Walmart dominates the retail industry with respect to the value chain, Porter’s five forces of competition, and the low price leadership and differentiation strategy. The major strategic change the company should consider implementing is the strategy of human resource management. The number one complaint of every shopper is that Walmart does not have enough employees to help the customers. This is the one obstacle that could cost Walmart the lead position in the industry. If the patrons are not happy with the amount of time it takes to checkout or find someone to help them, they may take their business elsewhere.
Walmart has made an attempt to alter their human resource management strategy. In 2013 the company placed more emphasis on just in time scheduling (Amendola, 2013). This plan was supposed to ensure that stores had proper staffing during peak times without hiring additional fulltime employees, by filling open shifts with temporary workers. These employees are called ‘flex’ workers, who work flexible hours based on the needs of the hiring store. They contracted for 180 days, after which they could be hired on a permanent basis, or even reapply for another 180 day contract.
The problem with this strategy is the revolving door effect, along with the uncertain economic times, when most job seekers are looking for stable, long-term employment. An additional issue with this strategy is that some of the permanent employees are getting their hours cut to allocate payroll to the flex workers (Amendola, 2013). The strategy makes sense from the firm’s point of view of controlling costs, but not from the customers. In a recent consumer survey Walmart ranked last in customer satisfaction due to long lines and checkout congestion, i...
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...ith redesigned processes, they increase customer value even more. By allocating knowledgeable people to key customer traffic times, customers will likely return for future shopping trips. Having people dedicated to stocking shelves ensures the items sought after are in-stock. Having dedicated cashiers staggered in by hours of operation will ensure a fast checkout experience, while reducing the checkout congestion at the same time. These simple strategic innovations can help Walmart avoid the possibility of erosion of their competitive advantage, which could happen if they fail to act.
Works Cited
Amendola (June 13, 2013) Wal-Mart's Everyday Hiring Strategy: Add More Temps. Reuters, Retrieved from http://www.cnbc.com/id/100813223 on April 27, 2014.
Consumerreports.org (March, 2014). Supermarket buying guide. Retrieved from the internet on April 27, 2014.
Greenhouse, Steven, and Michael Barbaro. "Wal-Mart to Add More Part-Timers And Wage Caps." The New York Times. The New York Times, 01 Oct. 2006. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.
Wal-Mart has transferred itself from a simple variety store into Wal-Mart Supercenter and has other chains which include Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market and Sam’s Club. Wal-Mart Inc. has found a way to offer options to the consumer not classically offered in grocery. By offering options such as an optical center, one-hour photo processing lab, Tire & Lube Express, and even in some cases hair and nail salons, pet shops, and pharmacies, Wal-Mart has taken steps to break the mold and offer consumers options that other stores cannot and has done a good job at that. With these types of options you could be in a Wal-Mart Superstore for hours and complete all of your afternoon shopping.
Nearly every American has or had shopped at Wal-Mart at some point or another, and we’ve seen the amount of hassle that many of the workers deal with every time we stand in line to checkout. Long lines during the night while short lines in the very early morning, it sometimes appears as if Wal-Mart’s so-called “associates” never stop working. The use of the word “associates” rather than “workers” strikes a hint of deterioration of their purpose of working—that is to get paid. This label established by the firm that proclaims the importance of equality merely sells itself into its own propaganda by cherishingly slashing wages and worker’s benefits because apparently, they’re not workers, they’re associates. To help hardworking Wal-Mart employees
The Wal-Mart Corporation is a multi-billion dollar low-cost retail organization, consisting of 6400 stores and 1.8 million sales associates worldwide. Wal-Mart’s influence on the retail world and the enormity of their corporate size is unparalleled. Wal-Mart can easily report sales of $312.4 billion dollars per fiscal quarter and net profits of $3.8 billion dollars. Wal-Mart promises her customers "Always low prices. Always!" and upholds this motto by providing low prices to her customers and high return on investment to her stockholders. One way that Wal-Mart has managed to maintain a competitive edge over other low cost retail giants and provide low prices is by cutting wages and by not offering too many company benefits to their employees. Full-time employee working at Wal-Mart only make $8 an hour, while only 45% of the workers can afford to be covered by health insurance. Wal-Mart also increase part time employees from 20 percent to 40 percent so that they do not have to cover all of their employees for health insurance . Although Wal-Mart may not provide excellent benefits to her employees, it successfully performs as a legitimate business operating in a capitalistic society. Wal-Mart upholds the primary fiduciary duty to satisfy her stockholder and follows free the market libertarianism model, which states that a business should not interfering with the free market. In a free market Wal-Mart has a direct responsibility to her primary stockholders rather than the employees of a company.
Today Wal-mart has a higher GDP than the entire country of Switzerland, but don’t worry they’re pretty neutral about it. But there has also been news about how they treat there employees. In 2004 an article was released entitled Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart, and soon after Washington got involved. The bad publicity took a toll on Wal-mart and in fact is still today, Maryland passed a law in January, 2006, that said larger employers, such as Wal-mart, must spend at least 8% of their payroll on health benefits for their employees, and now many other states have followed suit. The bad publicity also made it so 8% of customers shop elsewhere because of what they’ve heard, this has caused lower expected sales around the holidays during 2004, and 2005. Some things they’ve done is in 2006 they paid employees on average 9.36 dollars, while other major retailers like Target and Sears pay on average 11.08 dollars. While this can be easily denied by Wal-mart, another way they have gained bad publicity is from something called off-the-clock work. If they had not finished their job they had to clock out and then still finish their job, meaning they wouldn’t get paid for
Mallaby admits Wal-Mart can treat their employees and other retailers unfairly, but as a result everyone can share in the 50 billion in savings that American shoppers consume annually. The pay that employees get is the price they must pay for low priced merchandise. Because of the minimal pay to employees, Wal-Mart strengthens its’ consumer buying power. Giving the American shoppers the savings they need, Wal-Mart’s has ultimately been them successful. Wal-Mart has potentially wiped out the middle class as an employer, but the employees can now work and ...
Douglas Mcmillon has been in the news lately for poor customer service under what seems like a lack of leadership style. Walmart has failed to keep up with changes in the retail environment. Once an ever anticipating, low cost retailer of consumer needs type business to a now slow reaction to change retailer. Buyers’ behavior has changed and so has the business landscape. Leadership must be able to realign strategy to suit consumer need. What works this year may not work next year. Consumers now have zero tolerance for inconvenience of any sort (Mourdoukoutas,
Despite the adumbrated achievement, the supply chain management strategies employed by Walmart have experienced some challenges. The first one is the evolution of the standards of the technologies that are used globally. These are always becoming advanced, and the company has to keep up with them to be able to stay ahead of the pack.
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).
Many employees claim low wages, no benefits, irregular schedules, and unreliable hours as some of the horrible working conditions they have to endure. Walmart employees put together different unions all the time to try and protest or strike about the wages, treatment and anything else that seems to come along with being an employee of Walmart. Walmart does not take well to these unions. Women of Walmart seem to have it the hardest though. As recently as 2013, despite the fact that women account for as much as 57 percent of Walmart’s U.S. workforce, women were paid $1.16 less per hour (Osterndorf). In an article about Walmart and how it treats employees wanting to take sick days, a woman in fear of losing her job at a North Huntingdon Walmart, went back to work even though she had doctors' notes and hospitalization recorded, which were both rejected by her supervisors, to excuse her from work due to a miscarriage. She was worried the she would get fired due to absences so she went back (Abrams). Walmart also does not give out good health care to its employees. There are many claims of Walmart cutting health care for employees or finding the cheapest possible solution for an employee's health care. In 2014, the company cut insurance benefits to its part-time employees (Osterndorf). In a New York Times article about health care called, Walmart to End Health Coverage for 30,000 Part-Time Workers, it stated
Wal-mart has a reputation for caring for its customers, of course their employees, and for the prospective public. So Wal-Mart can be an industrial leader for the world of shoppers with an eye for lower affordable prices, company decision makers would continue it's systematic strategies that it's founder and president established years ago. Sam Walton believed in three guiding principles in his strategy planning they were to provide the customer with good value and service, to have a good relationship with its associates, and to be involved with the community.
Walmart has had a long-standing presence in America society since the middle of the 20th century, seen as a place to get everything done, Walmart has become a fixation in our society. From grocery shopping, to changing your oil and even filing your annual tax returns, Walmart is always there, everyday. Started by Sam Walton in 1962, it began as a small operation catering to a small Arkansas community. It was started on principles very similar to small local businesses in small towns. Today Walmart has gotten a different, darker reputation. On the surface, Walmart may seem like the solution to everyday issues. Low-income families are attracted to the low prices, and people who work odd hours benefit greatly from the 24 hours a day that many Walmarts are open. Lately, Walmart has also managed to be publicly recognized as a store that sells many of today’s green products, including organic food, environmental conscious cleaning products, as well as, paper products made from recycled paper. However, underneath all this, Walmart has a different side. Exploitation of its workers is widespread amongst Walmarts who do not belong to a union, especially in the United States. Wal...
Financially, the Wal-Mart Corporation is a multi-billion dollar industry with close to two million employees worldwide. On the positive side, Wal-Mart’s motto is “Always low prices. Always!” They uphold this motto by p...
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is a renowned retail goods superstore that sits atop the Fortune list at number one. It would be very difficult to find an individual who is unaware of Walmart’s position as the largest brick-and-mortar retail chain in the world. The company has thrived over the past few years and continues to grow by effectively managing its store operations and distribution strategies. One of the major contributors to the business consistently meeting market expectations is directly attributable to their management approach. Walmart has revolutionized the way retail companies manage their supply chains in more ways than one.
...arket, they still attempt to improve their performance in other areas, by contributing to charity and hence improving their local reputation, however they have very low customer and employee satisfaction. These lowered performance indicators stem from low employee motivation. It would be very beneficial for Walmart to increase these performance factors as the small cost of improving employee’s conditions and motivation would be balanced by not having to re-hire 70% of their work force every year.