...FIN 320 Project “Is Wal-Mart Good for America?” 1. One of the things that Wal-Mart prides itself on is its ability to keep track of inventory. Wal-Mart uses a device that tracks how every item in the store is doing, whether it be for the month, week, day, or even an hour within a day. Wal-Mart knows exactly how the item is selling and when. It is important because this helps Wal-Mart keep their shelves full with what they need and when they need it. This also gives Wal-Mart an edge in the negotiating process with suppliers since they know exactly how the supplier’s goods have done in the past. This gives much more power to the retailer rather than the producer. 2. In the year 1994, Rubbermaid was ranked as the nation’s most admired company. This came in part because originally the company did not do business with Wal-Mart, but once Rubbermaid started dealing with Wal-Mart they saw their numbers grow. As the years went on Rubbermaid ran into a problem where the cost for the raw materials used in their products went up causing production costs to increase. As a result Rubbermaid attempted to ask its retailers to increase the price of Rubbermaid products. Wal-Mart refused because of their low price promise to the customer. Wal-Mart then began to cut some Rubbermaid products from their stores which negatively reflected on Rubbermaid. As a result in the year 2004, rather than Rubbermaid being the most admired company, it had become Wal-Mart. 3. An opening...
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...Wal-Mart, Wally World, etc…whatever you call it, most of us shop there every week because Mississippi and much of the Deep South have limited grocery shopping options. This episode focuses more on the economic impact of Wal-Mart, than the environmental impact, but their impact on consumerism is clear. The following questions are from the official lesson plans that PBS posts for teachers and professors to use in their classes. Please make notes to help you answer these questions as you watch the video. Then, afterwards, when you have had some time to think about the video, answer these questions in more detail. You do not need to turn in your answers to the questions. Instead, study these questions and your answers for the Final Exam questions that will assess your understanding of Frontline: Is Wal-Mart Good for America? 1. What did you know about Wal-Mart before viewing the documentary? I knew it was a very large company that gave the illusion of low prices and benefits to customers. Wal-mart owns and has bought out companies . Wal-mart gets most of its products from unprotected workers in China and other countries. 2. Do you know anyone that works at Wal-Mart? If so, how would you characterize their experiences? Although i do not know anyone that works at Wal-Mart nor do i shop there i do know it offers jobs to people with disablities . I believe the jobs are minimum wage. I also know they offer jobs at any time of the day. 3. What most surprised you about the...
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...Is Wal-Mart Good For America? Introduction We all want to do what is best for our families, our friends, ourselves and our country. However, our nation’s number one corporation is under constant ridicule for being a negative part of the American way. Wal-Mart is the overall number one on the fortune 500, over taking Exxon Mobile after a one year slip to the number 2 spot. However Wal-Mart is constantly being ridiculed by media and everyday citizens, its employees included. These opinions are often brought forth because of four major issues; the pay and benefits packages of Wal-Mart employees, the quality and buying of their goods from China, big box corporation killing local businesses ,and Wal-Mart taking jobs away and not creating new, stronger jobs .To answer each question I will use research from many different mediums, financial statements, and my personal experience as a three year Wal-Mart employee, and present facts and numbers that would be crucial in making an educated decision, following this information I will present what I believe is strong and weak about Wal-Marts current way of doing business, and then offer my solutions to answer these questions and answer the big question. Is Wal-Mart good or bad for America? Does Wal-Mart Treat Their Employees Right? As a Wal-Mart employee, I have gotten to see how things are ran, how we receive the goods, how they are taken to the floor, how it is stocked, and cleaned. I have been an overnight stocker at one of the...
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...corporate social responsibility conflicting with Wal-Mart’s cost leadership strategy? Is Wal-Mart good for America? Before analyzing Wal-Mart’s corporate strategy, it is important to identify what business it is in. For example, Wal-Mart is in the business of selling consumer goods such as TV’s, sheets, clothes, then it is pursuing a concentric strategy by entering in the food business. However, this changes depending on how you analyze what business Wal-Mart is in. Wal-Mart is in the business of selling everything customers need in their everyday lives. This includes the consumer goods listed above as well as food-service items. Wal-Mart definitely has the business strategy of Low Cost Leadership. They do nothing to really differentiate themselves from competitors and provide no-frills self-service stores that always provide the lowest prices. Wal-Mart has built enough purchasing power with suppliers that they can dictate the prices and go in and change suppliers manufacturing processes in order to wring out more and more savings for the consumer. Everything that Wal-Mart does from calling suppliers collect to having execs double up in hotel rooms, is to save the customer money. While they do try to provide good customer service on top of low prices, Wal-Mart’s strength is low-prices. No one has such a supplier and distribution network like Wal-Mart that allows such low prices. But in the past several years, Wal-Mart also has been going through a major transformation...
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...merchant like Wal-Mart acting ethically and good for America? Or has this monopoly game gone on too unethically long? Wal-Mart has a broad span of likes and dislikes from America, but after given the facts I can bet most would agree that Wal-Mart is bad for America. There are numerous ethical problems with Wal-Mart as well as numerous things that just don’t seem right with the company. Wal-Mart is nationally known for having awful wages for their employees. I believe this is unethical simply for the fact that what Wal-Mart pays their normal employees is not enough to support one self and not enough to live. The money a Wal-Mart employee makes in one year is a couple thousand dollars below the poverty line. There for making the statement that if you work at Wal-Mart you will be broke and poor and won’t be able to support another person, let alone a whole family. Another problem with Wal-Mart is the working conditions. Employees at Wal-Mart have been forced to work off the clock, have been locked in the building during night shifts, have had their overtime pay not paid in full, have had random wage decreases. Wal-Mart is also known for discriminating against females during the hiring process. Wal-Mart also has been documented for making employees miss their break/meal periods, as well as the overlooking off illegals being hired and forced to work for cheaper pay and longer hours. This is just a short list of a lot of unethical decisions by Wal-Mart. If a Wal-Mart were to move...
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...Is Wal-Mart good for America? Wal-Mart is one of the most powerful and broadest companies in America. There are more than 5,000 stores worldwide, 100 million shoppers per week and they had $256 billion sales in 2003.Everything is very inexpensive there and they always have the lowest prices. Although that is a good thing, it is bad because it keeps people out of work and the workers get low wages. Global retailers are the most powerful companies in America now. Sam Walton, the creator of Wal-Mart said his formula was, “Buy cheap, sell for less than the other guy and make your profit on high volume and fast turnover.” Wal-Mart can be examined using both structural functional and social conflict theory. Structural functional theory is when society is a complex system of interconnected and interrelated social structures each having a function and working together to promote social stability. One hundred million people shop at Wal-Mart every week. Wal-Mart is very convenient for people to shop at. Most people do not even have to shop at other stores because Wal-Mart has everything. It’s also convenient because it is right around the corner from a lot of customers houses; they don’t have to travel far to find a Wal-Mart store so they save gas. People already know that Wal-Mart has the lowest prices so they don’t have to search for stores with low prices. The items sold are good quality as well as cheap. What more could someone ask for. Wal-Mart is a world leader in logistics and...
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...Brian Cash Wal-Mart Case Study International Business How has the implementation of NAFTA affected Wal-Mart’s success in Mexico? When NAFTA was implemented in Mexico, it was an almost immediate success for Wal-Mart. This was because they lowered and abolished the tariffs that Wal-Mart was required to pay prior to the implementation of NAFTA. With the lack of tariff fees, all of the Wal-Marts' in Mexico have been able to offer the “Every Day Low Prices” that we Americans are used to. The Mexican population has other retail options, but none offer the variety of products at the prices that Wal-Mart can offer them. Prior to NAFTA, Wal-Mart was having strong levels of success all over Mexico, but was taking a huge hit as it struggled to incorporate the import costs on the products it sold in the stores. In 1994, NAFTA was implemented in Mexico they were able to do a multitude of things. Firstly, they lowered tariffs from 10 to 3 percent on all American goods travelling from the United States into Mexico. (Daniels, Radebaugh, & Sullivan, 2013) At the same time they were also helping the government by encouraging them to improve its infrastructure. The improvements to subpar roads and the various routes delivery trucks utilized helped connect the logistical issues that plagued Wal-Mart and kept them from branching out into further enterprises within Mexico. The strategy worked and allowed Wal-Mart the ability to transport goods directly to the warehouse and...
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...can’t blame one monolith corporation for the low cost, low goods economic state that the world is in now. People fondly remember a period after World War II in which America led the world in manufacturing, in which great old American companies made their products right in our hometowns, high quality products that had no rivals. That is no longer what the world looks like. There is global competition, cheap labor and manufacturing overseas, and an insatiable consumer demand for cheap goods with the mentality of “cheap over anything else”. Wal-Mart simply fills that demand for America, and it fills it with an American company that contributes to American productivity, employing American workers and keeping down prices and inflation for 300,000,000 Americans. If Wal-Mart didn’t exist, some other company would fill that need, and it might not be American, so we should count our blessings. The company could be Swedish, like IKEA, or Danish, like Simon Lichtenberg’s Trayton Group. So, you cannot hold this against Wal-Mart on the basis of a claim that says Wal-Mart destroys the old American economy that our parents and grandparents remember affectionately. That economy is dead or dying, and this new world is less predictable. It moves too quickly sometimes for us to keep up, workers have less job security and Main Street is no longer the center of American commerce, but Wal-Mart does its part to help America keep up. Wal-Mart gives the American people somewhere to go to get discount...
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...Discussion of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. How did Wal-Mart change the relationship between the producer and the retailer? What exactly did Wal-Mart do? Wal-Mart alone changed this dynamic away from the old “push” system and toward a “pull” system in which the retailer tells the manufacturer what to produce and how much. Companies have little room to negotiate when it comes to partnering up with Wal-Mart. Because of its inventory system’s unmatched efficiency and accuracy, Wal-Mart knows exactly what to buy and exactly how much to pay for it. To which concepts studied in the course are Wal-Mart’s actions with Rubbermaid most relevant? In the relationship with Rubbermaid, concepts that were touched on were cost leadership, lower price bargains, and loss of buying/purchasing power. In this case, Rubbermaid’s cost of business went up and they had to adjust for that increase by increasing their prices while supplying Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart did not want to agree to the price increase and pulled Rubbermaid’s products of their shelves. This in the long run hurt the Rubbermaid business. Fedoruk 2 How do Wal-Mart’ actions relate to what you studied in Chapters 3 and 4? Make reference to specific concepts from the chapter. Wal-Mart recognizes that strategic competitiveness and above-average returns result only when core competencies matched with opportunities. Wal-Mart’s competitive advantage is that it is able to obtain cost –efficient resources in order to offer the lowest priced goods to its...
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...In modern America, being able to receive goods that you want, when you want them, is very important for consumers. No other company seems to utilize this better than Wal-mart. It’s everyday low prices benefit consumers, and itś a very convenient, one-stop-shop. It promotes efficiency in suppliers, ultimately turning push production into pull production. Despite this, Wal-Mart also has some negative effects on American society, more specifically American workers. Firstly, Wal-Mart decides what to sell, and they want it at a small cost, which essentially corners businesses into giving them what they want, thus controlling businesses. Producers realize that Wal-Mart allows for the widespread consumption of their products, and are willing to bend over backwards to appease the megacorporation. One former Wal-Mart supplier said that Wal-Mart will auction off prices, forcing suppliers to grapple for the lowest possible price in return for their products being sold. One example of Wal-Martś ability to control businesses is their ordeal with Rubbermaid. When Rubbermaid found that their cost of production was increasing, they asked Wal-Mart if they could increase their itemś prices. Wal-Mart refused Rubbermaid´s request, and...
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...Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful? Posted on October 05, 2003 http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2003-10-05/is-wal-mart-too-powerful In business, there is big, and there is Wal-Mart. With $245 billion in revenues in 2002, Wal-Mart Stores (WMT ) Inc. is the world's largest company. It is three times the size of the No. 2 retailer, France's Carrefour. Every week, 138 million shoppers visit Wal-Mart's 4,750 stores; last year, 82% of American households made at least one purchase at Wal-Mart. "There's nothing like Wal-Mart," says Ira Kalish, global director of Deloitte Research. "They are so much bigger than any retailer has ever been that it's not possible to compare." At Wal-Mart, "everyday low prices" is more than a slogan; it is the fundamental tenet of a cult masquerading as a company. Over the years, Wal-Mart has relentlessly wrung tens of billions of dollars in cost efficiencies out of the retail supply chain, passing the larger part of the savings along to shoppers as bargain prices. New England Consulting estimates that Wal-Mart saved its U.S. customers $20 billion last year alone. Factor in the price cuts other retailers must make to compete, and the total annual savings approach $100 billion. It's no wonder that economists refer to a broad "Wal-Mart effect" that has suppressed inflation and rippled productivity gains through the economy year after year. However, Wal-Mart's seemingly simple and virtuous business model is fraught with complications...
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...and brands of every company. A critical competitor analysis for those company brands will be carried out and finally the study draws a conclusion about their core competencies Hierarchical Analysis SECTOR1: CONSUMER DISCRETIONARY- RETAIL SECTOR- WALMART For the consumer discretionary industry the retail sector has been selected where again the world’s popular retailer company called Wal-Mart was selected as Example Company. According to the report of Wal-Mart (2011), Wal-mart is one of the world’s famous retailer companies which is based in USA that offers wider range of consumer products and goods to the customers across the world. Wal-Mart has different products range which has substitute product offerings like grocery products, consumer goods, electronics, clothing and generic products etc. Wal-Mart has its business operations in more than 200 countries which offers many popular brands and products. Classes of Wal-Mart: Wal-Mart has many classes of products that are meant to serve the customers as per their wants and needs. Wal-Mart is an family...
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...WAL-MART’S PROBLEMS IN Wal-Mart’s Problems in International Market Patiporn Kitlertphiroj University College of University of Denver Abstract Wal-Mart, the biggest retailer in the world, is spreading its power throughout the world, starting with nine countries in Asia, Europe and South America. The expansion has planed for more in the near future. With its attempt to penetrate hypermarket culture in every country which it enters, many severe problems are come into play. Acquisitions and joint venture with local businesses became a problem in nationalism country. Thus, strict governments’ rules and regulations blocked business operations. Misreading competitors and late in entry destroyed location opportunities the same as harmed relationship with local suppliers. Inadaptable to local culture become a big problem in global business. Moreover, low wages, unions and sex discrimination brought Wal-Mart to be an evil in employees’ perspective. Literature Review Wal-Mart is the largest Discount Store in the United States. Its magnitude is not only recognized domestically but also expanded to International Market. The company believes that one day this one will replace the United States position when the trend down (Molin, 2004). With this goal Wal-mart is encouraged to expanding stores into nine countries around the world and more in its plans (About Wal-Mart, 2001). Being number one in the United States does not always guarantee for being number one...
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...costs 50 cents, but you can’t blame any corporation for low costs, low goods state the world is in right now. People generally remember a period shortly after World War II when America led the world to manufacturing, where some (most) American companies made their products right in the comfort of their hometown, and quality products had no rivals. This is definitely not what our world looks like today. Today there is global competition, cheap labor, manufacturing overseas, and consumer demand for cheaper goods being “cheap over anything else”. Walmart fills a lot of these demands for America, with an American company that provides jobs for over 2 million people a year. Employing so many workers helps keep down prices and inflation for over 300 million Americans. If Wal-Mart did not exist, its place in the economic world would be taken over by a different company, and that company may not be American so we should count ourselves lucky. So, you cannot hold this against Wal-Mart on the basis of a claim that says Wal-Mart destroys the old American economy that our parents and grandparents remember. That economy no longer exists and the new world is nowhere near as predictable. Sometimes it moves too quickly for some (me) to keep up. Workers have less job security, and Main street is no longer the center of America, but Walmart does it’s best to help us keep up. Walmart gives people somewhere to get good products for a cheap discount that they couldn’t otherwise afford. This...
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