Corporate Governance Practices and Customer Brand Based Equity of Costco Wholesale Limited

Assignment brief

-A full individual report of 6000 words will be required for the summative assessment.This will include an action plan and recommendations to the management within the organisation of how the problems are to be resolved.

-This assessment will be used to assess the research skills and ability of the students to develop detailed action plans to address real life scenarios based on earlier research and analysis.

-This assessment method is used to develop and assess research skills, independent working and critical thinking to evaluate the strategic and corporate governance capabilities of an organisation (LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4, LO5)

-All assessment is undertaken through application of the criteria and weightings outlined on the Module Descriptors.

-Feedback is written and provided accordance with University Regulations. Students are given an opportunity to reflect on feedback. Self-assessment becomes an important part of the student’s development during the course and is implicit throughout the tutorial and critique system. The opportunity for disagreement and reasoned justification of student work is present throughout the assessment method.

1. An introduction that reviews the background of the organisation and the issues or problems faced.

2. A literature review that discusses the key areas of theory applicable in this case.

3. A discussion of the secondary and primary research undertaken to analyse the problem or issue.

4. A critical review of the results of the secondary and primary research.

5. A recommendation and action plan that proposes solutions to the problem of issue based on the research and literature review.

6. References.

The proposed research is fundamentally based on the Corporate Governance Practices And Customer Brand Based Equity of Costco Wholesale limited. It has been identified that organisations in the wholesale sector acquire a large percentage of the markets and thereby, the rate of consumption of natural resource is relatively high. Thus, the context of corporate governance and corporate responsibility emerge as a significant business issue. However, corporate strategy and governance are not complete without considering the brand value strategy.

Thus, when investigating the corporate governance framework, the proposed research also explores the corporate reputation and brand value strategy of Costco Wholesale Ltd. Costco is an American Multinational Corporation, and it is the second-largest retailer in the world after Walmart; thereby, its corporate reputation and brand value strategy are two core elements of Costco (Spencer-McDaniel Sr and Anthony 2012).

Learning Objectives

As put forward by Peterson,., Hyska and Patel (2017), corporate reputation is the overall estimation in which its internal and external stakeholders significantly hold a business based on existing or past actions and the probability of its future business. While being something crucially important, several organisations do not give a second thought about corporate reputation, and this means if Costco Wholesale is good at taking care of its existing consumers, a business may not notice the possibility of more businesses even if the reputation is effectively managed.

When it comes to brand strategy, it can be mentioned that the brand needs to focus on developing business goals to develop brand values. The brand is one of the valuable assets, but it holds the potential to significantly influence the regular performance and deliver a healthy return on the investment the business makes (Tricker and Tricker 2015). Thus, the proposed research will investigate how the brand develops its corporate reputation and brand value strategy to address the dynamic market trends.

Costco Wholesale UK Limited retailer of consumer products with its vast offering, including automotive, bakery, butchery, cameras, catering, grocery, health and beauty, soft drink, etc. Although the organisation is a large retailer in the UK, the brand takes hardly any initiative in relation to corporate reputation strategy like engagement in CSR to address the growing environmental concern (Farabi 2012). Besides, even though, Costco is an incumbent player in the market, it has failed to maintain the transparency in corporate governance. The organisation did not have independent –audit committee outside the organisation.

According to Sneirson (2008), corporate governance is a kind of system rules, practices and process through which the business can be directed and controlled. On the contrary, Filatotchev and Nakajima (2014) mentioned that corporate governance could fundamentally include the action of balancing the interest of the organisation's internal and external stakeholders of Costco Wholesale Ltd. Fulfilling the environmental duties have become an essential requirement in Costco Wholesale Ltd business today, and this need is driven by growing customer awareness concerning social and environmental duties. According to the Cone Global Consumer Survey, almost 90% of global customers expect the brands to operate ethically (Rejchrt and Higgs 2015).

When it comes to Costco Wholesale Ltd sector, it can be mentioned that economic indicators are measuring retail and total trade available from multiple sources with the inclusion of government as well as the professional organisations. Avgouleas and Cullen (2014) mentioned that in the coming decade, the wholesales might split into two distinct groups such as distributors who further proof their business through innovation and reinvention and those who maintain business as usual strategy.  

Nonetheless, Costco Wholesale Ltd have been several disruptive forces which may shape the future of the wholesale sector, and these disruptive forces are such as Amazon disrupting UK grocery sector and changing customer demands such as the products that are environmentally sustainable (Filatotchev and Nakajima 2014).