Research On The Supply Chain Of Walmart Essay

In 1950, Sam Walton purchased a store and opened Walton’s 5 & 10 in Bentonville, Arkansas. This later became the home office of the now multi-billion dollar company. As business became more successful, Walton opened more stores and renamed the chain “Wal-mart.” Now, Walmart has stores all around the globe, with 5,229 stores in the US alone. It is considered the largest retail company in the world.

Retail super-giant Wal-Mart has fought its way to becoming the world's largest company. Wal-Mart’s legendary supply chain technology has allowed them to break the three-day barrier that some economists in the eighties felt that it was unbreakable. In other words, Wal-Mart is often able to replenish items on the Wal-Mart shelf in less than three days – not from the central warehouse to the shelf, but from the manufacturer to the shelf. With quick and reliable 2-day turn around, Wal-Mart is able to maintain lower levels of inventory and still meet customer demand. These lower inventory levels result in either a reduced floor plan with lower carrying costs and lower interest expense – or a greater diversity of products on the store shelves.

Wal-Mart Corporation is one of the largest retail stores in the world. They serve customers in meeting their needs with low cost saving items. On October 31, 1962, Wal-Mart was founded and incorporated by Sam Walton in Bentonville, Arkansas. Mr. Walton went into business because he felt that items sold were too high for the average customer to afford. His focus was to sell products at low prices to get higher volume sales at a lower profit margin. He bought bulk products from different suppliers so he could incorporate savings into his pricing to lower cost for customers. Under the savings cost concept, Wal-Mart grew rapidly and surpassed its competitors in sales and generating profits.

The supply chain management is considered as a management concept from past two decades as the customers are concerned about timely and safe delivery. The competitiveness has been increasing among the companies to deliver the products as quickly as possible to the customers all around the world. This has made the supply chain management as a vital tool for the management. This is also measured as a competitive parameter for the companies.

The Wal-Mart company was established on July 2, 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas (History Timeline). The company was based on the vision of Sam Walton, who believed in giving his customers the lowest prices, anytime, anywhere. By 1967 the Walton family owned 27 different stores, and in 1969 they officially incorporated, becoming Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Just a year later in 1970 Wal-Mart went National, proving the wide spread appeal of Sam Walton's beliefs (History). This same year Wal-Mart became a publicly traded company, with its first shares priced at 16.50. A short year later the company was listed in The New York Stock Exchange (History Timeline). The 80's were a major success for this company. In 1983 the first Sams Club opened, this was and still is a store that sells product in bulk to small businesses and individuals. In 1988 the first Wal-Mart Super center opened. The Super center combined a full scale supermarket with general merchandise to create one stop shopping convenience (History). In 1992 the company suffered a hard hit when Sam Walton passed away at the age of 74. Although they lost the man at the heart of the company they were determined to carry on with his vision, and so they did. In 1996 they opened their first stores in China (History Timeline). By 2002 they reach the top of the Fortune 500 ranking of Americas largest companies. In 2012 Wal-Mart celebrated 50 successful years of business. Today the company employs 2.2 million associates worldwide and serves

Walmart is a multinational corporation with 11,000 retail locations located in 27 countries and is the largest retailer in the world. With over 2.2 million employees, Walmart is the also largest employer in United States the world. The history of Walmart dates back to 1962 when founder Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas. By the late 1960s, total sales were over $12 million with 24 Walmart stores spread across Arkansas (Riffel, 2014). “By the end of the 1970s, Wal-Mart had expanded into a number of different services in its stores—selling pharmaceuticals, adding auto service centers, and introducing jewelry divisions.

Retail super-giant Wal-Mart has fought its way to becoming the world's largest company. Much of their success can be attributed to providing a vast assortment of products at exceptional prices all under one roof. Wal-Mart began operations in 1964 and has since become the world leader in retail. Today, Wal-Mart is visited by 138 million customers per week at their 4,750 stores. Wal-Mart operates under four basic rules in order to satisfy such a large number of customers:

Wal-Mart is a general merchandise discount retailer, which was incorporated in 1962. Wal-Mart’s history is based on one man, Sam Walton, who changed the course of retailing forever. Sam Walton first entered retailing when he was a management trainee at J.C. Penny Co. in 1940 in Des Moines, Iowa. After serving in the Army in World War II, Walton acquired a Ben Franklin variety store franchise with his brother James Walton in Newport Arkansas, until they lost the lease to the store in 1950. By 1962, when the first Wal-Mart Discount City was opened in Rogers Arkansas, both Walton’s were operating fifteen stores under the “Walton 5 & 10” name, and were the largest Ben Franklin franchisee in the

Wal-Mart is arguably the most dynamic corporation in the last 50 years in the United States, if not the world. Arising from its beginnings in Bentonville, Arkansas, it has grown to over 4,400 discount stores, super centers and corner markets worldwide. Wal-Mart continues to expand despite public criticism of its labor practices as well as complaints about their treatment of competitors. The many strengths of Wal-Mart, like their low cost production and marketing practices, will aid Wal-Mart as it continues to grow in the retail

Wal-Mart was first opened in 1962 by Sam Walter as a retail store. It started out a five and dime store in Rogers, Arkansas and was called Walton’s. He opened this store with one goal in mind, to sale at the lowest prices possible, quality leadership and great customer services. He thought that his idea could change the retail industrial. Wal-Mart was built on a solid foundation that remains stable even after the death of Mr. Walton. Wal-Mart became the largest multinational retail store in America, with a grocery store and a pharmacy. There is a Wal-Mart in all fifty states and seventeen international states and has more than 2.3 million employees. This store

Walmart’s history dates back in 1945 when Sam Walton bought an outlet of the Ben Franklin retail stores with the aim of selling products at a relatively low cost, so as to generate huge sale volumes and make profits at a low margin. Although this portrayed the purchased outlet as a crusade for most consumers,

Wal-Mart was founded by businessman Sam Walton in 1962 as a small retail store in Arkansas, USA. From there it has grown to become the largest retail giant in the world. Ranked by Forbes 2000 list for 2011 as the 18th largest public corporation in the world, Wal-Mart is the highest revenue generating public entity in the world as of 31st January 2011, with gross revenue of 422 billion US Dollars (Walmart Annual Report, 2011). It is also noted for being the largest private employer in the world having just over 2 million employees serving in 8500 stores, in 15 different countries, under 55 different names, worldwide. (Daniel, 2010)

As I sat down several weeks ago to begin writing this case study, I struggled with how I wanted to lay the paper out, however, when I opened Lee Scott’s 21st century leadership speech that was part of the required reading, the following quote struck me as the essence of the whole case study, so I would like to share it with you. You know, we are in uncharted territory as a business. You won’t find any case studies at the Harvard Business School highlighting answers for companies of our size and scope. If we were a country, we would be the 20th largest in the world. If

Walmart’s first store was opened up in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962 by Sam Walton. Walton had owned a retail store in the previous store and decided to utilize a unique concept to achieve high sales and rise above his competitors in the town and industry. Walton reduced the prices of his products so that they were lower to those that were being offered by the competitors. By 2007, Walmart had over 3,400 retail outlets throughout the country. The store also had 1.3 million employees and had facilitated about 6.49 % of the country’s sales in retail. Walmart deals in the sale of apparel, music, groceries and some household products. In 2005, Walmart’s end of year profits had exceeded those of other retail stores combined such as Target, Costco, Home Depo, and Sears Holding Company.

We would like to show our gratitude to Resp. Prof. Mr. Sham Sharma, for providing us with the golden opportunity to prepare an intellectual report, on Distribution & Logistics Management of “wal-mart”.