Sam Walton, the retailing maverick and founder of the now largest company in the world, started his career with a small investment, a small loan from his family and a lot of determination.
Walton had a dream to grow his small discount store, Wal-Mart, at a relentless pace that would increase his sales high enough that he could drive all costs out of merchandising. Walton believed that finding costs wherever they lay - in the stores, in the manufacturers’ profit margins and with the middleman – and eliminating them, he could drive the prices of his goods down and make Wal-Mart a competitive force in discounting (Huey, par.4).
Walton, through his vision, determination, ability to motivate people and to build a culture within his organization in line with his ideals, has secured himself a title of one of the greatest business leaders of all time.
SAM: THE MAN
Samuel Moore Walton was born March 29, 1918 in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. He later moved to Missouri where he attended and was elected the class president at the University of Missouri. To pay the tuition bill, he worked as a lifeguard, waiter, and maintained a newspaper delivery route of one hundred sixty customers (Kennon, par. 4). After graduation he aspired to attend graduate school, but found he couldn’t afford it and instead took a position with J.C. Penny in their management trainee program.
The seeds of Wal-Mart were planted in the Ben Franklin variety store chain (Friedman, par. 9). Walton opened a Ben Franklin franchise store in Newport, Arkansas in 1945. He quickly grew it to become the top performing Ben Franklin franchise with $250,000 in sales. When his lease was up in 1950, it had become so successful that his landlord, P.K. Holmes thought running a retail store must be a piece of cake (Friedman, par. 10). He refused to renew Walton’s lease forcing Walton to turn the business over to him.
Walton didn’t relinquish his franchise easily. Only after a trip to an attorney was he convinced that there was nothing he could do to save his business. Attorney Fred Pickens Jr. described Walton’s reaction: After clenching and unclenching his fists, Walton stood up and said, “I’m not whipped. I found Newport, and I found the store. I can find another good town and another Ben Franklin.
Wal-Mart was conceived and founded by Sam Walton in 1962, at Rogers, Arkansas. Sam Walton started with just a few small variety stores, funded with borrowed money. His goal was to provide affordable products to the public to make life easier. After his success with the first few stores, Sam Walton borrowed more money to build more stores, creating the Wal-Mart empire as we see it today. The retail giant proves its stoic presence in our lives with its $401 billion sales for fiscal year 2009.
Wal-Mart was not always the superstore that it is today. In the late 1940’s, Sam Walton took up the ownership of a Ben Franklin’s store in Newport, Arkansas. Even during the time before Wal-Mart, Walton was all about keeping prices low. It is every business’s objective to find the right balance between the prices of an item to meet the demands of the consumer in order to maximize revenue. How could Walton still make a profit while keeping the prices low for the consumer? Even while still operating the Ben Franklin’s store, he would purchase products from wholesalers and minimally markup the price. Where most retailers would rely on markup prices to gain profit, Walton would rely on pure volume in order to make up for the low prices (Frank, 2006). This was a smart decision on his part because it makes sense that if a consumer can get the same product for a lower price then they will purchase the cheaper product. It was not until 1962 that Sam Walton opened the first Wal-Mart store, also in Arkan...
Though Walton was rather successful in his business ventures, he couldn’t afford graduate school, specifically the Wharton School of Finance, and instead accepted a job at JC Penny as a management trainee; Walton’s first retail job, where he worked for little over a year. After serving in the second world war, Walton, under slight regulation from his wife, opened up a Ben Franklin variety store in the small town of Newport, Arkansas. Owning a retail store at the age of twenty-seven taught ...
Sam Walton was born on March 29, 1918 to Thomas Gibson and Nancy Lee Walton near Kingfisher, Oklahoma. They lived on a small farm but when that was proven non-profitable they moved out of Oklahoma to many towns across Missouri. Sam Walton was the starting quarterback for his football team and was an honors student. He attended the University of Missouri, where he majored in Economics. After a few setbacks Sam decided he wanted to own his own department store. His dream came a reality in the fall of 1945 when he purchased a store in Newport, Missouri with the help of his father-in-law.
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.
The first Walmart was opened in Rogers, Arkansas in the year 1962 by a 44-year-old man by the name of Sam Walton. When he first envisioned Walmart, Walton believed that a successful business could be built around offering lower prices and great service. Despite his retail rivals laughing at his supposedly unsustainable business model, the company became hugely successful, and its success exceeded even Walton's expectations. The company went public in 1970, and the proceeds financed a steady expansion of the business. Today, Walmart is the largest retailer in the world, as it has 8,500 stores spread across 15 countries and annual revenues of $400 billion dollars. Moreover, Walmart is the
He was also considered charismatic. He communicated directly with his employees (associates) and he expected customers to be treated as guests when they entered his store. “Mr. Walton always worked hard at shaping his work force, using cheers, rap songs and payment policies to urge employees to be frugal in their jobs and friendly toward customers. Bonuses were paid to all employees in stores where stealing and other inventory losses were kept below 2 percent of sales. Scholarships were established at colleges in names of employees who crafted better ways to handle merchandise.” (nytimes.com, 1992). Today this is not the case. Since the death of Sam Walton in 1992, the company’s reputation has been on a continual downslide. Wal-mart is no longer an ethical company; it has negatively impacted the communities in which it exists. It mistreats its employees and is negatively impacting the nation’s over-all economy. Ethical business practices are not the way of life for today’s Wal-mart.
Wal-Mart as we know it today evolved from Sam Walton’s goals for great value and great customer service. Mr. Walton’s competitors thought his idea that a successful business could be built around offering lower prices and great service would never work. Mr. Walton also credited the rapid growth of Wal-Mart not just to the low costs that attracted his customers, but also to his associates. He relied on them to give customers the great shopping experience that would keep them coming back. Sam shared his vision for the company with associates in a way that was nearly unheard of in the industry. He made them partners in the success of the company, and firmly believed that this partnership was what made Walmart great.
Born into a family that was no well off, Sam quickly learned as a kid the value of a dollar. "During high school Walton was very athletic playing basketball and football as starting quarterback for Columbia’s Hickman High School. He became the vice president of the student body during his junior year and moved up to president during his senior year, and he also excelled academically becoming an honors student.(Sam Walton InvestingValue) "In 1940 he graduated from the University of Missouri with a business degree, and while all throughout high school and college he had a paper rout and was making about 4 to $5,000 a year, which at that time wasn’t bad because they were going threw the great depression" (Walton and Huey p. 20).
Walton opened a small business called “Walton’s 5&10” in a small town of Bentonville, Arkansas. This small business followed a motto of selling a variety of products at low prices. Hence the name of “Walton’s 5&10” or “5” meaning Nickel and “10” meaning dime putting it all together as Walton’s nickel and dime store. With the early success of his business he looked to expanding. Walton opened the first store under the name of Walmart in 1962 in Rodgers, Arkansas. The formula of Sam Walton was to offer low prices and great services to the consumers, almost too good to be true. His competitors believed exactly that, doubting that this would never work. Sure enough the business thrived and grew rapidly exceeding the expectations of Walton’s dream. This changed forever the way of retail. One of Sam Walton’s speeches stated “If we work together, we’ll lower the cost of living for everyone…we’ll give the world an opportunity to see what it’s like to save and have a better life.” With all the success building, Walmart was steadily on its way to becoming a
Wal-Mart initially began its operations in 1945, when Sam Walton leased a ‘Ben Franklin’ franchise variety store in Newport, Arkansas. After relocating to Rogers, Arkansas in the early 1950s, Sam Walton’s ‘Ben Franklin’ became ‘Walton’s 5 & 10’. By 1962, Walton found himself the chain owner of 11 different Walton’s stores across Arkansas. He then decided to rename the chain ‘Wal-Mart’, after himself. On October 31, 1969, after further expansion across the state, the chain was incorporated as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Three years later, Wal-Mart was approved and listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
The Wal-mart is the largest retail chain in United States and in the world. The wal-mart was founded in the year 1962 by Mr Sam Walton. It was originally named as Wal-Mart discount city in Rogers, Arkansas. At the time when the Wal-Mart stores started in the year 1962 it was focused only in small rural cites and town which had a population of 5000 to 25000. It was soon increased to 18 stores in 1969. In the next 30 years it had more than 4750 stores across 50 states in USA and 9 countries with $245 billion sales. It started its international operations in Mexico in the year 1991 and then it expanded it to different countries across Europe and Asia.
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.