customers find that Costco entry is associated with higher grocery prices at obligatory retailers and that the effect is sturdiest in cities with small populations and high grocery store densities. The competitive response need not be to reduce prices; conversely, as segmented-market models with a mix of brand-loyal and price-sensitive consumers have shown that in some cases incumbents can increase prices in response to a low-cost entrant.

The lesson to be learned from Costco for every manufacturer, distributor, or retailer, regardless of industry, is to figure out how to eliminate the fingerprints within the respective supply chain and within internal processes.

The Rise and Fall of Theranos

The Rise and Fall of Theranos

Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of Theranos Two years ago, the blood-testing startup Theranos was one of the hottest assets in Silicon Valley. Valued at $9 billion, it guaranteed nothing short of a paradigm shift in medicine with its groundbreaking, needle-free test process. CEO Elizabeth Holmes, a 32-year-old Stanford dropout, was effusively profiled in the business press as the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. But now, the company is fighting for its survival, in the midst of claims that its tests are “at best, fundamentally flawed and, at worst, unsafe.” The disturbance began six months ago, when The Wall Street Journal reported that the company’s breakthrough technology, which could reasonably run hundreds of tests with blood from a finger prick, couldn’t really deliver. Not long after, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which regulates lab testing, said that Theranos put patients’ lives at risk with faulty tests at its California lab. The latest blow: The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lately began independent criminal investigations into whether Theranos deceived investors about its technology.

Nothing is proven yet. It’s very unusual for the SEC to investigate a privately held company like Theranos, but it could begin to happen more often. SEC Chair Mary Jo White wants to give more enquiry to the growing number of so-called unicorn startups, which are valued at more than $1 billion, “because they pose a high risk to investors.” The company’s fate is now in the hands of its charismatic founder—as the company’s leader, chairwoman, and majority stakeholder, Holmes can command what she wants done at her company. It’s a common procedure in Silicon Valley’s startup philosophy, where boards have “little real power.” Many venture capitalists are willing to take the risk, hoping to get in with the next Mark Zuckerberg, but “if trouble brews,” the cult encircling a founder can become a obligation. That’s largely because there is no such thing as investigative journalism in Silicon Valley. Journalism here is largely confused with, and deliberately conflated with, public relations, but they’re not the same thing.

So far, Theranos has never been able to establish its testing technology really works. Rather than publishing research in peer-reviewed journals, or letting its blood-testing machines to be assessed by external experts, the company has continually kept its methods cloaked in secrecy. Theranos has reasoned that it was guarding trade secrets, but testing openness is customary routine in the medical industry. Even drug companies, which function in a exceedingly aggressive segment, issue adequate results of their drug trials to establish that a medicine actually works, whilst even keeping sufficient details secret to make their product proprietary. Blood testing is a $73-billion-a-year commerce set for disruption—as any person who’s had blood drawn can confirm, it’s laborious, uncomfortable, and pricey.

Theranos is under investigation for fraud, which is weird for a private company. Theranos is performing tests on patients without having published peer reviewed research—a cardinal sin in science—and with minimal federal oversight. Theranos should have attracted scrutiny long before it did.

The Walmart Cheer

The Walmart Cheer

In building Walmart as the world’s greatest retailer, founder Sam Walton borrowed every good idea he’d come across. And one of those ideas is the famous Walmart Cheer:

Give Me a W!
Give Me an A!
Give Me an L!
Give Me a Squiggly!
(Here, everybody sort of does the twist.)
Give Me an M!
Give Me an A!
Give Me an R!
Give Me a T!
What’s that spell?
Wal-Mart!
What’s that spell?
Wal-Mart!
Who’s number one?
THE CUSTOMER!

From Walton’s autobiography, “Made In America”:

Helen (Walton’s wife) and I picked up several ideas on a trip we took to Korea and Japan in 1975. A lot of the things they do over there are very easy to apply to doing business over here. Culturally, things seem so different—like sitting on the floor eating eels and snails—but people are people, and what motivates one group generally will motivate another.

And Helen Walton is quoted,

Sam took me out to see this tennis ball factory, somewhere east of Seoul. The company sold balls to Wal-Mart, I guess, and they treated us very well. It was the dirtiest place I ever saw in my life, but Sam was very impressed. It was the first place he ever saw a group of workers have a company cheer. And he liked the idea of everybody doing calisthenics together at the beginning of the day. He couldn’t wait to get home and try those ideas out in the stores and at the Saturday morning meeting.

'Sam Walton: Made In America' by Sam Walton (ISBN 0553562835) All training activities include the Walmart cheer. Every morning, store associates participate in the cheer. A few people stand up to read the daily numbers, then break out into a chant—“Give me a W-A-L-M-A-R-T,” with the rest of the people in the room shouting back the same letter. Back then, Wal-Mart still had a hyphen, so between the L and the M they would yell, “Give me a squiggly!” and everyone would do a butt wiggle.

All across America, Walmart convenes nearly 60,000 regularly scheduled meetings each week, all of them starting and ending with the Walmart cheer. Also, each store has a 15-minute shift-change meeting three times a day, when a new wave of cashiers, stockers, and supervisors arrives. Their meetings start with a Walmart Cheer.

Sam Walton Saw No Need for Unions at Walmart

Pro-Union Activists Protest Against Walmart's Anti-Union Policies

Walmart has always been criticized for its policies against labor unions. Supporters of unionization efforts blame workers’ reluctance to join the labor union on Walmart’s anti-union tactics such as managerial surveillance and pre-emptive closures of stores or departments that choose to unionize. Leaked internal documents show that Walmart’s strategy for fighting to keep its workers from forming unions includes instructing managers to report suspicious activity and warning workers that joining unionizing efforts could hurt them.

Walmart’s management has contended that it’s employees do not need to pay third parties to discuss problems with management as the company’s open-door policy enables employees to lodge complaints and submit suggestions all the way up the corporate ladder. Sam Walton, founder of Walmart wrote in his autobiography:

'Sam Walton: Made In America' by Sam Walton (ISBN 0553562835) I have always believed strongly that we don’t need unions at Wal-Mart. Theoretically, I understand the argument that unions try to make, that the associates need someone to represent them and so on. But historically, as unions have developed in this country, they have mostly just been divisive. They have put management on one side of the fence, employees on the other, and themselves in the middle as almost a separate business, one that depends on division between the other two camps. And divisiveness, by breaking down direct communication makes it harder to take care of customers, to be competitive, and to gain market share. The partnership we have at Wal-Mart—which includes profit sharing, incentive bonuses, discount stock purchase plans, and a genuine effort to involve the associates in the business so we can all pull together—works better for both sides than any situation I know of involving unions. I’m not saying we pay better than anybody, though we’re certainly competitive in our industry and in the regions where we’re operating; we have to be if we want to attract and keep good people. But over the long haul, our associates build value for themselves—financially and otherwise—by believing in the company and keeping it headed in the right direction. Together, we have ridden this thing pretty darned far.

Source: Sam Walton’s autobiography, Made In America

The Rise of the Fast Casual Restaurants

Fast Casual Restaurants - Mexican concepts

Fast Casual is the fastest growing segment of the restaurant industry. They bridge a gap in the market between fast-food restaurants and casual dining restaurants. The National Restaurant Association recently endorsed a group of 15 fast casual restaurant brand executives to its newly formed Fast Casual Industry Council and recognizes it as one of the fastest-growing segments of the restaurant industry today.

With a hybrid approach, fast casual restaurant chains such as Shake Shack, Nando’s chicken restaurants, Panera Bread, Noodles & Company, Qdoba Mexican Grill, Baja Fresh, and Chipotle Mexican Grill have been winning customers by offering the following enhancements.

  1. Food Quality: They promise “fresh” food, meaning at the very least not frozen or without as much processed ingredients. Chipotle also says it uses, where possible, meat from animals raised without hormones or antibiotics, and organic and locally grown vegetables. Chipotle is at the forefront of a consumer shift toward naturally-raised proteins and organic produce. Though more costly to source, these fresh ingredients are a key source of differentiation and pricing power.
  2. Service Type: They offer diners a high level of customization, such as choosing each ingredient in a sandwich, burrito or burger. This appeals to fussy eaters and those with allergies. The service is not always as quick as at a burger joint but, it seems, quick enough. Some fast-casual chains let diners order at their tables.
  3. The Rise of the Fast Casual Restaurants Menu Prices: They have clever pricing that lets can allow optimization of profits. They offer some dishes at around the same price as those at burger joints, but they seem to be better than McDonald’s at nudging diners towards pricier dishes and extras. Fast-casual chains typically manage to squeeze 40% more out of each diner’s wallet than fast-food joints do. For example, at Chipotle, the average customer spend per visit per restaurant in 2013 stood at $11.56, one of the highest in the fast casual segment, with a growth rate of 1% over the prior year.
  4. Atmosphere and Decor: They give each outlet or store a touch of distinctiveness. This distances them in the eyes of consumers from the “corporate” feel of burger chains. For instance, Nando’s is known to decorate its restaurants with South African art. Even if not technically in the fast casual category, a reinvigorated food and beverage menu and store redesigns have improved the Starbucks customer experience, penetrated new day parts, and improved unit-level productivity metrics.

Both fast casual and quick-service both provide food order and pick-up services from a counter, which vastly improves speed of service.

We forecast that the fast-casual restaurant category to outpace the broader restaurant industry over the next several years.

Fast-casual restaurant competition is intensifying, and switching costs are nonexistent. We estimate that Mexican concepts make up nearly one fourth of the $38 billion fast-casual industry in the U.S.