Walgreen: Inventory

Background

Established over a century ago, Walgreens has been grown into a national corporation with over 7,500 stores. Walgreens first began in Chicago in 1901 when pharmacist Charles R. Walgreen purchased a drugstore where he had once worked. A second store opened in 1909, and seven years later nine stores were incorporated to form Walgreens Corporation. Walgreens Co. Became a public corporation in 1927, and by 1953 it was the country’s leading self-service retailer (Walgreens Corporation, 2006). Walgreens now operates in 47 states and Puerto Rico. The company has long been committed to customer convenience, and in doing so Walgreens offers items and services well beyond a typical drugstore. Walgreens has been an innovator in many things like child resistance drug containers, next-day photofinishing, and installation of point-of sales scanning to speed up the checkout process and many stores are open 24 hours a day. (Walgreens Corporation, 2006).

Walgreens has traditionally followed an organic strategy in order to expand. And it has grown through the acquisition of companies such as the northeast chain Happy Harry’s and Mermark, a specialty pharmacy (Walgreens Corporation, 2006). The company’s continual growth has resulted in a consistently increasing sales and earnings. Walgreens is the nation’s largest drugstore chain with fiscal 2010 sales of $67 billion. (Walgreens Community, 2011). Each day, Walgreens provides nearly 6 million customers the most convenient, multichannel access to consumer goods and services, and cost-effective pharmacy. In 2002 they became the first drugstore chain to offer prescription labels in multiple languages, currently 14 languages. In 2004 large-type prescription instructions was introduced for those with vision impairment. In 2006, Walgreens new computer system for filling prescriptions, Intercom Plus, links all the stores into a single network via the largest private user of satellite technology (second...