Current Performance
Sales for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for the first quarter of its 2007 fiscal year ending April 30, 2006 were $79.6 billion. Their net income increased to $2.62 billion, up from $2.46 billion from the year before. Wal-Mart is ahead of most of its rivals and is in excellent financial shape because of increased sales from comparative discount stores such as Target, Kmart and Sears.
In 2006, Wal-Mart saw an increase in its operating income than net sales. The international business unit has also seen an 11.4% increase in both sales and operating income.
Key Issue Identification
The key issues facing Wal-Mart is the dependency on team spirit in order to sustain success in the retail industry. Although the customer is the top priority, Wal-Mart’s success in the future is based on communication, implementation and accomplishing each task in the organizational chain.
Analysis of Mission and Objectives
Wal-Mart’s mission statement is fairly simple; “We save people money so they can live better.” Their objective is to provide customers with quality merchandise that allows them to be confident in the quality of the merchandise. Wal-Mart provides one-stop shopping where customers could buy a wide variety of quality merchandise at discount prices. Their mission correlates with their growth and stability because Wal-Mart generally operates in smaller communities, offering name-brand merchandise at low prices and friendly service.
Corporate-Level Strategies
In recent years, Wal-Mart has implemented specific strategies to facilitate growth and stability. In accordance with their mission statement, “We save people money so they can live better”, Wal-Mart has aggressively included new plans to open new stores, open ...
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...ble events. Lastly, Wal-Mart has an anti-unionization policy and allow its employee to decide if they would like form a union.
Recommendation
It is recommended that Wal-Mart Inc. implement the strategy of actually creating jobs and helping local economies. Instead of bypassing local laws and building codes in an effort to build more stores, Wal-Mart should work with local government entities in order to establish a working relationship as oppose to working against them. Wal-Mart should strive to demonstrate that their business is good for the community and not an unnecessary burden.
Bibliography
Works Cited
http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2009/10/05/walmart-fund-green-supply-chain-research
Wheelen, T. L., & Hunger, J. D. (2010). Strategic management and business policy: achieving sustainability (12th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. operates retail stores in various formats around the world. Wal-Mart is committed to growing by improving the standard of living for our customers throughout the world. Wal-Mart earns the trust of its customers every day by providing a broad assortment of quality merchandise and services at every day low prices while fostering a culture that rewards and embraces mutual respect, integrity, and diversity. In 2006 the net sales were $312.4 billion versus in 2005 were $285 billion.
Wal-Mart is one of the largest corporations in the world, and leads the pack of American retail stores in terms of size and sales income. The size of Wal-Mart allows the store to provide consumers with lower prices than most other retail chains, and much lower prices than small, "mom and pop" stores. Because of these reasons, is Wal-Mart a help or a hindrance; should Wal-Mart be given special consideration (i.e. tax breaks, location decisions); and should Wal-Mart be held responsible for improving economic and social conditions in communities in which it operates?
Wal-Mart has to implement a number of changes to correct the problems it has created. Attention must be paid to ensure the employee is treated fairly. Other ways must be sought to maintain profit levels and make the stockholders happy.
The success of Wal-Mart has yielded admiration and sometimes condemnation from numerous stakeholders. While some people applaud the retail giant for improving the living standards of citizens, creation of jobs, and improving the welfare of its employees, others argue that the retail giant has disrupted communities, brought down small retailers and compromised the living standards of
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.
Wal-Mart has been a huge debate subject in the news since it began to pop up in large quantities across the entire United States. The majority of that conversation focused on the negative impacts that Wal-Mart has on the communities and economies in which its super stores are located. Richard Vedder and Wendell Cox take a different approach and while they recognizes the downfalls and negative impacts that Wal-Mart can have, he focuses more on proving that the positives that Wal-Mart has on economies and communities outweigh those negatives.
"Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is the world's largest retailer, with $285.2 billion in sales in the fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2005. The company employs 1.6 million associates worldwide through more than 3,700 facilities in the United States and more than 2,400 units in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. More than 138 million customers per week visit Wal-Mart stores worldwide." (Walmartfacts.com)
According to Smithson, Walmart can expand its markets to new and emerging markets especially in the third world countries, which can significantly increase its revenues. Secondly, the company can reform is employment practices and improve the quality standard and in doing so, attract more customers and improve its brand image. On the other hand, the company faces threats such as the rising healthy lifestyle trend I that the company in most cases does not provide customers with healthy goods. At the same time, the company can capitalize on this aspect and increase its revenues. Aggressive competition from other discount retailers such as Target creates a great threat to the company (Smithson, 2015).
Roberts, Bryan. Berg, Natalie. Walmart: Key Insights and Practical Lessons from the World's Largest Retailer. Kogan Page Limited, 2012. Print.
“Save money. Live better” – company’s motto set by the top management to express Walmart’s mission. Walmart strive to provide lower prices of products compare to other retailers like Target. By providing lower prices, Walmart can gain more sales and generate more profits besides gaining more market share.
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.
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.
But, perhaps the most revolutionary was the practice of unprecedented coordination with suppliers (Chekwa, 2015, Page 62). Gross profit during the year 2015 was actually a $10 billion increase from fiscal year 2014 (University of San Francisco, 2015). Over the past six years, Walmart continues to generate these types of numbers, representing increases in growth, time and time again. The company’s income was generated by more than 4,500 stores in the United States alone, which is supported by a supply chain that moved from number 14 to number 13 on research and analyst company Gartner’s annual ranking (University of San Francisco, 2015). Many business professionals have analyzed and interpreted Walmart’s supply chain management approaches, making it apparent which elements of their strategy have proven effective.
With the shareholders, whose focus is to see profit, Wal-Mart ranks number one, 2008 per Fortune 500 magazine and listed as the 13th most profitable company with $11.3 billion dollars in earnings for 2006. Shareholders equity is over $64 million dollars. 1 (Fortune 500, 2008, CNNMoney.com)