Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Walmart Management Strategy
Creation of walmart
Essay on walmart history
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Walmart Management Strategy
1.1 Brief History of Wal-Mart
How could a simple and humble idea for a retail store turn a brand into a global ecosystem? How did a small-town man from Oklahoma turn his five and dime store into the world’s largest employer? This is the story of Sam Walton’s Wal-Mart discount stores and their rise to success. How a man with a simple, but monumental idea of passing savings onto customers instead of pocketing the savings himself, banking on sheer volume to make up for the lack of margin, changed the way retail would be done forevermore.
In 1945, Sam Walton borrowed $20,000 to launch his career as an owner of a Ben Franklin variety store in the small town of Newport, Arkansas. Within four years of opening, his store transformed from bleeding money to the top Ben Franklin franchise in the state. During this time, Sam spends time surveying competitors’ strategies on pricing and displays.
…show more content…
A depression-era man himself, Sam was extremely frugal and expected everyone else on his team to be cheap as well, even his executive team. On business trips, everyone was expected to fly coach and share a hotel room. In the corporate office, a cup of coffee would cost you 10 cents. Sam lived these values even when he became the richest man in the States by the 1980s; he still got a $5 haircut, forgoing a tip, from the same, local barber and drove his old pickup truck to work. Sam knew labor overhead was one of the biggest components of overhead so he wanted to hire as few people as possible and avoided talks of unionization whenever possible [3]. Despite being frugal with his money, Sam was the opposite with his time spent in the stores and getting to know employees. Sam made a genuine effort of staying in touch with them, even as Wal-Mart grew and grew. Perhaps his modest lifestyle and charismatic personality was what made his team support him and the Wal-Mart idea with an almost cult-like
Roberts, Bryan. Berg, Natalie. Walmart: Key Insights and Practical Lessons from the World's Largest Retailer. Kogan Page Limited, 2012. Print.
There is a lot that goes into being a successful company, and making the Fortune 500 list is most every business owner’s dream. Sam Walton is credited with being the founder and first Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Wal-Mart. Walton and other CEO’s of the company were able to shape the success of Wal-Mart by implementing strategies that would revolutionize the way retail stores do business, all while pushing Wal-Mart to the top spot on the Fortune 500 list. This paper looks at a few different strategies Walton implemented that ultimately benefitted the company to increase revenue. How did Wal-Mart become the retail giant that it is today? T.A. Frank of Washington Monthly gives a brief history of Wal-Mart in his article Everyday Low Vices.
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
Wal-Mart has had a significant economic impact on the US, as well as the economies of countries that have relations with the US. Wal-Mart is the world’s biggest company of any kind, with 80 percent of the households in America purchasing something from the superstore; it is the nation’s largest retailer. Wal-Mart’s continuing price reduction has given Americans the advantage of being able to afford 15 to 20 percent more than they previously could. (Hansen) In a world governed by globalization and greed, competition has become rigid; as a result firms like Wal-Mart have utilized advanced marketing strategies to insure that they are on the ‘neck’ of competition, and are the core deciders of the market. (Ortega) However, Wal-Mart made decisions that were of a disadvantage to aspects of the economy, including the depletion on a small scale of Small Town USA.
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.
With its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, Wal-Mart was commissioned in the hands of its founder Sam Walton. Generally, the Wal-Mart effect is structured in a manner that it aids economic experts to evaluate attached global and local economic effects to the famous Wal-Mart retail. The term Wal-Mart effect is often employed by analysts to refer to the wide variety of both negative and positive influences of the retail business (Hiltzik 1). Evaluation of the retail’s effects is significant as the business is not only a key figure is the world’s economy but also it is arguably the most performing private economic retail. Briefly, Wal-Mart has conventionally caught the eyes of consumers since it not only boosts their experience by suburbanizing local shopping but also it avails low commodity prices for necessities (Neumark, Junfu, and Stephen 406).
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.
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
Sam Walton always made quite an impression on everyone. Sam Walton has done so much for the retail world. He has gone beyond what any other owner or manager has ever done or will ever do and was honored for all his hard work in March of 1992 when he received the Medal of Freedom from President George Bush.
Few companies create such controversy as Walmart has done with its approach to maintaining low costs for everyday items. People either love Walmart because of this approach to keeping prices down or hate it due to the effects it has on the economy. There are a lot of arguments surrounding the minimum wage and employee rights at Walmart. There seems to always be a news article about some employee protest about the wages or how they are treated. Walmart is viewed as an enormous firm that does not take care of its employees because of its minimum wage, treatment of its employees, and how it deals with lawsuits.
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.
When Sam Walton died in 1992, some industry insiders doubted that the Wal – Mart chain that he had founded some 30 years earlier would retain its prominence as a discount retailer. Lost for good they feared, would be the “magic spark” that Walton used to light fires under the chain’s 1.3 million associates. And, as Wal – Mart stock failed to enjoy the same bull – market growth as many other companies in the mid – 1990s, the pundits appeared to be correct. Today, however, with stores in all 50 U.S. states and nine other countries, Wal – mart has rebounded, leading the pack of discount stores with record earnings. In fact, with $218 billion in annual sales and 100 million customers per week, Wal – Mart is the world’s largest retailer and was named “Retailer of the Century” by Discount Store News.
For my experience on when I felt I was not listened to as a customer I decided to write about the time I had to exchange ink for my printer at walmart. For my birthday my brother bought me ink for my printer but he bought the wrong ink number. I decided to call walmart and explain that I didn't have a receipt for the ink but I just wanted to exchange it for the right ink number. They told me it would be okay to exchange the product as long as it was not opened.
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 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.