Case Analysis: Global HR Management
What are the HR Strategies that management must undertake and support to create a successful global presence to insure the success of an organization in meeting its goals and mission?
Wal-Mart Establishment
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).
Wal-Mart Culture
The most significant component of Wal-Mart’s success was the way it treated its employees or as they are known as in Wal-Mart “associates”, the beliefs or rules of the Wal-Mart culture makes associates want to provide excellent service to its customers. During visits Walton encouraged associates to pledge to greet customers and ask if they assist them or walking into a Wal-Mart store customers are met by a greeter, an associate who welcomed them and handed out shopping carts (Farhoomand, 2006).
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.
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
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
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
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).
While there are many various global issues that affect the International Human Resource Management to run efficiently, there are two key concepts that play a major role in understanding how to approach them with cohesive and a well coherent strategy; they are the International Human Recourse Management Strategy and Understanding the Cultural Environment. In the International Resource Management strategy, many companies will do their research in finding companies that offer the following:
Sam Walton’s main philosophy was to keep cost low, which kept prices low. It is a simple premise but is very problematical in practical use. This brings me to the first lesson that I have learned from Sam Walton, innovation. Mr. Walton did not create the retail commercial he modernized and change the business model to fit his quixotic. “Walton also looked outside of his company when it came to developing technologies, and as a result Wal-Mart grew into one of the first retailers to connect its stores in a network to headquarters, resulting in still greater efficiency” (Springer, 2010, 154). In the beginning, Walton did not know anything about the retail business, but he could generate theories from other retailers. “Walton in a recorded interview admitted he knew so little about the retail business at that time that he, "Started doing strange things" that were not a part of the Ben Franklin playbook, including selling ice cream and popcorn outside the stores – ‘anything I could hawk’ (Springer, 2010).
Introduction Sam Walton, Founder of Wal-Mart, graduated from the University of Missouri in 1940 with the aspiration of all college graduates to go work for a good company and make good money doing so. After being drafted into the war, he came back ready and eager to go into business for himself. He was a quick learner and with great instincts learned from other retailers' successes and was adept at garnering ideas for improvements from employees and promptly took those ideas and created his own low price retail store called Wal-Mart. The company grew and Sam proved to be an effective visionary leader. His folksy demeanor and talent for motivating people, combined with a very hands-on management style and obvious talent for discount retailing, produced a culture and set of values and beliefs that kept Wal-Mart on a path of continuous innovation and rapid expansion.
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.
One key to Wal – Mart’s success, many believe, is the way it energizes its sales force. For example, employee meetings at Wal – mart stores are the same pep rally – type affairs that Walton organized years ago. Cries of “Give me a W, give me an L, give me a squiggly….” are led by store managers who whip salesclerks into selling frenzies as they prepare for the day’s onslaught of customers. And those clerks know just what their customers want and how many are buying their merchandise. Just to make sure, they are given thorough sales figures to show exactly how their particular store is doing. How much money did they take in compared to the previous day, or week, or years? What items are hot sellers, and what’s their markup?
In 1970, Sam decided to take the company public which helped raise capital for the company to expand into new areas and markets. Within ten years of the first Walmart opened doors, the company had grown to fifty-one stores generating seventy-eight million dollars in revenue. The rapid growth of Walmart was not only due to the products and services they offered, but due to Sam’s associates. He shared his vision of the company with them and recognized them as his business partners. Mr. Walton’s excellent work ethic formed the foundation on which Walmart is built today.
Since the grand opening flyer was in the paper in July 2, 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas, Walmart has routinely been in the news. From going public to stock splits, record sales to Black Friday mayhem, over the years the quantity of stories have grown exponentially. Any given day you can find a new story cropping up online that involves Walmart, whether directly or indirectly. Common themes over the years have been associated with wages and unions, crime, and employing strategies that drives down costs and can improve the customer experience. Past News
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.
An organizational human resources department utilizes the hiring and firing process to meet the organization’s personnel needs. Organizational human resource departments are charged with the oversight of an organizations administration department. The practice of hiring and firing people is a process employer’s conducts on a daily basis. This process has to be done in a proper manner and not in haste. The implication that can occur from the improper hiring and firing process could and can have a positive or negative impact on an organization. Therefore, employers must carefully evaluate their decision to hire/fire individuals and its impact on the organizations’ workplace environment and others employees. Human Resource Management is important for an effective organization. In today’s organization, HRM is valuable to the organization because of increase legal complexities and its known for improvement in productivity. However, management should realize that poor human resource management could result in an outburst of hiring process followed by firing or layoffs. According to (Satterlee 2013, p. 194), “Hiring the best candidate who is also a good fit for the organization is crucial for the success of an organization, because a poor hiring decision will have repercussions across the entire organization”. Satterlee made a valid point because poor hiring could have an impact on the bottom line performance of the firm. In other words, HRM is the contributing factor to the success of the organization including motivating and maintain the staffs. The purpose to the motivation is to ensure that all employees grow to a full potential. According to (Sims 2006, p. 5), “HRM efforts are planned, systematic approaches to increasing organizati...
In dynamic, global competitive markets, successful organizations are likely to be staffed with managers capable of adapting to constantly evolving roles, and with the capacity to achieve and sustain optimal levels of performance. The global market place has currently impacted the practice of human resources management in the United States and will continue in the next ten years.