Re:Costco does not hire business school graduates
by calinet6 on Monday June 10, 2013 @12:58PM
(#5855609)
He was using an article to note that the sort of high-level strategy discussion was boring or not useful, and that he wanted to see more low-level details into how to run such a business.
However, thinking to those details, I believe that Walmart and Costco actually do a lot of similar things on that front, managing the supply chain and transportation extremely effectively. I think they've no doubt come to the same conclusions on those points. If you want to know them, you could go to any successful large-scale distributor and look at best practices, and I'm sure Walmart and Costco would also be great sources.
However, where costco differs, and where they are special and highly un-boring, is exactly what the original article is about. This is why I felt that asking for the level of detail McArdle requested was not a valid criticism of the article. I felt I was founded in responding to that point.
You might be right about TQM. This may enable Costco to have an effective process. But neither article under discussion, nor the articles you cite, actually provide any useful information on this.
But yes, this is exactly what I'd love to see. A discussion on using statistics to improve transportation efficiency, details of quality control methods, etc. Those "boring" details are how you build a successful business. They just don't give good linkbait titles.