...In 2012, the Tazreen Fashions factory outside of Dhaka, Bangladesh caught on fire, killing 112 employees. The Bangladesh factory produced garments for several well-known retailers, such as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and Sears Holding Corporation. According to the article, For Wal-Mart, Sears, Tough Questions in Bangladesh Fire, “Bangladesh has become the world’s second-largest clothing exporter, thanks in part to some of the lowest labor costs anywhere: The government sets the minimum wage for entry-level garment workers there at less than $37 a month” (Bustillo, Wright, & Banjo 2013, pg. 2). Wal-Mart Stores, Inc, faces the dilemma of seeking the lowest prices from suppliers globally to deliver low price products while projecting a corporate image of high ethical standards and corporate social responsibility. Traditionally, the purpose of a firm is profit creation, and sale of goods and services in a legal and moral manner. However, what has not always been a part of that tradition was the welfare of society and/or philanthropic endeavors. Due to numerous tragic events, like the one in Bangladesh, the issues of the role of business in social responsibility more frequently appears to be a topic of discussion. This has forced the corporate world to concern itself with the social impact of its decision-making. Firms are turning to ethical business models such as the Wall Street Journal Model to help them understand business ethics and to make ethical business decisions. The...
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...Walmart's Mid-Life Crisis James T. Sennet BUS351 May 19, 2013 Kelli Price Abstract This is an article that focuses on retailer Wal-Mart and the problems they are facing regarding their public image in the United States. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. would like you to know that it is not evil. It doesn't squeeze suppliers within an inch of their lives, and it does not pay employees starvation wages. It was only four years ago that a survey conducted by Cone Inc./Roper found Wal-Mart to be Americans' top choice for "good corporate citizen." But that was before the U.S. government began to probe whether its contractors knowingly hired illegal immigrants to clean stores. Earlier this month, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley released a study pointing out that because Wal-Mart's 44,000 workers in California must rely on public assistance programs, the company's business practices end up costing taxpayers US $86 million a year. (Maich, 2004) Walmart's Mid-Life Crisis Key Issues Insufficient Employee Wages * A study conducted by researchers at the University of California at Berkley concluded that 44,000 Walmart employees in California relied on public assistance. According to the study, this costed Californian taxpayers $86 million a year. This data was also the foundation of a lawsuit against Walmart in 2001. Discrimination * A noticeable lack of diversity in the corporation’s management ranks implied women and minorities were not afforded the same opportunities...
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...Wal-Mart Principles of Management Introduction Wal-Mart (Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is currently ranked not only as America’s largest, but also as the world’s largest company (Soderquist, 2005). The store’s three business segments, Wal-Mart International, Wal-Mart Stores and Sam’s Club all operate in discount retail industry. Currently Wal-Mart’s leadership is facing challenging issues including an invariable customer base, a declining same store base and a crumbling reputation. However, Wal-Mart’s history is a living example of innovative and successful leadership. The company started with a single store in 1962, in Rogers, Arkansas and it has grown into what is now regarded as the world’s largest retailer. Wal-Mart runs each store with the products stocked in the store, to the front-end equipments, helping to speed up checkouts. Using the same philosophy in all its stores to provide low prices and superior customer service, Wal-Mart can sell at low prices and thus eliminate expenses associated with frequent sales promotions as well as have predictable sales. Wal-Mart has invented its own unique inventory system, the cross-docking system that has enabled the company to achieve economies of scale, thus reducing the cost of sales. In this system, goods are continually delivered to Wal-Mart’s stores within 48 hours and without the store having to inventory them. This allows the stores to replenish their shelves four times faster than...
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...Organizational Background - Summary of company’s history, vision, mission, growth, development, and core competencies ORGANIZATIONAL BACKGROUND – Upon completion of his military service, Sam Walton opened a five-and dime store in 1945 in Bentonville, Arkansas (Wal-Mart, 2016). Sam was successful and inspired in his first venture and was driven to focus on consumers and providing value, Sam opened his first Wal-Mart store in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas. By 1967, 24 Wal-Mart stores had opened. Sam’s vision was to “save people money so they could live better”, his core value was that of respect, for customers, employees and suppliers (Ghazzawi, Palladini & Martinelli-Lee, 2014) and this continues to be the mission and values of Walmart today. Since the opening of the first store in 1962, Wal-Mart has grown to 11,500 stores, operating in all fifty states, as well as 28 countries, under 72 banners and e-commerce, and employees 2.2 million people and weekly services 260 million customers and members. The Wal-Mart, Incorporated consists of four operating divisions Wal-Mart U.S., Walmart International. Sam’s Club and Global e-Commerce (Wal-Mart, 2016). Analysis of Management Functions: Planning. Based on what you have learned through your research, how would you characterize conditions in the planning environment? What types of problems does the organization face (e.g., structured, unstructured), and to what extent should the organizations decisions be programmed or nonprogrammed...
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...A—Good Work BUSN 6200 Major Project: Wal-Mart v. Target Target A. Background -Target is an upscale discounter that provides high-quality, trendy products, at attractive prices. The Company prides itself on having clean, spacious, guest-friendly stores. -Target operates stores under three main business segments; Target, SuperTarget, and its online business (Target.com). -In total the company operates 1613 regular Target strores and 218 SuperTargets stores in 47 states which compete with Wal-Mart and Super Wal-Mart. In addition to their retail stores, SuperTargets add upscale grocery shopping, photo processing, pharmacies, and Food Avenues Restaurants. http://investors.target.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=65828&p=irol-homeProfile B. History -Target was founded from three main company’s; Marshall Field & Company, D. L Hudson Company, and Dayton Company. George D. Dayton was an entrepreneur who tried his hand in banking, investments, and other business ventures before opening his first retail store. In 1903 Dayton built a six-story building in which a Minneapolis dry-goods store began operating out of. Mr. Dayton took over the business and renamed it The Dayton Dry Goods Company. He would lead the company until the 1960’s when he formed the Target Corporation. Dayton was renamed Target only a few years ago. It was the Dayton Hudson Corporation until fairly recently. http://www.daytonhouse.org/HouseHistory/Daytons/tabid/200/Default.aspx -Over the next 40 years...
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... Introduction This case discusses: • • • • • • Introduction to Wal-Mart History of Wal-Mart The Road to Success - Corporate Strategy The Criticism and the Challenges Wal-Mart’s PR strategy The Road ahead Wal-Mart – An Introduction • American public corporation that runs a chain of large, discount department stores • World's largest public corporation by revenue • Largest private employer in the world • Fourth largest utility or commercial employer • Largest grocery retailer in the United States ( 20% ) • Largest toy seller in the United States ( 22% ) Wal-Mart at a Glance • • • • • • • • • Founded - Arkansas, USA(1962) by Sam Walton Headquarters - Bentonville, Arkansas, U.S.A. Products - Discount Stores, Super centers, Neighborhood Markets Revenue - US$ 351.1 billion (2007) (Ranked # 1 on Fortune 500 list) Net income - US$ 11.3 billion (2007) Total assets - US$ 151.193 billion (2007) Total equity - US$ 61.573 billion (2007) Employees - 1.9 million (2007) Slogans - The Lowest Prices. Guaranteed! - Save Money, Live Better (U.S.) - WE SELL FOR LESS every day! (Canada) Wal-Mart at a Glance (contd..) • • • • • List of Assets In U.S.A.Wal-Mart Stores Division U.S. (3,900) Wal-Mart Discount Stores (1,033) Wal-Mart Super centers (2,349) Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets (124) Sam’s Clubs(585) Internationally• Stores in 14 countries outside U.S. (2980) • Joint venture with Bharti Enterprises to enter India(2006) History of Wal-Mart • Sam Walton - The man behind it all • Born in a farmer’s...
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...Case Study: Wal-Mart’s failure in Germany Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is the largest retailer in the world, the world’s second-largest company and the nation’s largest nongovernmental employer. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. operates retail stores in various retailing formats in all 50 states in the United States. The Company’s mass merchandising operations serve its customers primarily through the operation of three segments. The Wal-Mart Stores segment includes its discount stores, Supercenters, and Neighborhood Markets in the United States. The Sam’s club segment includes the warehouse membership clubs in the United States. The Company’s subsidiary, McLane Company, Inc. provides products and distribution services to retail industry and institutional foodservice customers. Wal-Mart serves customers and members more than 200 million times per week at more than 8,416 retail units under 53 different banners in 15 countries. With fiscal year 2010 sales of $405 billion, Wal-Mart employs more than 2.1 million associates worldwide. Nearly 75% of its stores are in the United States (“Wal-Mart International Operations”, 2004), but Wal-Mart is expanding internationally. The Group is engaged in the operations of retail stores located in all 50 states of the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom, Central America, Chile, Mexico,India and China Wal-Mart’s entry and operation in Germany Wal-Mart’s initial entry into German market was through the acquisitions...
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...Employees Wal-Mart Organizational Issues Instructor: Dr. Mitra Asif Student Name: Phunsuk Wangdu Submitted on: July 7, 2015 Wal-Mart Organizational Issues and Situation Analysis Phunsuk Wangdu Index Introduction 3 OB issues and situation analysis 3 Conclusions 7 References 8 Appendices 12 Introduction Wal-Mart stores Inc. is the world’s largest retailer with reported gross earnings of 460 billion U.S. dollars for 2014. It has 4,281 stores in the United States and over 11,100 stores worldwide. Wal-Mart hires more workers than any company in the whole world; in 27 different nations around the world it has hired over 2.2 million workers. The interest on Wal-Mart stems from their ability to provide products to its customers at relatively low prices, earning them a competitive advantage over other retailers, since their products sell five times more than other American stores. However this has involved both positive and negative effects on the long term. These sales at low prices to customers have been achieved as a result of their low cost imports and high integration with foreign suppliers from various countries around the world especially China. Due to the high volume of imports a large number of small businesses have been destroyed together with jobs in the manufacturing industry; the US economy has been affected by an increased trade deficit and the local manufacturing sector has also been affected by this growth. Moreover, Wal-Mart has received...
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...Walmart’s Global Expansion 1.How does expanding internationally benefit walmart? Wal-Mart needed international expansion critically to remain a successful company. The main reason Wal-Mart needed to go global was because they could no longer achieve the growth needed in the US. This market was saturated. The United States represents only four percent of the world’s population, which meant Wal-Mart was missing out on ninety-six percent of the world’s potential customers. (Govindarajan, par. 7) Also, Wal-Mart needed to continue to make their US employees satisfied. With Wal-Mart’s aggressive stock purchasing programs, this meant that employee satisfaction was directly correlated to their stock prices. Walmart also realized that there were many emerging markets with lower levels of disposable income, which offered a large potential for discount retailers. (Govindarajan, par. 7) Therefore, Wal-Mart’s only option to achieve the growth needed was to enter the global environment. After its beginning in 1962 Walmart ever since had constant growth rates and successfully gained market share in the merchandise and food retailing markets. “By 1990, however, Walmart realized that its opportunities for growth in the United States were becoming more limited”. To keep steady growth rates and profits the company decided to expand globally. The core competency of Walmart is the price. Selling merchandise and food for low prices made them earn market shares and continue the growth...
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...Wal-Mart: Strategic Plan [pic] Strategic Plan Saren Thompson BUS 413 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Page 3 Mission Statement Page 4 Macro-Environmental Analysis Economics Page 5 Demographics Page 6 Socio-Culture Page 8 Political/ Regulatory Page 11 Technological Page 13 Micro-Environmental Analysis Industrial Page 14 Markets Page 16 Competition Page 18 Supplier Page 19 Resources Page 20 Preferences Page 22 Opportunities and Threats Strengths and Weaknesses Page 23 Opportunities and Threats Page 25 Opportunity Analysis Page 27 Alternative Strategies Formulation Page 28 Ranking Strategies Page 28 References Page 29 INTRODUCTION Wal-Mart is the top retail company in the United States and has grown from a small customer centered store in Arkansas to an International Retail Store. This company was founded in the 1962 by Sam Walton. Walton and wife Helen put up 95 percent of the money for the first Wal-Mart store in Rogers, Arkansas. He traveled abroad to study retail and believed it was the future. His company began a success and the Wal-Mart empire began when it was incorporated October 31, 1969. Wal-Mart stock was first traded over the counter as publicly-held company in 1970. Since Wal-Mart has had eleven 100 percent stock split as of March of 1999. The company has grown to new levels and I hope to introduce and inform throughout this paper. ...
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...Wal-mart 2013 Principles of Management Wal-Mart and Effective Management Karwan S. Othman Wal-Mart, United States Of America Wal-Mart at Its Peak Wal-Mart is the largest retailer worldwide; the reasons may vary from different functional fields of the company. Fifty years ago, the company started the business based on the lowest prices that could be offered to customers. Since then, Wal-Mart is “Everyday low price” pricing strategy to maximize the sales as much as possible. Besides of that, it is using the current technology to keep track on every single sale at each store among all the stores in around forty countries. New financial systems through the new technology being in charge enable the company to manage the financial systems of each single store. Wal-Mart’s mission is to get to zero waste and highest sales among the other retailers. It is been said that Wal-Mart is doing the best of retailing, and it is because of various aspects of the organization although I believe planning, low pricing, using modern information systems and controlling strategies are the most vital characteristics of the organization’s triumph. Wal-Mart is established based on lowest prices possible for customers, and that is one of the most significant factors of the company’s success. Everyday low pricing, EDLP is a strategy that organizations use to offer low prices than common prices of products which would encourage customers to purchase without waiting for sales. According to the...
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...Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is the largest retail company in the United States and has been ranked number one on the Fortune 500 Index by Fortune Magazine. Wal-Mart has four parts to their corporate strategy. 1. Dominance in the Retail Market 2. Expansion in the U.S. and International Markets 3. Creation of Positive Brand and Company Recognition 4. Branch Out into New Sectors of Retail While Wal-Mart’s public affairs strategy works well with its corporate strategy. I feel that there are a few recommendations which could make the company work better. Recently, Wal-Mart has been criticized for their opposition to allowing their employees to be unionized. I have concerned some problems occurred in the moment in Walmart and these concerns must be addressed if Wal-Mart is to enjoy continued success in creating positive name recognition. 1. For the past decade walmart has been ranked as the world’s largest employee and which creates more job opportunities for workers than no other. Walmart has high ranked on Fortune Magazine’s list of “Most Admired Companies”. 2. Company gives bonuses, profit shares for most of the employees and part time workers are also eligible for health benefits. Most of the employees were entitled to the benefits offered by the company despite of their designation. 3. As most multinational corporations, Walmart is highly diversified company; hence it was recognized among most professional organizations. Walmart was also famous in gender diversification...
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...1. Introduction. Summarize the current situation facing the firm and other relevant issues. Wal-Mart is an organization which is subject to increasing levels of change and volatility in their business. While it is fact of business life, it also reflects that it drives a relentless increase in the proportion of an organization’s activity that is dedicated to change in meeting the new challenges. Wal-Mart has become one of America's most successful retail giants generating about ROI was 18.6% and 19.2% for fiscal 2012 and 2011, respectively. (Wal-Mart Annual Report, 2012). It is well know as the leader in thinking outside the box, anticipating market opportunities and executing effective strategies to capitalize on them. It has over 10,800 stores worldwide. Businesses have to face the challenge of too many competitors, partly originated by the globalisation, all competing for same objective of making highest profit. So, increasingly companies are not merely asking themselves the management question of ‘Are we doing the right?’ but are having to regularly ask ‘Are we still doing it right?’ They have been seeking a more holistic means of doing this than traditional means of delivering products and services to the customers. In a volatile world, decision makers need options on the future and the ability to change direction as strategic opportunities. Although, business as usual (BAU) performance change is providing a short term success but they are typically faced with a less...
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...Wal-Mart Inc. Ethical Treatment of Employees Prepared for Wal-Mart Corporation Prepared by Alexander W. Nash April 26, 2011 Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARYiii INTRODUCTION1 ANALYSIS OF WAL-MART’S ETHICAL TREATMENT OF EMPLOYEES 2 THE COMPANY: WAL-MART INC.2 THE PRACTICE: ETHICAL TREATMENT OF EMPLOYEES 2 WAL-MART’S ETHCIAL TREATMENT OF EMPLOYEES3 RECOMENDATIONS5 EVEN PAY SCALE 5 MORE ACCOUNTABILITY5 CHINA’S LABOR LAWS AND CONDITIONS 6 CONCLUSION6 Executive Summary Wal-Mart is one of the biggest empires in the world. It dominates many markets by providing many different products for the lowest prices guaranteed. You can’t go anywhere without seeing a Wal-Mart, which has more revenue than the entire workforce of Utah. It has revolutionized the world or commerce, through implementing state of the art inventory tracking systems and mastering logistics. Many argue that it has become so successful and powerful from being unethical with its employees. Wal-Mart is currently involved in the largest job discrimination class action lawsuit in U.S. history affecting about 1.5 million women. Wal-Mart also has lawsuits concerning wage and hour violations, executives also admitted to being told by superiors to not pay overtime. It continues to have problems with its labor force in china, forcing them to work seven days a week and paying them less than China’s minimum wage, and having employees work with dangerous chemicals without the “right to know”, as its...
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...ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE7 HISTORY OF WAL-MART8 INDUSTRY ANALYSIS9 MARKETING ANALYSIS10 MARKET SEGMENT11 MARKET SHARE13 DOMESTIC COMPETITORS14 INTERNATIONAL COMPETITORS15 CURRENT PRODUCTS16 PRODUCTS16 BCG MATRIX17 STRATEGY AND IMPLEMENTATION SUMMARY19 COMPETITIVE EDGE20 MARKETING AND SALES STRATEGY21 COST STRATEGY21 CAPITAL STRUCTURE STRATEGY21 FINANCIAL ANALYSIS22 GENERAL OVERVIEW22 OPERATING EXPENSES AND NET SALES22 OPERATING INCOME23 FREE CASH FLOW23 ACCOUNTING ASSUMPTIONS AND METHODS23 INVENTORIES23 DEPRECIATION AND AMORTIZATION24 GENERAL STRENGHTS24 ACCOUNTING ASSUMPTION AND METHODS25 EVOLUTION AND CAUSE FOR THE CHANGES26 KEY FINANCIAL RATIOS27 LIQUIDITY RATIOS28 PROFITABILITY RATIOS28 DEBT RATIOS29 OPERATING PERFORMANCE RATIOS30 ANALYSYS OF RISK31 FX AND INTEREST RISK32 SOLVENCY RISK33 COMPETITORS ANALYSIS34 SWOT ANALYSIS37 RECOMMENDATIONS38 BIBLIOGRAPHY39 INTRODUCTION Walmart Stores, Inc. (WMT) is an American public corporation that runs a chain of large discount department stores and a chain of warehouse stores. Walmart operates more than 8,692 retail units across three business segments of retail stores worldwide that offer a wide array of general merchandise including groceries, apparel, electronics, and small appliances. In addition, the company is the world's largest retailer and grocery chain by sales and just over half of the company's sales comes from grocery items. Over 54% of the company's stores are located in the United States...
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