Sam 's Club : The World 's Largest Retail Companies

The main objective of this case study is to help and analyse the current inefficiencies of Sam’s Club and provide the suggestions and ways to Mr Jim who is going to rearrange his team to get best of the Sam’s Club and formulate the supply chain strategies to maintain the lowest possible cost of merchandise to offer to members. Case study provides the details of inefficiency of the company which is discussed and then some solutions are proposed.

Growing up I was always told to be a leader and not a follower, and as a child I did not think much of that saying. However, in recent years I have begun to grasp what it truly means to

John Quincy Adams is quoted saying, "if your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." (Luttrell, 2011). To be a successful leader one must take the lead, showing those that follow the way and offer guidance and inspiration to encourage success and accomplishment.

Throughout my short life, I have come to realize that a leader does not necessarily, although they may, maintain a defined position of leadership. A leader is one who will rise to the challenge even when the odds in opposition. A leader will tackle any barrier that stands in the way of the goal. A leader is willing to be hated and face criticism for doing what is right. Leaders come in all different forms, but a leader is the one who is always willing to make the difficult decisions.

Sam’s Club is a very well-known business around the country. They are located in 47 different US states. Sam’s Club currently has 660 members and 100,000 employees. Sam’s Club was founded in 1983 by Sam Walton in Midwest City, Oklahoma. The new CEO is John Furmer on February 1st, 2017. Sam’s Club has given $.4 billion to people in need who don’t have enough money to support themselves. They are owned by Walmart and affiliates with them. In 2016 alone, they had $486 billion in revenue. Over the past 10 years their sales trends have ranged from 5% - 3.9% in sales growth. The only year that their sales growth went down drastically was in 2016 when they went down by -3.2%. They have many different competitions but one major competitor is Costco

To be a leader, you not only need followers but also have to have something to follow.

Best Buy, a familiar retailer in the technology world, is struggling to stay on top. Online and mass stores have cornered the market in terms of convenience, customer service and price matching. The recent closing of over two hundred stores alongside falling sales has experts predicting that the giant won’t be in business long. Using a results-only work environment (ROWE), Best Buy has removed the customer from the equation and forced many employees out. A marketing disaster, Best Buy must change its marketing strategy from sales-based to a customer-based to stay afloat.

In order for a leader to be a leader he/she must begin with the assumption that you are the one who matters most. As a leader you have to possess that level of confidence in yourself that you are capable of leading yourself “before you can lead others”. And when you develop this belief then you are better able of affirmative influence “on others”.

Sam Walton's book attributes different things to the success of the Wal-Mart stores, one of these being his approach to management. To keep management on their toes and involved, Sam offered them the opportunity to become limited partners if they would invest in the store they were to oversee. Since most of the managers of Wal-Mart own a piece of their store, they are naturally more concerned with profit and losses. Sam stated several times that the single most important ingredient of Wal-Mart's success was taking care of the people in the store, then they will in turn take care of the customer.

In 1963, Sam Walton had a vision. A vision, that he could bring what the consumers needed, to them, at the lowest price possible. Mr. Walton believed that a company could not be run by just one person, it had to take team work. With Mr. Walton relying on his associates at the lowest level possible, he created the retail empire known today as Walmart. Mr. Sam, as he was referred to, would visit each and every store to learn about its culture. He would sit down with each and every associate and get ideas, comments, concerns, and anything that the associates wanted to talk to him about. This practice allowed for Walmart to create a culture of its own. A culture where each person makes a difference, no matter what your background or life style. The cultural synergy remains the same today. This philosophy is the basis for Walmart’s slogan, “Every person makes a difference.” Sam Walton knew that in order to be successful he needed to hear from everyone, to make everyone a spokesperson for the company. Many of the ideas that have been put into play have come from the lower level associates who never thought they could make a difference. Each associate comes from a different walk of life and background. This leads to the diverse workforce that Walmart has today. Sam’s practices have been instilled in today’s current CEO, Doug McMillion.

Although the membership of Wal-Mart’ Sam’s club is cheap that is $45 annually compared to Costco that is $55 per year, but consumers towards subscribe more on Costco with 76million than Sam’s club of 47 million members. But the power of buyers tend to gain by Costco because the buyers has the mindset that although they pay much higher fee, but consumer felt that it is a good investment as they have a good benefit on discounts and extra offer on limited time. whereas the buying power still low among those who living under the poverty line, like 15% from total U.S. population. For this group of people, the retailing for small number of item purchased, Wal-Mart is much preferred than the membership form like Costco and Sam’s club because of fee barriers for very large

According to the path-goal theory the leader’s role is to motivate followers to follow a path towards a goal

Walmart has retail store interests in Brazil, China, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Argentina, and Brazil. The retail store sold the stores that it had in Japan and Germany. Wal-Mart also operates Sam’s Club, which is a membership store that started operations in 1983. As of 2014, Sam’s Club had sales that exceeded those of

We chose Walmart as the company to focus on for our business model canvas project. Considering that Walmart is the world’s largest retailer, as well as largest private employer, there is a plethora of information on this mammoth company. Sam Walton, Walmart’s founder, had a simple and noble vision for his stores; he said, “[We wanted to] reduce the cost of living for the people who shopped in our stores” (Soderquist, 2016). To this end, he created the big box retail format that we see in Walmart and other stores today. He envisioned a place where consumers could do their all their shopping under one roof and benefit from the discount pricing made possible by buying in bulk. His vision has given the world Walmart and Sam’s Club stores, as well as defining the big box business model that many others have copied.

To have great leadership, there needs to be a leader-follower relationship. The relationship can’t be effective without inspiration, involvement, and support from both participants. To develop this alliance, the leader must give extra effort to reach out to followers. The only way a leader can be successful is if the follower trusts the leader. The most important characteristic of a leader is to set a good example for their followers.