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History of walmart case study
Brief overview of walmart
Essay on walmart history
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1.1 Background of the Organization
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. was founded by Sam Walton in 1962. The first Walmart store was opened in Rogers, Arkansas, United States (Walmart, 2013). In addition, Wal-Mart is the world's second largest food retailers. After the year 1991, Wal-Mart becomes an international company, it expanded its business in 26 countries outside the United States (Walmart, 2013). Currently, Wal-Mart has over 800,000 affiliates and more than 6,000 international stores (Walmart, 2013). Wal-Mart operates in Japan called SEIYU. SEIYU was founded in 1963 and it is the largest supermarket chain in Japan (Walmart, 2013). Since 2002, Wal-Mart continues to acquire the shares of SEIYU, make it to become wholly-owned subsidiary of Wal-Mart (Walmart, 2013). The nature of its business which is included the retail chain supermarket, clothing and shelter supply (SEIYU, 2013). Although the business of Wal-Mart is very successes in United States and some Europe countries but it face problems in Japan. Wal-Mart Japan (SEIYU) facing problems include failure to adapt to the highly developed, culturally sensitive and rich retail environment (Boyle, 2009).
1.2 Research title, question and objective
Research Title A Research into Developing Global Management Skills of Wal-Mart (Japan)
Research Question How to reduce the impact of cultural issues on Wal-Mart’s business in Japan through the development of global management skills?
Research Objective 1. To investigate the importance of developing global management skills
2. Training to develop global management skills
3. Learning how to develop global management skills
1.3 Research rationale / contribution
I found that no matter what type of organization, they exist in cultural...
... middle of paper ...
...ankervis, 2013).
2.5 Conclusion
In this turbulent and contradictory global environment, global management skills development is essential for the global managers. Global managers have to think globally, not only standing the country in which they live. Through continuous learning different global management skills, to avoid the impact of cultural differences and manage the intercultural business more effectively. Global mindset, cross cultural competence and intercultural sensitivity, all these major global management skills, if the Wal-Mart can effectively implement in transitional business, believes it will able to significantly improve the problems its face in Japan business. Wal-Mart also can use the previously described methods to execute global management skills development, enable organization to effectively development global managerial skills.
In 1962, Wal-Mart opened their first store in Rogers, Arkansas. In 1970, Wal-Mart's first distribution center and home office in Bentonville, Ark. open and Wal-Mart went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Just nine years from that, Wal-Mart's annual sales exceeded one billion dollars. In 1988, Wal-Mart super centers opened across the country. In a merely three years from that, Wal-Mart opened their own store in Mexico City, Mexico; making Wal-Mart an international corporation. Not even sixty years has past, and yet, Wal-Mart is over-powering our country.
To begin with, some store history may be helpful. In 1914, Anna Albrecht opened a small store, Albrecht Discount, in the town of Essen, Germany. By 1948, her sons had taken over the business and had expanded it to four locations. In 1962, the store’s name changed from Albrecht Discount to Aldi. In 1976, Aldi makes their debut in the United States, opening a store in Southwestern Iowa. Today, in 2014, Aldi has 1,300 locations in the United States and 4,000 locations worldwide (Aldiuscareers.com). In 1962, Wal-Mart opens in Rogers, Arkansas. In 1983, Sam Walton opened the first Sam’s Club in Midwest City, Oklahoma. By 1988, Walton had opened the first Wal-Mart Supercenter in Washington, Missouri. Wal-Mart went global in 1991, opening a Sam’s Club in Mexico City, Mexico. Today, in 2014, Wal-Mart employs 2.2 million associates, serves 200 million customers, with 11,000 stores in twenty-seven countries (Corporate.walmart.com).
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
Moving to Asia, Wal-Mart break with the Indian giant Bharti Group made them in charge of the wholesale business where foreign retailers may invest freely and left them with around 30 small operating stores in the country. Moreover, Wal-Mart is also targeting China with 400 stores, in an opportunity to increase their growth in sale. Trefis Team (2015)
Walmart a name known globally they are a true empire. They are known as one of the largest company in the world. Sam Walton founded Walmart opening the first store in 1952 and Arkansas since then in has grown. According to Snyder Walmart is located in over 27 counties they have over a 11,000 stores and over two million employees. Walmart stands by the mission statement “We save people money so they can live better.” Walmart is known for is super low prices, and they compete with anyone who tries to enter their market. Walmart has a very formal and bureaucratic structure. There is a very clear hierarchy and commands come from the top and flows to the bottom. Although Walmart is so successful they have received lots of backlash due to some
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).
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.
Sam Walton, who first purchased a branch of the Ben Franklin Stores from the Butler Brothers, founded Wal-Mart. When he took over this franchise, his marketing strategy was the same and remains the same: selling products at low prices. By selling products at low prices, he is able to get higher-volume sales at a lower-profit margin. To make the lowest prices possible, he found suppliers that charged a lower price than the other stores nearby. This continues to be a primary strategy that induced Wal-Mart to currently being the largest retailer in the world. In effort to maintain their status as one of world’s most valuable companies, Wal-Mart has been exploiting employees and impoverished nations, ruining competition, and placing pressure on the U.S. government.
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).
Whatever in the campus or workplace, I would face many thorny problems related with cultural difference, management models, communication barriers or interpersonal conflicts. Therefore, in order to work well in multinational, improving management skills based on case learning is my next plan that turning theory into practice.
At the first, Wal-Mart only operates its business in home country. However, Wal-Mart became more integrated and independent by expanding internationally. In 1991, Wal-Mart start expands the business at international level which includes 26 countries outside of the United State such as Mexico, China and Canada. Now, Wal-Mart totally has more than 6100 stores in foreign country. The step taken by Wal-Mart is to improve and maintain their achievement outside of the home country. Wal-Mart’s strategy which expands their market at international level gains a lot of benefit to their business.
Wal-Mart corporation was founded by Mr. Sam Walton in 1962 has become the largest company of the world due to the astronomical growth in the past 10 years. Wal-Mart caught my attention because of the increasing presence of the company in Latin American markets. I am from Guatemala in Central America, country in which Wal -Mart started operations a few years ago. Its very interesting the business-level strategy they used to enter the Guatemalan Market. My family is very good friends of the family Paiz, owners of the super market chain “PAIZ” in Guatemala. When Wal-Mart was planning to start operations in our country, they basically offered a ridiculous amount of money to buy-out the Company “PAIZ” and they threaten to start a frontal Business war if they don’t sale the company. Our friends, the family Paiz didn’t had a choice to accept the cash for the company and sell completely the company to Wal-Mart Corporation. The entry strategy of Wal-Mart in Central America was clearly the acquisition of Central American retail holdings companies. Myself as a business owner love to study successful structures to try and apply them to my company, of course in this case, I cant really apply the divisional organization of Wal-Mart because of the magnitude and size of the company but I could get very healthy tips to the continuous growth of my company.
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.
Sonderberg, A-M & N Holden. (2002), Rethinking cross cultural management in a globalizing business world' International Journal of Cross Culture Management 2(1): 103-121
To be successful in today’s global market, managers and leaders need to understand more than just technical skills. Managers and leaders should also understand globalization and organizational behavior. Globalization is the tendency of businesses, technologies, or philosophies to spread throughout the world, or the process of making this happen. The global economy is sometimes referred to as a globality, characterized as a totally interconnected marketplace, unhampered by time zones or national boundaries (Search CIO). Organizational behavior is a field of study that studies individuals groups, and structure. Organizational behavior applies the knowledge gained about individuals, groups, and the effect of structure on behavior in order to make organizations work more effectively (Robbins,2014).Gaining an understanding of globalization and its effect on organizational behavior is crucial to interacting effectively in the modern global economy. Globalization affects an organization’s behavior in several ways like stimulating hyper competitive pricing for a product or service, perpetuating continuous operations and communicating around the clock and globe, capitalism is replacing governmental control and organizations are no longer constrained by borders, and corporations are becoming more heterogeneous and adapting to people who are from different nationalities and cultures. To be successful in a global economy, professionals should have a thorough knowledge of sociology, psychology, communication, and management.