Costco Wholesale Organizational Structure

Organizing

The organizing function of management is a critical part to successful operations at Costco Wholesale. The overall organizational structure of Costco Wholesale follows the mechanistic approach to structure. This approach is one used for a bureaucratic organization. Organizations who employ such structures have a high level of formalization, centralization, and specialization (Robbins, Decenzo, & Coulter, 2013, pp. 140-143). Costco Wholesale uses this type of approach due to the size of the corporation. The job structure of the organization is both a functional and product type departmentalization. Functional departments consist of human resources, administration, member security, member services, receiving, and front end. Other departments fall into the category of product

The Colchester Costco location has 8 separate product departments, not including the main product sales, to meet all of the needs of the average consumer. These departments include pharmacy, deli, meat room, bakery, hearing center, optical center, photography lab, and the food court. The most essential and demanding department of the warehouse is where the majority of sales take place, this is the front end. At Costco 314, the front end department has about 80 employees which must be scheduled, managed, and organized to provide the most efficient service to members. This is the job of the front end managers and supervisors. The overall structure of the corporation is a functional structure, this filters down throughout each individual store. At Costco 314, the store is overseen by one general manger, Paul Hogan. He is the one responsible for the overall outcome of the location. This makes the front end the most demanding