Overview
When someone says “Wal-Mart,” there are several ideas that probably come to mind; an idea such as “Everyday Low Prices,” Wal-Mart superstores, and that Wal-Mart is the biggest corporate giant in the world wouldn’t be too far fetched. However, Wal-Mart almost went bankrupt before it even started. Back in 1962, Sam Walton (the founder of Wal-Mart) probably never imagined that Wal-Mart would reach the astronomical heights that it has. In the beginning, Wal-Mart entered the discount retail industry when it was barely even a market, opening up locations specifically around the mid-west area. Sam Walton was personally several million dollars in debt and was even quoted saying that Wal-Mart was “underfinanced and undercapitalized.” What a difference a couple of years make. Walton decided to offer Wal-Mart stock publicly, and with the initial public offering yielding $5 million in capital, Walton and Wal-Mart never looked back. As recent as 1996, Wal-Mart accounts for 17 percent of general merchandise, apparel, and furniture sales, and as much as much as 30 percent of goods such as hair products and disposable diapers. With $258 billion dollars in revenue, Wal-Mart has risen to become the largest U.S. corporation in sales.
Part of the company’s success can be contributed to Walton’s vision or idea for his company, as Walton said “the idea was simple: when customers thought of Wal-Mart, they should think of low prices and satisfaction guaranteed. They could be pretty sure they wouldn’t find it any cheaper anywhere else, and if they didn’t like it, they could bring it back.” With an innovator like Walton, it’s no wonder Wal-Mart is as big as it is today. This case report basically goes through the history of Wal-Mart, how it operates its company, some of the technology that enables them to produce and deliver the way they do, and how competitors are trying to survive Wal-Marts dominance.
Summary:
HR: Employees receive multiple advantages by working for Wal-Mart. They have classroom courses, computer-based learning, mentor programs, skills assessments, and job announcements just to name a few . This would be awfully expensive, which is why competitors don’t offer the same training for their employees. They also keep employees motivated by allowing them a voice in their business operations and by hiring locally they provide job opportunities for the town they locate in. Also, it allows Wal-Mart to hire a diverse amount of employees which keeps each store they open unique.
Wal-Mart, a "Big-Box Retailer" employs more than 2.1 million associates worldwide and has two-thousand seven-hundred stores in the United States with many more in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Central America, Chile, China, Germany, Japan, Korea, India, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom, making Wal-Mart the largest retailer in the world. "Wal-Mart accounts for upward of 30 percent of U.S. sales, and plans to more than double its sales within the next five years" (Lynn 29-36). Why is Wal-Mart so successful, and is Wal-Mart actually bad for America?
Originally a small town business, Wal-Mart has grown into a worldwide million dollar franchise. Founded in 1962 by Sam Walton, Wal-Mart has become Americas leading discount retail store. Wal-Mart has embodied the idea of a store that sells everything a person could ever need; selling everything from personal hygiene supplies to the newest technology. Even as a globally known franchise, Wal-Mart still has its pros and cons just like every other store.
Wal-mart is currently the world’s largest company. It has seen continuous growth and financial success since it was founded in 1962. Today it is living off of a previous reputation of solid ethical business practices that are no longer being exercised. Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-mart, was considered to be “freakishly cheap… Cost-cutting was an obsession in the Wal-mart culture… on business trips, everyone, including the boss, flew coach, and hotel rooms were always shared.” (reclaimdemocracy.org. 2006). This was only part of the reason for Sam Walton’s success.
Wal-Mart represents the sickness of capitalism at its almost fully evolved state. As Jim Hightower said, "Why single out Wal-Mart? Because it's a hog. Despite the homespun image it cultivates in its ads, it operates with an arrogance and avarice that would make Enron blush and John D. Rockefeller envious. It's the world's biggest retail corporation and America's largest private employer; Sam Robson Walton, a member of the ruling family, is one of the richest people on earth. Wal-Mart and the Waltons got to the top the old-fashioned way: by roughing people up. Their low, low prices are the product of two ruthless commandments: Extract the last penny possible from human toil and squeeze the last dime from its thousands of suppliers, who are left with no profit margin unless they adopt the Wal-Mart model of using nonunion labor and shipping production to low-wage hellholes abroad." (The Nation, March 4th 2002 www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020304&s=hightower).
This is a good question. Walmart started as a small five and dime in the city of Bentonville, Arkansas by a man named Sam Walton. After a great success Sam and his wife Helen moved to Rogers, Arkansas where he opened his very first Walmart. He had some retailing experience after his time in the war and he chose Bentonville for the hunting season and because his wife wanted to live in a small town. His ideas of not pocketing extra cash from manufacturers, but rather giving deals to customers and trying to make profit off of how much he sold, changed the way retailers make money in America. Sam had a cheap mindset, not only for his customers, but for himself. Even when he became the richest man in America he continued to get his hair done for
Walmart is one of the most successful franchises of all time and continues to take fire from multiple angles, whether it’s about the costing of jobs, the wages, the health insurance, the small business destruction, or the environmental impact, but can always back itself up by negating those claims with facts that proves that it is beneficial to the community.
countries. This research will analyze the current market conditions of Wal-Mart what market structure of Wal-Mart is oligopoly, etc. What Interdependence with other companies and who are Wal-Mart competitors and whether there are any new mergers, acquisitions, or antitrust issues. Also we will discuss Wal-Mart labor practices, how does Wal-Mart price their products and services, and Wal-Mart demand and supply of their products.
When Sam Walton founded the first Wal-Mart in 1962, the idea of bringing in a discount-shopping store into rural America was almost unheard of, except for the local five and dime stores. When Walton noticed that he had a lot of competition from regional discount chains, him and his wife Helen traveled the country to study other new retailing concepts, and were convinced that it was the wave of the future. With Walton's vision, Wal-Mart grew to be a multi-billion dollar, international company, operating about 4,600 stores around the world.
The first Wal-Mart store opened in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962. The founder of Wal-Mart is a late 1940’s retailer by the name of Sam Walton. Walton was said to be a cheap man, and would cut corners and save money wherever possible. That is how his idea to pass the savings on to the customer came to be. He knew he could save money like other retailers by making deals with suppliers, but he also knew that if people could experience the savings more directly the sales volume would increase and he could still make a profit. Walton wanted to earn his profits through volume. And it didn’t sto...
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is in the discount, variety stores industry. It was founded in 1945, Bentonville in Arkansas which is also the headquarters of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart operates locally as well as worldwide. It operated 1209 discount stores, 1980 super centers, and 567 Sam’s Club by January 31, 2006. It has also extended its operations to many international countries. It runs its retail stores in two forms: Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart Stores. The Sam’s Club sells assorted product lines such as hardwares, electronics, jewelry, and to mention a few. The Wal-Mart stores also offer similar products in addition to the following: health and beauty products, apparel for women, men and children, household appliances etc (www.yahoo.finance.com). The Vision Statement, Mission Statement, Values and Code of Conduct, Corporate Governance: Directors, Executive Management, Committees and Stakeholder will be the key elements that will discussed in this report as it relates to Wal-Mart. In addition to that, the major trends in the general/macro environment and industry will be analyzed.
In 1962, Sam Walton opened his first Walmart Discount store in Rogers, Arkansas. Walmart started as a company that focused on helping customers and communities with discount prices and vision that Mr. Walton had to move the company and his employees forward. To this day, Walmart is still known for these things and more. This company didn 't lose focus on help expanding in communities, caring for the people and making money in the process. Walmart has continued to stay ahead of all it 's competitors through all the changes in technology and is still the largest leading retail of it 's kind.
The material used to analyze Wal-Mart strategy consists of the company's annual reports, its Fact Sheets and other information found on the company Internet site. Other information is obtained from outside sources such as Fortune Magazine, and from outside groups who are critical of the corporation. The focus of this analysis will be placed on identifying the resources of the firm, its weaknesses and strengths in terms of its competitive environment. The sections examined will highlight the leadership style of Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott, who inherited the corporate legacy of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. Other elements such as the culture, the corporate organization and values of the company come to play.
The first Wal-Mart store opened in July of 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas by Sam Walton who believed that the future of retailing was in discounting and to avoid competing with established giants like Sears and Woolworth, Wal-Mart’s stated out of the large cities in the beginning and this strategy help avoid competition, while in rural areas Wal-Mart began growing their customer base by offering ways to save money and shorter travel distance, Sam Walton felt the best way to make customers happy was to provide the low prices every day (Farhoomand, 2006). The company needed to continually find ways to control the operating costs so the savings would then be passed on to Wal-Mart customers in the form of lower prices than the competitors. Walton was opposed to having any kind of employee unions for its company and saw them as a disruption and an inconvenience (Farhoomand, 2006). The continued search for lower prices made him aware of business related travel cost, Wal-Mart executives stayed in low cost hotels when they traveled and the cost related to the services provided by suppliers, Wal-Mart helped suppliers improve operations and efficiency to produce lower cost. Walton wanted the suppliers to correct any nonessential or insufficiencies existing in their business structures as a way of gaining lower prices and higher value products for its Wal-Mart stores. To further push savings Wal-Mart forced cost down by eliminating the middleman and buying directly from the manufacturers. This cost saving also applied to executive salaries Walton felt providing employees with stock options, training opportunities, and allow employees to grow and develop would be a better way to engage and involve them in his vision (Farhoomand, 2006).
The first Wal-Mart was opened in Rogers, Arkansas, in 1962. By 1969 it was incorporated into Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., and in 1972 went public on the New York Stock Exchange. The company grew steadily across the United States, and by 1990 was the nation's largest retailer. In 1991 and 1994, Wal-Mart moved into Mexico and Canada respectively. By 1997 it was incorporated into the Dow Jones Industrial Average. As of 2005, Wal-Mart has stores in the United Kingdom, and Puerto Rico, and brings in revenue of close to 300 billion dollars a year. In 2006, Wal-Mart invaded the China and India's markets. During the last two decades, Wal-Mart has been able to take advantage of the rise of information technology and the explosion of the global economy to change the balance of power in the business world (Wikipedia, 2006). Today Wal-Mart continues to grow and their success is not only from their sound strategic management planning but also from its implementation of those strategic plans. In other words operational planning has been an important key to their success.
When Sam Walton died in 1992, some industry insiders doubted that the Wal – Mart chain that he had founded some 30 years earlier would retain its prominence as a discount retailer. Lost for good they feared, would be the “magic spark” that Walton used to light fires under the chain’s 1.3 million associates. And, as Wal – Mart stock failed to enjoy the same bull – market growth as many other companies in the mid – 1990s, the pundits appeared to be correct. Today, however, with stores in all 50 U.S. states and nine other countries, Wal – mart has rebounded, leading the pack of discount stores with record earnings. In fact, with $218 billion in annual sales and 100 million customers per week, Wal – Mart is the world’s largest retailer and was named “Retailer of the Century” by Discount Store News.