Costco CEO: Values, culture are key

[Sherman A1]

http://supermarketnews.com/membership-warehouse-clubs/costco-ceo-values-culture-are-key

No matter how big a company gets, it must maintain its core values and its culture or it could fail, Craig Jelinek, chairman and CEO of Costco Wholesale Corp., said in a speech Monday.

“Companies sometimes lose their way because they lose their core values and culture,” he told the Western Association of Food Chains at its annual convention in Palm Desert, Calif. “Your business can evolve, but it can’t afford to lose its values and its culture."

He said executives who join Costco from other companies "tend not to do well at Costco because they don’t understand the culture. Most of our managers and executives started out in the warehouses and we like to promote from within because it’s difficult to understand how what you do affects the warehouse unless you’ve worked in one.”

(How many times have we seen companies bring in consultants or executives from other companies or industries that then turn a well run company with an efficient workforce upside down and either bankrupt the firm or devastate the culture that made them what they were in the first place. )

No matter how large a business grows, Jelinek said, “you’ve got to think like a small company.

[flygal]

1. We need more companies like this!

[whathehell]

6. +100 n/t

[daleanime]

29. Amen.....

and a Costco around here! Please!

[joshdawg]

2. It seems as tho' when a company takes over another

that the first thing they want to do is change how that company was operating. Can't have it run efficiently or effectively, now can we?
They insert a solution looking for a problem when a problem is non-existent and thereby making a real mess of things.
I've been doing business with a company, which shall remain unnamed, for about two decades. A larger company took them over and now there is nothing going right with the smaller company. Solution looking for a problem when no problem existed. Aggravating, to say the least. Have contacted the folks about this and they have offered no satisfactory explanation. They keep saying that they are in a transition stage, never mind that they have been transitioning for over a year now with no end in sight.
Sorry for the length of this rant.

[Sherman A1]

8. Agreed

I have too seen this over and over and over and over again.... It is simply sad.... The new guys have all the answers, they simply don't know the questions.

[RKP5637]

11. I worked in a couple of companies like that, were huge and profitable. Then the new guys came in

and the main product of the company became transitioning. All they did was reorganize and reorganize, layoffs after layoffs, failing products and now they are long gone.

[calimary]

13. Sounds like the idiot assholes at ClearChannel - I mean iHeartRadio - I mean whatever-the-hell

they change the name to, next week or something. The bigger company came in, bought the little one out, and just KNEW it had a better idea for profit, profit, profit. Cut, cut, cut' lay off, lay off, lay off; cut expenses, cut expenses, cut expenses. And the whole chain is about to go belly-up. They're the proud owners of roughly 20-and-a-half BILLION dollars of debt, they think a few nationally syndicated jock shifts or canned programming from New York or L.A., playing the same 30 songs over and over, can work the magic. Forget serving the local community. Forget developing and supporting programming FROM the community TO the community. The big guys in New York know best. For too long now they've done away with the creative local talent that isn't afraid to take risks and try new things and break new music - that would generate new profit and listener loyalty, ratings, and higher ad rates. Hell, now they're laying off local SALES PEOPLE - the people who go get the advertising from the local sponsors to keep the bills paid. And every station in the format sounds the same because everyone is playing it safe.

And now radio is ruined.

[RKP5637]

15. Yep, SOS, we see it all the time and it's pathetic. Where I was the employees got screwed and those

at the top sailed off with millions.

[calimary]

17. Indeed. Much talk and blogging and gossiping is about the golden parachute their "wonder boy"

bob pittman is. He's driven the company into a frickin' ditch. But HE'LL be just fine. But sadly, he won't be able to take his 20+ million dollar "mist tunnel" with him.

http://pagesix.com/2014/03/19/clear-channel-boss-renovates-office-with-mist-tunnel/

[RKP5637]

18. Yep, they always have golden parachutes, almost like it's part of their plan! And then many

float off to another company and do the same thing, the guy that can make the hard calls. Yep, the guy that's a sociopath.

[calimary]

19. I suspect it IS part of their plan.

If they were captain on a sinking ship, THEY'D be in the lifeboat first.

[RKP5637]

20. No doubt about that! n/t

[hifiguy]

25. Golden parachutes should be illegal.

Some mope on the floor screws up and he or she is canned on the spot and escorted to their car.

Some imperial grand poobah runs the entire company into the ground and reduces it to a pile of smouldering ruins and they are paid tens of millions or more to go away so they can be set for life. <cough, Carly Fiorina to name but one>

There's the "meritocracy" at work.

[RKP5637]

26. Exactly, there is a legacy of them, and more than often they move onto the broad of

directors on another company, an old boy's club of circulating failures highly rewarded. It's outrageous!

[hifiguy]

27. Yep.

The entire concept of the golden parachute runs 180 degrees opposed to what the exploiters tell their serfs.

It is a scam designed to protect their own class. It removes any possible incentive to not fuck up/be an idiot.

[d_legendary1]

14. Its all about the ROI (Return On Investment)

And nothing else. Screw the worker, screw the business model, and screw the customers! They do things on the cheap around here!

[closeupready]

21. Because that's how the new managers get bigger bonuses at xmas.

The purchasing organization fires a portion of the acquired organization's staff, increase the retained staffs' workloads, rewrite business plans -- all so as to make the numbers look good.

At the end of the year, the new managers can then argue that they deserve a huge bonus because the bullshit they implemented 'saved' the organization money.

Then the next year, the red ink flows freely, and soon after that, the organization files Chapter 11.

[Omaha Steve]

3. The closest one to us is 20 plus miles

If they get any closer to us, we would go.

[LittleGirl]

7. The closest one to us is in the UK

and we made a trip there just so we could stock up at Costco. I miss going once or twice a week while we lived in the states. If it was only 20 miles, I'd still make a trip there a couple of times a month. The steaks alone would be worth the drive. We miss costco that much.

[AllyCat]

9. Ours is also that far, but we plan our trips

so we have another reason or two to be in that neck of the woods. We clean out the fridge and freezer and the pantry shelves and stock up. We have a Wally World in our town that is small and does not do groceries. There is one co-op and a large grocery that has horrible prices and is often dirty. The Wally World has been trying for a decade to buy off the city council to build an enormous super center in town using TIF money. It would decimate our beautiful, historic downtown businesses. They have nearly succeeded this time, but we may have won yet again at the 11th hour. The next 6 weeks should tell if it will be built. I won't set foot in that Wal-Mart. So we plan for Costco.

[RKP5637]

4. ...

[Dont call me Shirley]

5. Plus, shopping at Costco, is always pleasant experience.

They really need to institute some cart driving rules for the customers. Sheesh sometimes they are the worst.

[AllyCat]

10. Must be my kids driving. Sorry.

[NBachers]

12. A choice of smaller carts would help. We aren't all buying four 5 gallon buckets of soy sauce.

[cascadiance]

22. Only thing I wish they'd fix is their book selection... Too right wing!

I think since they do gobble up excess inventory of other businesses at wholesale prices, etc. they are prone to a lot of the "dumping" of RW books by the likes of Glen Beck, Bill O'Reilly, etc. and have virtually no books from progressive authors there. I think it would behoove us to find a way to communicate this by doing things like doing product "placements" like this by customers in their stores.



Maybe they'll get the message that they can find better ways of serving their customer base with the book selection they have (or don't have now!).

Bolthouse farms was also a controversial company they distribute as well when the owner of that company heavily funded Prop 8 in California too. But apparently Bolthouse separated itself from its owner more and Costco's Kirkland brand has been selling Bolthouse juices under its name.

http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=3126

Other than that though, I think Costco is great, and shop there all of the time.

[Dont call me Shirley]

30. Great idea with that product placement!

I don't buy juice so I don't support the bolthouse bigots.

[lonestarnot]

16. I bought something from them last weekend and it I didn't like it. I called them to see if I could

bring it back and they told me that I didn't even have to bring it back and that they would give me back my 10 dollars with my receipt. I love them!

[Populist_Prole]

23. No no no no no!

Come on people! The key is higher stock prices for this quarter. It must be ten percent higher than this same time last year. As to the next quarter, same deal. Plenty more blood to be squeezed from the turnip.



Really, I love the way Costco kicks the living shit out of Malwart in so many metrics ( profitability per square footage of floor space, profitability per employee, to name 2 ), and I love the way Wall St chides, and has chided them for their relative largesse to their employees.

I don't love the fact that even in my large metro area, the nearest one is 20+ miles away.

[hifiguy]

24. This is how sane capitalism is SUPPOSED to work.

Most large businesses are run by greedy lunatics with an anti-social personality disorder combined with megalomania/a messiah complex.

[SamKnause]

28. I hope they endorse Bernie.

[colsohlibgal]

31. The Anti Wal Mart

The Walton might grudgingly give in to something like $10 an hour, while Costco starts people at $16/17 an hour. They were also providing decent benefits without any pressure or laws. Just because it was the decent thing to do.

In other words these owner have this thing called empathy, the Waltons are tightwad grinches. I see them as Scrooge McDucks, wallowing in their cash vault.