Walmart Case Study

In 1962, Wal-Mart opened their first store in Rogers, Arkansas. In 1970, Wal-Mart's first distribution center and home office in Bentonville, Ark. open and Wal-Mart went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Just nine years from that, Wal-Mart's annual sales exceeded one billion dollars. In 1988, Wal-Mart super centers opened across the country. In a merely three years from that, Wal-Mart opened their own store in Mexico City, Mexico; making Wal-Mart an international corporation. Not even sixty years has past, and yet, Wal-Mart is over-powering our country.

Walmart faced strong entrenched competition in Canada and Europe. In these developed countries, they couldn’t gain critical mass through internal growth, so they had to acquire companies that have been in the market already. They acquired Woolco, a money losing operation, applied many of the American business practices, and within a few years, the Canadian operations were successful. They have 317 stores, and they account for more than 35 percent of the Canadian discount and department store market. In Europe, Walmart entered Germany by acquiring the Wertkauf hypermarket chain in 1998 and entered the UK by acquiring the 229-store ASDA group. They the leader and are now losing ground to Tesco. A major problem for Walmart in the European market is overexpansion. Accompanied with the famous “Always low prices” approach, they met large resistance from the competition and regulators. Large price wars began because Walmart was accused of underselling the competition. They struggled to build a strong competitive base in German losing more than $1 billion. They were unable to create a competitive advantage, so they sold their operations to a competitor, Metro. They also faced problems in Korea, so

Wal-Mart has preferred to expand internationally by buying existing operations and converting them to Wal-Mart stores. The company entered Canada by purchasing the Woolco chain that was competing with Kmart in that market, and it entered Mexico in much the same way. The company entered Europe by purchasing the Asda stores in the United Kingdom and an operation in Germany that later failed. Wal-Mart entered foreign markets via acquisition for a couple of reasons. The first is that the company relies on real estate as the cornerstone of its business. The second is that as a cost leader, Wal-Mart needed to build up economies of scale that would allow it to enjoy strong bargaining power in these markets immediately. Moreover, moving rapidly into a market minimizing the ability of competitors to register an adequate response.

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.

Walmart is known throughout the entire world as one of the most popular chain department stores. Actually, most have probably visited a Walmart store in the past week. Though Walmart stores seem to be a normal part of life the average person more than likely has little knowledge that pertains to Walmart’s success and business culture. This paper will guide one through the history of the organization, why Walmart is successful, what could threaten or open new opportunities, and how might they hold a competitive advantage.

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.

In 1962, Wal-Mart opened their first store in Rogers, Arkansas. In 1970, Wal-Mart's first distribution center and home office in Bentonville, Ark. open and Wal-Mart went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Just nine years from that, Wal-Mart's annual sales exceeded one billion dollars. In 1988, Wal-Mart super centers opened across the country. In a merely three years from that, Wal-Mart opened their own store in Mexico City, Mexico; making Wal-Mart an international corporation. Not even sixty years has past, and yet, Wal-Mart is over-powering our country.

A store that will provide everything a customer needed. With this vision, Sam and his wife Helen put up 95 percent of the money to build the first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas. Then they started making more profit because they were not only selling groceries but many other goods such as jewelry, toys, automotive products, clothes, and many other things. Over the years, Walmart started gaining customers and gaining respect in the community (“History”). In 1991, Walmart started business in Mexico City and this became the movement to create Walmart International. The company operates under its own name in the United States but the stores are created with different styles and formats to fit with the local customer needs and desires. In some countries, the name Walmart is changed to fit with the locals such as Walmex in Mexico, United Kingdom as Asda, in Japan as Seiyu, and in India as Best Price. More than 90 percent of the international stores operated under a different name than Walmart. Nevertheless, the goal and purpose of each of the store remains the same: “Save people money, so they can live better.” Today, Walmart International has 5,366 stores and about 740,000 associates in 27 different countries excluding United States. Some of the countries Walmart International operates in are Argentina, China, Honduras, Nicaragua, Brazil, Cost Rica, India, United Kingdom, Canada, El Salvador, Japan, Chile,

Wal-Mart has expanded beyond the United States, they have gone global. Wal-Mart continues to offer food and goods at a low price and continue to thrive by using the mission statement that the retail giant was built upon which is great customer service and low prices.

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

Wal-Mart was started in Rogers, Arkansas during the early 1960’s by Sam Walton. (Ghillyer, 2010). Walton traveled all around the country researching what consumers wanted in a retail store. When Sam Walton fist opened Wal-Mart he

Wal-Mart Stores have been around for more than 50 years, opening the first store in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962. After an early success of a small dime store Mr. Sam Walton wanted to expand on his business knowledge and liked the idea of living in a small town where he and his wife could enjoy a small town living. Through the success of Wal-Mart Stores create lower cost and great service to its customers, Mr. Walton opened the Sam’s Club franchise and even making some of the Wal-Mart stores Supercenters where customers can get the same shopping experience where ever they stop and not have to guess which store will have which items on hand. Mr. Walton wanted his customers to have a great shopping experience every time they came in, which would keep the customers coming back. He believed that his employees were more than just employees! He made them partners of the successful business chain which made for a great partnership. Mr. Walton was awarded the Medal of Freedom award for the great work that he stood by in 1992, from President George H.W. Bush. (Walmart).

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,

Walmart, one of the largest retailers in the world, was founded by Sam Walton in 1962. The first Walmart opened in Rogers, AR. It has since grown to over 10,300 stores all over the world. Employing over 2 million, it is hard to imagine the largest private employer in the world would ever be accused of being an unfair employee practices. Walmart has seen its share of litigation over the years. Litigation over off the clock work, sexual discrimination, health care benefits, unions, and unfair labor treatment have plagued the company.

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