Costco Wholesale Corporation Analysis

Step 1: Collect information and research about Costco Wholesale Corporation. Some good sites for doing this research are wsj.com, yahoo finance, and seekingalpha.com. You are not limited to these sites to find information; you can use any site or source you like.
Step 2: Choose the factors from the document named “PEST Analysis Example”. Then, Fill out the PEST Worksheet in the file I uploaded named “PEST Worksheet” and I also included an example named “PEST Worksheet Example”.
Step 3: Fill out the “Industry Analysis Worksheet -updated”, and I also uploaded an example named “Poter’s Five Force Worksheet example”.
Step 4: Fill out the “VRIO analysis -2”, and I also uploaded an example named “VRIO Worksheet Example”.
Step 5: Fill out the “SWOT Worksheet – UPDATED”, and I also uploaded an example named “SWOT Worksheet Example”.

*Note: The subject of All the worksheet you are working is for Costco Wholesale Corporation.

Step 6: Write a research paper for Costco Wholesale Corporation based on all the worksheets you did and the information you got.
You should spend the first page or so giving background on the company, the industry, and at least of the company’s main competitors. You will need to include three prior years of ROS (earnings/sales) for the company and one of its main competitors, so we know whether the company has a strategic advantage over its main competitor. You should describe a few of the company’s resources and capabilities and why or why not they could be a source of competitive advantage. You DO NOT need to explain the external forces from the PEST or Porter’s five forces. The bulk of the paper should be devoted to developing and explaining the logic of your strategic suggestions. You need to be very specific about how the suggested strategy utilizes one or more of the company’s strengths to take advantage of an opportunity or mitigate a threat.