NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) - Get Report are up 0.18% to $83.35 in early morning trading Friday despite' Credit Suisse's price target hike to $85 from $73, while maintaining a "neutral" rating. 

"The true opportunity at Walgreens', in our view, is the upside from creating a 'Best-in-Class' company from a cost, merchandising and financial perspective," Credit Suisse analysts said, adding that it will not be easy in the face of longer-term industry headwinds. 

It would require reducing Walgreens' industry high cost structure to levels below CVS (CVS) - Get Report, improving front-end traffic through better merchandising, better utilizing the balance sheet, and maybe even closing underperforming stores.

Structural issues, such as corporate expense allocation and CVS' better rent productivity, could account for well more than half of Walgreens' underperformance and simplistically using this gap to extrapolate earnings upside may not be the best idea, the firm noted. 

Analysts forecast 2015 first quarter earnings of 81 cents per share, and fiscal year earnings of $3.65 and $4.45 per share in 2015 and 2016, respectively.

"While our work supports our initial view that there are many structural reasons for the company's underperformance to CVS, we also have a new found appreciation for cost opportunity from becoming "best in class" operationally," Credit Suisse said. 

Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates WALGREENS BOOTS ALLIANCE INC as a Buy with a ratings score of A-. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate WALGREENS BOOTS ALLIANCE INC (WBA) a BUY. This is based on the convergence of positive investment measures, which should help this stock outperform the majority of stocks that we rate. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, increase in net income, good cash flow from operations, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and solid stock price performance. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had somewhat disappointing return on equity."

Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:

• WBA's revenue growth has slightly outpaced the industry average of 2.4%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly increased by 6.7%. Growth in the company's revenue appears to have helped boost the earnings per share.
• The net income growth from the same quarter one year ago has exceeded that of the S&P 500 and the Food & Staples Retailing industry average. The net income increased by 16.4% when compared to the same quarter one year prior, going from $695.00 million to $809.00 million.
• Net operating cash flow has significantly increased by 675.18% to $1,031.00 million when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, WALGREENS BOOTS ALLIANCE INC has also vastly surpassed the industry average cash flow growth rate of 37.87%.
• WBA's debt-to-equity ratio of 0.73 is somewhat low overall, but it is high when compared to the industry average, implying that the management of the debt levels should be evaluated further. Despite the fact that WBA's debt-to-equity ratio is mixed in its results, the company's quick ratio of 1.66 is high and demonstrates strong liquidity.
• The stock has not only risen over the past year, it has done so at a faster pace than the S&P 500, reflecting the earnings growth and other positive factors similar to those we have cited here. The stock's price rise over the last year has driven it to a level which is somewhat expensive compared to the rest of its industry. We feel, however, that other strengths this company displays justify these higher price levels.
• You can view the full analysis from the report here: WBA Ratings Report