Walmart History

2325 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Walmart strategic mission

Walmart's History, and Walmart's Supply Chain Process Wal-Mart began operations in 1964 and has since become the world leader in retail. Walmart began with goals to provide consumers with goods when and where they wanted them (Frank, n. d). Walmart developed cost structures to allow its company to offer consumers everyday low pricing. Walmart’s corporate mission focuses on a global growth strategy through concentrated integration. Wal-Mart's supply chain management supports a fast and responsive logistics system. In this paper, I will converse about the history of Walmart, and its supply chain management Walmart's History, and Walmart's Supply Chain Process 1. History and background of Walmart and the products that it deals with Walmart was started by Sam Walton in 1962, after experiencing franchising in Newport. He realized that he could pass to his consumers the discounts that he earned by purchasing in wholesale and subsequently managing to acquire profits through the sale by volume. Sam Walton was obsessed with cost cutting and he managed to foster this culture in the business that he started (Frank, n. d). He managed to keep the overheads of the company by controlling his payroll. He did this by framing his frugal nature as a crusade for the low consumers as well as a quest for a favorable lifestyle for Americans. The practices that are found in many Walmart are attributed to Sam Walton who infused them in his employees through charisma and charm. He made his employees feel as if working at the stores was an abyss of opportunities. He taught them customer approach, which involved looking the customer in the eye, greeting them and finally inquiring how the employees could assist the customer (Williams, 2007). Today the company... ... middle of paper ... ...ained the company at the helm of a global market that is competitive. 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 information that is provided by the tags that identify the inventory may be so limited that it proves to be of no assistance. Sometimes the tag may be defective in that the machine that is programmed to derive information from it is unable to do so. This means that the inventory will not be delivered where it is supposed to be at the correct time messing up the entire supply chain system. Therefore, care must be taken when information is being fed into the tag.

Show More
Related

  • Is Wal-Mart Bad For America?

    1169 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Target And Walmart

    1150 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Sam Walton

    1659 Words  | 4 Pages

    After college Sam went on to “do a management position at J.C. Penny’s and remained there until 1962. Late in 1962 Sam Walton changed this world, and he opened the first Wal-Mart”( “Sam Walton“ InvestingValue)(see “First Wal-Mart Store“). “We opened our first Wal-Mart here in Northwest Arkansas” (Walton and Huey XI). With his first Wal-Mart open he didn’t...

    Read More

  • The Economic Impact of Wal-Mart on Americans

    1689 Words  | 4 Pages

    Dicker, John. The United States of Wal-Mart. New york: Penquin Group Inc., 2005. 21-59. Print.

    Read More

  • Wal-Mart's Competitive Environment

    1679 Words  | 4 Pages

    Wal-Mart’s competitive environment is quite unique. Although Wal-Mart’s primary competition comes from general merchandise retailers, warehouse clubs and supermarket retailers also present competitive pressure. The discount retail industry is substantial in size and is constantly experiencing growth and change. The top competitors compete both nationally and internationally. There is extensive competition on pricing, location, store size, layout and environment, merchandise mix, technology and innovation, and overall image. The market is definitely characterized by economies of scale. Top retailers vertically integrate many functions, such as purchasing, manufacturing, advertising, and shipping. Large scale functions such as these give the top competitors a significant cost advantage over small-scale competition.

    Read More

  • Is Walmart Good Or Bad For Health And Social Care?

    1724 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Sam Walton's Made In America

    511 Words  | 2 Pages

    Walton was smart about the way he grew his business. Instead of trying to expand all over the country he chose to “saturate a market area, then fill it in” (Walton 110). By not expanding too large too fast, Walton was able to grow his company and control areas of the market, but would still be able to effectively distribute all of his goods to stores due to the close proximity of each one. He made sure that his policies of famous low prices and always putting the customer first remained in tact. All throughout his journey and success Walton still made it a priority to spend time with his family. He even made each one of his children partners in the company, who still own lots of stock today. Although Walmart started out small, Walton’s drive, morals, and creative discount methods and good ideas allowed it to grow into the huge company everyone knows today. Walmart’s profits are so large that at one point Sam Walton was one of the richest men in the entire world, but that didn't go to his head one bit. He is a simple guy that has always been modest in the way he lives. He still drove an old pickup truck with his dogs in the back and loved to hunt and be

    Read More

  • Walmart Information Management System

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    Walmart is a retail giant that just about everyone in America has purchased something from them. It is a one stop shop for anything that a person could ever need. Walmart stores can be found anywhere in fact most people are less than an hour drive away from a Walmart store. Walmart’s success has put many companies out of business. The chains success is primarily from low prices and using an information technology system to meet customer demands giving them a competitive advantage. Walmart’s first major use of information technology came in 1975 when the company leased an IBM computer system to track inventory in warehouses and distribution centers. Computers have come a very long way since this time and are used almost everywhere. But in 1975 this was cutting edge technology and gave Walmart the competitive advantage over other retailers. Another thing that Walmart used to be revolutionary in their supply chain was the use of scanning barcodes in 1983. Before barcodes objects had to be read by a skilled cashier. With barcodes all that was needed was a quick scan and the computer would do all the work. This greatly sped up checkout time and made tracking inventory and data collection much faster and easier for both customers and the employees. Since this time it has become an industry standard for products.

    Read More

  • Sam Walton Research Paper

    359 Words  | 1 Pages

    Sam Walton was an American businessman founded the retail chain Wal-Mart. The first Wal-Mart Sam opened was in 1962. Wal-Mart grew to be the largest retail chain by 2010.

    Read More

  • Wal-Mart Dominating Global Retail

    1496 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... and each division to have a different manger to work both for his store and for the company. They can increase there overseas branches by having a different strategic plans. They can even divide the products into different categories such as very high or low end products. Need to use new technologies with different approaches so that can ready to use new technologies with in a short span of time. The main generic strategy is to have over all cost leadership by which the Wal-Mart can control the cost. The supply and distribution system has to be more effective in present one so that they can save both time and money while doing distribution of there products from ware house to the stores.

    Read More

  • Global Human Resource Management

    943 Words  | 2 Pages

    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).

    Read More

  • Walmart Inventory Management Case Study

    1260 Words  | 3 Pages

    It is undeniable that Inventory Management is an important key to success at Walmart this paper will discuss the two main methods of Inventory Management used by Wal-Mart: Material Requirements Planning and Just-in Time. Next we write about the technical means of keeping track of inventories like RFID tags. We conclude with discussing how

    Read More

  • How Sam Walton Built The International Retail Store

    523 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the year 1950 Sam Walton bought his first store from a man named Luther E. Harrison. In the beginning the department store that we have all grew to love was not named Wal-Mart. By the year 1967 Wal-Mart had expanded to parts all across Arkansas. By the year 1972 Wal-Mart was operating his company in five states. As

    Read More

  • Strategic Analysis Of Wal-Mart's Supply Chain Management

    1616 Words  | 4 Pages

    Wal-mart has been able to achieve respectable leadership in the retail industry because of its focus on supply chain management. Discuss in detail the distribution and logistics system adopted by Wal-Mart.

    Read More

  • Information Technology for Small Business

    2725 Words  | 6 Pages

    Traub, Todd. "Wal-Mart Used Technology to Become Supply Chain Leader."Arkansas Business. N.p., 2 July 2012. Web. 02 May 2014.

    Read More

More about Walmart History

Open Document