Woolworths Limited : Walmart Limited

In accordance to the annual report of Woolworths Limited 2016, the current accounting practice that is applied to the business regarding its inventory disclosure includes; a perpetual inventory system which continually updates the information by increasing or decreasing inventory from reports throughout the year to verify accounting records (Bragg 2016). A perpetual inventory system in comparison to a periodic inventory system is more efficient and effective for larger corporations. With entities like Woolworths, many transactions occur between themselves and other stakeholders, so by utilising a perpetual inventory system, it saves time and also money (Woolworths 2016)

My chosen business that my report will be based on is the Woolworths company, known primarily in Australia for their supermarket’s and retail chains. Woolworths run several high profile Australian stores such as BWS, Dan Murphys, Big W and the highly publicized Masters. The reason for my choice of Woolworths was that as they are one of the biggest companies and employers in Australia, and have recently been in the media spotlight for the closing of one of the recent projects Masters. Another major reason as to my choice of Woolworths is that there supply-chain would be as interesting and extensive as any other Australian based company. With almost a thousand supermarkets Australia wide and over 100 thousand staff, Woolworths is one of the countries prominent employers (Woolworths limited 2012).

Lowe’s (LOW) and Home Depot (HD) are competitors in the every growing market of Home Improvement. The following analysis of each company will examine the home improvement industry, the individual companies, their operating philosophies, their financial strengths or weaknesses, and a final conclusion on which company would be a better long-term investment.

In 1979, they opened three Home Depot outlets in the Atlanta area, adding fourth outlet in 1980. The next year Home Depot when public, opened four stores in South Florida, and posted sales of $50 million. After opening two more stores and making sales of $100 million in 1982, the company was named Retailer of the Year in the home building supply industry. The chain entered Louisiana and Arizona next.

In 1931 Woolworths was founded by a man called Max Sonnenberg. The official opening was on the 30th of October in Plein Street, Cape Town. This was in the dinning room of a Royal hotel. Later on in 1947 a crucial stage on the companies history came along, after World War II. This was when the company established a relationship with Marks and Spencer of London. Over a period of time the relationship grew between the owners, but later M&S sold their shares in Woolworths however still keeping a strong relationship and maintained close personal ties.

Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world. The position Wal-Mart holds gives the company a large responsibility to contribute to the community that supports the stores. As an organization Wal-Mart owes its success to the stake holders of their business. Wal-Mart requires the community to continue business operations, Trevino and Nelson state that “a major stakeholder in business must be the communities of which corporations and other organizations are a part” (2011). Wal-Mart must consider the community happiness with their business decisions to remain profitable.

Masters Home Improvement is an Australian home improvement chain that started the market in 2011, and it is managed by the joint venture between Woolworths Limited and Lowe’s, USA in order to create an opportunity for Woolworths Limited to expand its market.

The Fortune 500 was established in 1955. Fortune 500 is a list of the 500 largest companies in the United States as compiled by FORTUNE Magazine. This list is compiled by using recent figures for revenue and includes both public and private companies with publicly available revenue data. (investopia.com) The Fortune 500 companies are ranked by the amount of revenue that they are bringing in on a yearly basis. While many feel that many of those businesses are operated by men, the Fortune 500 currently released and let it be known that there are 21 women CEO’s in the Fortune 500 category. (Management.Fortune)

Woolworths is a supermarket chain situated within Australia and New Zealand and is owned by Woolworths Limited. Established in 1924, as a single basement store in Sydney Australia, Woolworths has become the largest food retailer within Australia,

Woolworths is a conventional supermarket owned by Woolworths Limited. It started as a basement store in Pitt Street in 1924, and is now one of the leading competitors in the supermarket business. With over 850 stores in Australia, and 110,000 Woolworths staff, they provide

The first Woolworths store opened on the 5 December 1924 in Pitt Street Sydney. In 1993 Woolworths Ltd was offered to the public in the largest share float in Australian history and investors responded by applying for 2.65 billion. In 2007, Woolworths opened its first new “Green” supermarket, which incorporated equipment that reduced energy usage, water usage and waste generation and minimises the use of materials that can cause environmental harm. Furthermore, in 2008 Woolworths set about rebranding their Safeway products and stores in Victoria to the Woolworths brand. Finally, in 2010 Woolworths celebrated their 86th year in the retailing business.

When the first Woolworths supermarket open, the Founding CEO Percy Christmas has stated that a key principle for Woolworths were “Every man, woman and child needs a handy place where good things are cheap” which has been insisting by all the Woolworths employees and suppliers until now. Now Woolworths has more than 3,000 stores in Australia and New Zealand that span food, liquor, petrol and general merchandise. (Woolworths Limited, 2015).

Woolworths Limited is an Australian retail company. Judging by market share and sales, Woolworths is the largest food and liquor retailer in Australia. The first store was opened on Friday, 5 December 1924, and today Woolworths operates 1000 stores around Australia.

First, Walmart is the largest retailer in United State of America and also Walmart is the largest retailer in the world. Wal mart has branches in all states in US., and more than 11,000 stores in 28 countries as 65 banners that people know. At first Walmart established the first international store in Mexico City, Mexico in 1991, that the organization uses the name Walmart for operating in the United States and Canada. Walmart has an employee 2.2 million employees around the world. There are 1.3 million employees that worked in the United States, and around 900,000 employees in the international market. Walmart in an international market has three types that is:

| | |Woolworths Ltd. | |Account Assignment | | | |Kavindi, Justin & Gurleen | |17/01/2011