Case Analysis : Wal Mart

Wal-Mart is rated as largest of the United States retail stores and as the world’s biggest retail chain. Sam Walton started this company in 1962 with the three policy goals as service to the customers, personal respect and to strive for excellence. Wal-Mart is globally operating over 4,150 retail facilities currently. Wal-Mart store is the leading retail store (www.walmart.compar. 1) in Canada and Mexico as well as in the United Kingdom.

Question 1: What were the rights of Walmart, the employer, during these two organizing drives?

The retail industry is dominated by few retail giants, with Wal-Mart competing in several retail categories. Wal-Mart competes against Kmart and Target in the general merchandise retailing; against Costco in the warehouse club segment; and against Kroger, Albertson’s and Safeway in the supermarket retailing. Competition among retailers centers on pricing, store location, variations in store format and merchandise mix, store size, shopping atmosphere, and image with shoppers. Further analysis provided by the following figure diagnoses the

Large retailers, like Wal-Mart, have bargaining power because of the large order quantity, but the bargaining power is lessened because of the end consumer.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (or Walmart as written in its new logo) is an American public corporation that runs a chain of large, discount department stores. It is the world's largest public corporation by revenue, according to the 2008 Fortune Global 500.[5] Founded by Sam Walton in 1962, it was incorporated on October 31, 1969, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. It is the largest private employer in the world and the fourth largest utility or commercial employer, trailing the British National Health Service, and the Indian Railways. Wal-Mart is the largest grocery retailer in the United States, with an estimated 20% of the retail grocery and consumables business. It also owns and operates the North American company, Sam's Club.

Wal-mart was started up by a man named Sam Walton. Sam served in the military from 1942 and after his military service ended in 1945 he moved to Newport, Arkansas where he gained experience in the retail business. Sam moved to Bentonville, Arkansas and used his experience to open up Walton’s 5&10, however it was not until 1962 the Sam opened up his first Wal-mart. To date, Wal-mart has been in business for 54 years. Wal-mart has employed 2.3 million people making Wal-mart the largest private employer and a well respected company. In fact, in Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies list, Wal-mart ranks at the number 42 spot, and in Fortune’s 500 list, they rank at the number one spot which proves how big of giant Wal-mart really is in the retail industry. Wal-mart is a marketing intermediary in the retail industry. Wal-mart owns brands such as Sam’s Club and acts internationally under 55 names such as Best Price in India and Asda in the UK. Pharmacies, optometry, accounting and finance, asset protection, aviation, business analytics & intelligence, communications and corporate affairs, engineering, marketing, merchandising, real estate & store planning, and logistics are all career opportunities available within this firm. . Wal-mart’s net income in 2016 was 14.69 billion dollars, in 2015 it was 16.18 billion dollars, in 2014 it was 15.88 billion, and in 2013 it was 17 billion dollars.Between 2015 and 2016 Wal-mart has had a loss of 1.5 billion. In my

Founded in 1962 by Sam Walton, Wal-Mart followed an amazing pattern of success and growth, eclipsing all other U.S. department store retailers by the early 1990’s. In early spring 2001, Wal-Mart enjoyed a huge market capitalization of over $230B, which was down from highs of nearly $300B in early 2000. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is the world 's largest retailer and the largest company in the world based on revenues, ignoring profits (income), assets, and market capitalization. In the fiscal year ending January 31, 2002, Wal-Mart had $219 billion in sales and $6.6 billion in net income. It employs over 1 million people in the United States at 3,400 stores and 1.4 million people worldwide at 4,500 retail units in 10

As a Fortune Global 500 List highest performing company (Wikipedia, sourced Nov 11, 2017), Walmart’s choices in strategies provide an important case study with significant impact to the economy and the lives of thousands of people; employees and customers. The Fortune Global 500 list in 2016 listed Walmart as the “world’s largest company by revenue […] as well as the largest private employers in the world with 2.3 million employees” (Wikipedia, sourced Nov 11, 2017). The company started with a single store with the purpose of providing low cost products to customers. In its 55 years of existence, Walmart has worked to refine its logistics network and scale this business model resulting in operations in 28 countries. Walmart has additionally expanded on its offerings now including super centers, neighborhood markets, and on-line offerings. These are some examples of how Walmart has continued to evolve. Other initiatives that are in pilot phases include a home delivery system called Walmart To Go, the acquisition of Jet.Com and a “same-day and last-mile delivery company” Parcel (Wikipedia, sourced Nov 11, 2017). Continued exploration and testing of new services including free grocery pick up, two-day shipping services, and last-mile grocery delivery (Wikipedia, sourced Nov 11, 2017).

Although Wal-Mart’s distribution network is in place in the United States, it may be difficult to establish a similar system in other countries. Restrictions such as lack of infrastructure and government regulations may slow down the acquisition of volume and expansion of the chain. The company is well-aware of these challenges in other countries, thus they resort to acquisitions of other stores and partnerships with suppliers, to help their growth internationally. Wal-Mart’s relationship with its suppliers is also a sustainable competitive advantage. The company has already demonstrated its suppliers its commitment to their operations and prosperous returns over time. Competitors lack the volume of purchases that Wal-Mart can offer. Suppliers in this case have less bargaining power because Wal-Mart is able to negotiate based on the established relationships. This gives the firm the capability of making slow payments to suppliers since they would not dare to charge a late fee.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (Walmart) is engaged in the operation of retail stores, wholesale, and other various formats across the world (MintGlobal, 2016). Headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansa, Sam Walton founded Walmart in 1962 and the company was incorporated in 1969 (Reuters, 2016). Being the largest retailer in the world with over 2.3 million employees (MarketLine, 2016), Walmart is a multinational company with operations in over 27 countries (Reuters, 2016). Every week, Walmart gets approximately 260 million customers visiting 11,500 stores in 28 countries and its e-commerce websites in 11 countries (Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 2016). Walmart offers goods as well as private label merchandise in the following categories: grocery, entertainment, hardlines, health and wellness, apparel, and home (MarketLine, 2016). Being the market leader, the company’s revenue increases every year, with $485,651 million in the 2014 fiscal year (MarketLine, 2016).

For this assignment I am going to look at the Wal-Mart case study and look at how Wal-Mart controls their costs in the following activities: procurement, distribution, merchandising and marketing, stores, people, and management.

The traditional logic of retailing therefore does not completely apply to Wal-Mart. The ambience of shopping is secondary to the price savings and the trust its most loyal customer segments have in the quality and availability of products. What gives Wal-Mart such a competitive advantage on pricing, availability and the quickness of rolling out new stores is their supply chain management (SCM) practices and strategies, considered one of the best worldwide (Mottner, Smith,

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. or Walmart is a multinational retail organization that has numerous chains of large discount warehouse and general stores. The company was formed in 1962 by Sam Walton as a family-owned business. It was incorporated in 1969 and traded on the Stock Exchange of New York publicly in 1972. Since then this organization has grown strength to strength winning various accolades. In 1988, it was ranked as the most profitable retail business in America outselling competitors such as K-Mart and Sears in the retail business (Fishman, 2006).

▪ Supplier’s group products are not differentiated as there were many other suppliers available in the market who were producing the same category of products.

Founded by Sam Walton, Walmart is an American multinational retail chain, incorporated in the year 1969, has fully transformed the landscape of retail organized business with it’s innovative business strategies.