Walmart Management And Strategy Of Walmart Essay

Wal-Mart is a brand that is well known around the world, especially in the USA. It has gradually developed into the largest retailer in the world. Wal-Mart’s globalization efforts have been happening rapidly. But have they been successful in all aspects of their international expansion or not? This is the main thought that is going to be discussed in this essay. The questions I will be looking at are based on a case called “Wal-Mart takes on the world” from the book of International Business The Challenge of Global Competition eleventh edition – Ball, McCulloch, Geringer, Minor, and McNett. Questions are the following:

Economic - Wal-Mart’s economic performance has been outstanding and its goal of providing quality merchandise at low cost to consumers fits well within this objective. Its stakeholders expect continual improvement to its bottom line, which is especially important to its shareholders, as they are the ones sharing in that return. “…2013, Walmart increased net sales by 5% to $466.1 billion and returned $13 billion to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases” (573). As we will discuss later on, the struggle comes when the company tries to do this in a sustainable and ethical way. Further, the company must provide fair paying jobs and profit to shareholders with as little impact as possible to local merchants. This can be done by purchasing from U.S. manufacturers whenever possible.

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

The evolution of Wal-mart from the early 1960s to the present day has set a benchmark that few can achieve. Wal-mart executives have been successful nationally as well as globally. The knowledge and expertise in economics have made Wal-mart a global giant. The research completed is the final recommendations by the members of research team C and will address questions regarding global competition and issues of the organizations ability to expand or reduce current operations.

to see where the company is now with the use of a brief Swot analysis.

With over two-million people employed and an annual revenue of nearly 486 million dollars for 2015, it is no surprise that Walmart is one of the world’s largest retail companies (Walmart Stores Inc.). Walmart is an expanding company, one who is constantly looking for opportunities for new stores. With all this in mind, it easy to see why Walmart has such a large impact on America’s economy. This is why America’s societies should limit their dependencies on Walmart stores and subsidiaries. It is important to do this based on how quickly Walmart came to be the economic power it is, the poor treatment of employees, and the impact on small businesses.

From a gallon of milk to a complete home makeover, Wal-Mart is the kind of store consumers (to include myself) go to buy all their home goods. What we don’t see are the management aspect of the operations, the issues stores, management, and executives go through on a daily basis. Wal-Mart has several challenges it goes through, from self-inflicting wounds to battling competitors for the lowest prices and consumer business. However its CEO’s both past and present have set the foundation and direction of where Wal-Mart is to be headed in the 21st century. With direction and orders in-hand, its top executives have developed

Wal-Mart like other large retailers has to abide to tax laws and regulation set in place by the government. Wal-Mart like any other company has regulations to follow such as the antitrust laws. Antitrust policy is the government’s policy toward the competitive process (). Where the government may intervene is say if Wal-Mart was merging with a company, and it was taking a complete strong hold on the market giving it the ability to fluctuate prices as high as may want to. Still being able to retain consumers even at such a high price and they can do nothing about it. Antitrust regulation can prevent a company like Wal-Mart from doing so. The specific law is the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 designed to regulate the competitive process.

 Illustrates low prices and at the same time, not portray a cheap image to consumer.

Wal-Mart is a world-wide active American retail trade company and currently the largest retail company in the world. Beginning in 1962, Wal-Mart has made the transition from a small firm in Arkansas to the largest employer with 3, 800 store units in the United States with record revenues today. But nevertheless, since Wal-Mart launched its online branch, it had to suffer from substantial setbacks from competitors such as Amazon.com or Ebay.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT (http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/lcddata.html?ticker=wmt) ), branded as Walmart, is an American multinational retail corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's third largest public corporation, according to the Fortune Global 500 list in 2012, the biggest private employer in the world with over two million employees, and is the largest retailer in the world. Walmart remains a family-owned business, as the company is controlled by the Walton family, who own a 48 percent stake in Walmart.[5][6] It is also one of the world's most valuable companies.[7] The company was founded by Sam Walton

This paper will discuss the structure of Wal-Mart's corporate culture and how it influences their employees. In order to understand an Organization Behavior there are different elements that will create the employees perspective of the organization’s culture such as the management’s philosophy, vision, values, and goals. The driving force of these elements will create the culture of the organization. An organization’s culture will define the leadership, and dynamics of the organization. With each element listed the employees of the organization will identify this as work life that will guide their level of motivation. Depending on which level of motivation the employees are at

Wal-Mart saw that their competitors’ sales were increasing, so they had to take action. The key facts and issues presented in this case were the declining sales and reducing profit. Wal-Mart had to revise their marketing strategy, while maintaining what they are known for; which, is their everyday low prices (Ferrell, Hirt, & Ferrell, 2009). In order to stay on top, the company must keep up their market strategies. Wal-Mart felt the pressure form their competitors, so they had to adapt to the new and change the existing strategies (Our History, n.d.). It is so important in the business world to be able to embrace the change. When Sam Walton started Wal-Mart he had ten simple rules. They are commit to your business, share profits with associates and treat them as partners, motivation, communication everything, appreciate everything associates do, celebrate our success, listen to everyone in the company, exceed your customers’ expectations, control your expenses, and swim upstream (Our History, n.d.).

I would argue that this is the largest current threat facing the company with businesses such as Amazon and Costco in the same market knocking on their door. Walmart just recently hired another CEO, the 3rd such move that I could find in my research for this case study and while replacing a veteran executive with an up-and-coming high performer has all the makings of a strategic shift, early indications suggest that the retail giant will be staying the course with McMillon at the helm. McMillon's decades of employment, deep institutional knowledge, and company loyalty have been credited as key reasons he beat out Bill Simon, president and CEO of Walmart U.S., an executive seen as more of an outsider for the top job. (Pelletier, 2013) Being a friend of the Walton’s, with deep Arkansas roots, and decades of experience doing things the Walmart way is not the hallmark of an incoming CEO who is going to shake things up at the world's largest retailer and America's largest employer. But, given the many challenges the company faces, change might be exactly what is needed. (Pelletier, 2013) The article goes on to talk about a disappointing third quarter when its largest revenue generator, sales from U.S. stores, dropped 0.3%. The company also has forecasted flat earnings during the critically important holiday season. Walmart still expects to see modest sales growth in FY2015 through the opening of smaller, more targeted stores, and its longtime strategy

"Wal-Mart, is an American retail corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores. The company is the world's second largest public corporation, according to the Fortune Global 500 list in 2013, the biggest private employer in the world with over two million employees, and the largest retailer in the world. The company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, incorporated on October 31, 1969, is also the largest grocery retailer in the United States" (Wikipedia, 08). A leader with a solid vision, Sam Walton started the company, and made it into the forerunner in discount retailing that it is