Case Study Solution: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Essays

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

1) Should Wal-Mart be expected to protect small businesses in the communities within which it operates?

the superior tracking capability of RFID chips would reduce shrinkage and other forms of loss by up

Wal-Mart is the world's largest retail and departmental store chain. Having business operations in 27 countries with 69 different brand names, Wal-Mart is able to serve a huge number of customers per day. Wal-Mart is the fastest growing and the most successful retail brand in the world. The factors which make it the strongest brand in its industry include large customer base, sound financial strength, strong brand image, and huge supply chain network. Wal-Mart has certain weaknesses in its operations and business setup like low acceptability of certain products, high employee turnover, and less recognition of newly introduced brands. These weaknesses can be overcome by availing attractive opportunities from the market and investing more in the most profitable areas. Wal-Mart faces the biggest threat from its competitors and ever-changing customer preferences.

Walmart has three business divisions (Walmart U.S., Walmart International and Sam’s Club) in three primary store formats - Supercenters, Discount Stores and Neighborhood Markets. Supercenters are typically opened 24 hours a day and are known for their one-stop shopping experience. These stores offer the largest assortment products and services, combining disparate retail products like electronics, apparel, tools & hardware and jewelry. They also offer grocery (deli, bakery, pharmacy) services in addition to specialized services (check cashing, bill payment, automotive servicing) that would require visits to multiple vendors (What Kind, n.d.). Discount Stores are smaller than a Supercenter though with the restriction of limited hours and loss of the more non-retail services. Neighborhood Markets were designed for local communities and focus on groceries and pharmacy. Besides their brick and mortar establishments, Walmart also owns and operates Walmart.com and a propriatary mobile app for most smart phones.

Sam Watson the founder of Walmart once said “our people make the difference”. Walmart understands the importance of its human resource department. Its employees deal directly with its customers and this has an influence on the success of Walmart. The objectives and corporate goals of Walmart are cost reduction, saving money for on goods for its customers to live better and the acknowledgement that their success to a great extent depends on their employees. The human resource functions that Walmart has put in place to be in line with its business objectives are its retention programs/strategies, internal promotion and career development and compensation.

Wal-Mart sale is in high volume with each geographical location where it has a subsidiary receiving an equal share of the required products to supply. The subsidiaries in Europe receive the largest number of sale compared to the rest of the branches. Africa has only one subsidiary in South Africa and thus registers the lowest number of purchase compared to other branches. However, the general number of sale recorded by Wal-Mart is high because the company has gained a lot of market share in the world. Economic survey indicates that Wal-Mart is the largest company in sales and that registers the highest volume of revenues in the world (Kendall & Gerald 1998).

Ever since Wal-Mart started it has taking off not only nationally but internationally, especially over the past ten years. Wal-Mart has become the world’s largest and probably the most powerful retailer to this day, having the highest sales per square foot. The major keys to Wal-Mart’s success is due to their inventory turnover, operating profits, providing discounted prices to their customers, and of course their supply chain. Through all of those, Wal-Mart says that it focuses on change, technology, and effective management to lower cost all across the board. Wal-Mart’s incredible supply chain, as shown in the case with its seafood, but with all of its products is where most of their ability to lower product

Wal-Mart Stores Inc, is the largest retailer in the world with a bullseye on its back from competitors taking aim in all different directions from supermarkets cutting prices to match Wal-Mart’s price, to Costco leading the warehouse market and online retailer beating out Wal-Mart.com. In addition, 2008 brings an economic slowdown and a reduction of feet through the doors of Wal-Mart Stores. Added to this, Wal-Mart has received negative publicity relating to employee compensation and benefits, forcing suppliers to cut prices which result in jobs moving from the US overseas to meet the demands of Wal-Mart and moving into areas putting locally owned retail outlets out of business. Wal-Mart has over 6,8001 stores worldwide with a strong internet presence with a wide product selection. Wal-Mart is support by over 66,000 suppliers worldwide offering products in numerous departments including pharmacy, grocery, hard and soft goods, electronics, pet, health and beauty and more.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. operates retail stores in various retailing formats in all 50 states in the United States. The Company 's mass merchandising operations serve its customers primarily through the operation of three segments. The Wal-Mart Stores segment includes its discount stores, Supercenters, and Neighborhood Markets in the United States. The Sam’s club segment includes the warehouse membership clubs in the United States. The Company 's subsidiary, McLane Company, Inc. provides products and distribution services to retail industry and institutional foodservice customers. It is now has more than 4,700 stores including some 1,475 discount stores, 1,750 combination discount and grocery stores and 538 membership-only warehouse stores (SAM’S CLUB) (Bianco, 2003). With net income of approximately US$8 billion on sales of US$247 billion (“Income Statement”, 2004), Wal-Mart was the subject of countless newspaper features and journal articles praising its dominance and success. Nearly 75% of its stores are in the United States (“Wal-Mart International Operations”, 2004), but Wal-Mart is expanding internationally. The International segment includes all of its operations in Asia,

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is the largest corporation in the world that specializes in selling goods at the lowest possible price. Having low prices attracts more customers and results in an increase in total profits even though, the markup per product is at bare minimum (Press 2004). Walmart’s products include food, beverages, home products, personal care products, toys, clothing, electronics, and much more (Walmart 2016). Walmart’s stock of such a large variety of products makes it one of most useful retail company for an everyday consumer. This and the willingness to expand and innovate is probably why Walmart is so successful today.

Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world with a revenue greater than $ 485 billion and a network of over 11000 stores spread out across 27 countries. As of January 2015, Wal-Mart served around 260 million customers weekly through its over 11,000 stores under 72 banners in 27 countries and e-commerce websites in 11 countries.

The key financial commitments that the company must make are the following ones. In fact, for sound financial management of the company, decision makers of Wal-Mart should develop consistent tools. They have to find both forecasting tools and control tools. Indeed, forecasting tools are tools that are based on objectives to achieve. In general, it is made by the internal workers to the company to guide those responsible for achieving the financial objectives of the company. Moreover, the control tools will allow to account for the situation of the company at a given time. These are boards set up by the financial team the company that will give to the company a reflection of its situation in comparison to the sector. Moreover, the performance of Wal-Mart is directly related to the performance of women and men who compose it. A priority of the company is therefore to develop a strategy for managing human resources. Good human resource management involves knowing the precise allocation of human resources, to promote their optimization in order to mobilize and develop them to achieve increased efficiency and productivity. The ability of Wal-Mart to manage its human resources effectively and mobilize its staff to achieve its objectives will depend to its extent on its ability to develop and implement a plan. This plan, on the one hand, will create an environment that will allow an attraction, retaining and the motivation a staff technical expertise and the high performance.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. also referred to as Walmart is the company that I am going to research for my proposal. The company website is www.walmart.com and the corporate website is www.corporate.walmart.com.

According to the news from the “THE AMERICAN PROSPECT” (23/04/2013) the problems arise in Walmart Company by workers fight back: