...Executive Summary Walmart is the biggest company in the world with a highly complex, but efficient, supply chain. In this essay we will try to analyze the bargaining power of Walmart over its suppliers, the importance of RFID (its pros and cons) and make an overview of the green supply chain and its importance for the future of Walmart. Company Overview The Walmart story began in 1962 from the vision of a man called Sam Walton who had worked for a famous retailer called J.C. Penney in Arkansas and Missouri and decided to open a store of his own. With a very aggressive price strategy and conveniently opened stores, locations and schedules, he was very successful and by 1969 he already had 18 stores in the United States. During the 1970’s the company went public and in the 1980’s the company opened Sam’s Wholesale Club, a concept based on the successful cash-and-carry, membership-only warehouse format pioneered by the Price Company of California (now Costco Wholesale Corporation). In 1992 Walmart started expanding to the international markets; they entered Mexico in 1992 through a joint venture with Mexico’s largest retailer, Cifra, to open Sam’s Clubs. The next step was to enter Canada which they did in 1994. Walmart continued to expand internationally, entering China in 1996. Nowadays they are also in Brazil, Argentina, India, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, United Kingdom, El Salvador, Japan, Chile and Guatemala in a total of 14 different countries outside the U.S....
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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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...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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...Wal-Mart Ratchets Up Price Pressure On Suppliers Resumen: Recently, in what was widely seen as a move to pressure Procter &Gamble Co. to lower prices of its popular Tide detergent, Wal-Mart struck a deal with consumer products company Henkel AG to introduce a new premium-priced detergent brand, Persil, exclusively in its stores. Texto completo: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is increasing the pressure on suppliers to cut the cost of their products, in an effort to regain the mantle of low-price leader and turn around its sluggish U.S. sales. The retailing behemoth says it has been telling suppliers to forgo investments in joint marketing with the retailer and plow the savings into lower prices instead. Makers of branded consumer products from diapers to yogurt typically earmark a portion of their budgets for marketing with Wal-Mart, spending on things like eye-catching product displays and online advertisements. Wal-Mart has long had a reputation for pressing its suppliers to cut costs to help lower prices, but the retailer's new leadership has embraced the concept with fresh vigor. Wal-Mart's price advantage against its competitors has been eroded, and it has steadily been losing market share in the U.S. since the recession ended, while rivals including Kroger Co. and Costco Wholesale Corp. gained share, according to data from the consultancy Kantar Retail. With the growth of dollar stores and other discounters, Wal-Mart is facing ever more competition on price, which...
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...Walton,the leader (strategy Vector) innovative vision,tech savvy, and observing business practices, keeping one step ahead of the ever-changing technology and methods of today’s fast-paced business environment. Strike a comfortable balance between increasing its profits and recognizing its social and ethical responsibilities. Why is Wal-Mart so Successful? Is it Good Strategy or Good Strategy Implementation? Vector Core Values What ,And why analysis The Wal-Mart Philosophy — Wal-Mart is successful not only because it makes sound strategic management decisions, but also for its innovative implementation of those strategic decisions. Regarded by many as the entrepreneur of the century, Walton had a reputation for caring about his customers, his employees (or “associates” as he referred to them), and the community. In order to maintain its market position in the discount retail business, Wal-Mart executives continue to adhere to the management guidelines Sam developed. Walton was a man of simple tastes and took a keen interest in people. He believed in three guiding principles: 1. Customer value and service; 2. Partnership with its associates; 3. Community involvement (The Story of Wal-Mart, 1995). The Customer — The word “always” can be seen in virtually all of Wal-Mart’s literature. One of Walton’s deepest beliefs was that the customer is always right, and his stores are still driven by this philosophy. When questioned about Wal-Mart’s secrets of success, Walton...
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...1. Do you think Wal-Mart could translate its merchandising strategy wholesale to another country and succeed? If not, why not? I don’t think Wal-Mart could translate its merchandising strategy wholesale directly to another country and succeed. Because different countries have different cultures and backgrounds, in order to succeed in another country, it needs to adapt to these differences and find a way that best fits in the local market. Apparently, the “U.S. style” does not work for all the countries. For example, Wal-Mart is famous for its low price strategy in the U.S. However, when it shifted its store with the same strategy to Germany and South Korea, it soon failed. People in the countries like Germany or South Korea do not care about the low prices as much as its target consumers in the U.S. do. What they care the most is if the store has higher quality products. So whether succeed in another country or not really depends on how well Wal-Mart understands the local consumer buying behaviors and how much they could change its merchandising strategy to fit in. As mentioned in the case, Wal-Mart hired local managers who knows well about Mexican culture to run the store, while built smaller stores with fresh food products for Mexican consumers so that they could simply walk in and get 1. Do you think Wal-Mart could translate its merchandising strategy wholesale to another country and succeed? If not, why not? No, I don’t think Wal-Mart could translate its merchandising...
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...Case study: The Rise of Wal-Mart Wal-Mart demonstrates how a physical product retailer can create and leverage a data asset to achieve world-class supply chain efficiencies targeted primarily at driving down costs. Wal-Mart isn’t just the largest retailer in the world, over the past several years it has popped in and out of the top spot on the Fortune 500 list—meaning that the firm has had revenues greater than any firm in the United States. Wal-Mart is so big that in three months it sells more than a whole year’s worth of sales at number two U.S. retailer, Home Depot.[1] At that size, it’s clear that Wal-Mart’s key source of competitive advantage is scale. But firms don’t turn into giants overnight. Wal-Mart grew in large part by leveraging information systems to an extent never before seen in the retail industry. Technology tightly coordinates the Wal-Mart value chain from tip to tail, while these systems also deliver a mineable data asset that’s unmatched in U.S. retail. To get a sense of the firm’s overall efficiencies, at the end of the prior decade a McKinsey study found that Wal-Mart was responsible for some 12 percent of the productivity gains in the entire U.S. economy.[2] The firm’s capacity as a systems innovator is so respected that many senior Wal-Mart IT executives have been snatched up for top roles at Dell, HP, Amazon, and Microsoft. And lest one think that innovation is the province of only those located in the technology hubs of Silicon Valley...
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...Shahzeb Quadiri L-56 1st floor Old Double Storey Building Lajpat Nagar- 4 New Delhi-110024 Email: shahzebquadiri@live.com Mobile: 9999228204; Date of Birth: 22/10/1989 ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS * PGDM (M) Marketing, Jaipuria Institute of Management, Noida, 2016 * B. Com (Honours), Bundelkhand University Jhansi, 2012, 58% * Higher Secondary Schooling, Milton Public school, Agra, 2007, 57% * Secondary Schooling, Cathedral College, Jhansi, 2005, 56% Professional Experience * Organization: Bajaj Electricals Ltd, Lucknow Apr’16-Present Designation: CP Territory Sales Head Responsibilities: Achieve sales and collection targets * To achieve sales targets directly, through distributors, dealers, institutions and long arm sales Personnel. * To introduce new products and monitor sales of products regularly. * To ensure timely collection of payments. * To execute the distribution plan of the territory. * To accompany the Distribution sales officer for order booking and Pre determined cycle. 2. Manage channel Partner - Network Expansion- Appointment of new dealers and distributors. - To maintain and nurture good business relations with distributors and retail trade partners and negotiate as per BEL terms. - Establish stock norms with distributors per market and ensure stocking levels and replenishment. - Monitor second sales of distributor and dealers. - Ensure Product merchandising...
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...Walmart’s Sustainable Product Index is an ambitious undertaking by a firm that was notoriously insensitive to the destructive impact it had both directly and indirectly onto the communities and the environment through its business expansion strategies. While many critics remained skeptical about the true drivers behind this project seeing it as an attempt by the firm to take the attention away from its unfavorable business practices and buy its way into the rest of the communities which were strongly opposing its entrance into their markets, many others appreciated the small steps Walmart was taking in the direction of possibly changing the entire industry standards in terms of business operations and social impact. Having already gained some momentum through small wins in this program, I strongly believe that Walmart should continue investing time and resources in some well-defined goals. In 5 years from now, the firm should be able to create a well defined and verifiable Sustainable Product Index that will potentially bring end-customers closer to the supplier empowering them with necessary authentic data to decide the fate of any product on the shelf. To create an index that will be approved across the board as the standard for any practice, it should come out of an independent group of specialists who are able to sustain an objective attitude and save Walmart from diving into conflicts of interest. This industry council should include scientists, activists and consultants...
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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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...Read the case study “Wal-Mart Goes South” below and respond to the following questions: 1. How much of Wal-Mart’s success is due to NAFTA, and how much is due to Wal-Mart’s inherent competitive strategy? 2. How has the implementation of NAFTA affected Wal-Mart’s success in Mexico? 3. Faced with going out of business, what steps did Comerci take to remain competitive? What other steps do you think Comerci should take to secure its future and further compete with Wal-Mart’s operations in Mexico? APA format is required for text citations and references. You are expected to support your answer with: (1) the textbook “International business environments and operations (twelfth edition), Daniels, J. D., Radebaugh, L. H., & Sullivan, D. P. (2009). New Jersey, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.”, and (2) news articles, internet articles, and academic source. WAL-MART GOES SOUTH Comercial Mexicana S.A. (Comerci), one of Mexico’s largest retail chains, is faced with a serious dilemma. Since Wal-Mart’s aggressive entry into the Mexican retail market, Comerci has found it increasingly difficult to remain competitive. Wal-Mart’s strong operating presence and low prices since NAFTA’s lifting of tariffs have put pressure on Comerci, and now management must determine if Comerci’s recent participation with the purchasing consortium Sinergia will be sufficient to compete against Wal-Mart. What’s caused this intense competitive pressure on Comerci, and what is likely to be its...
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...Wal-Mart to Turkey TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 3 Wal-Mart 4 - 5 Location Turkey 5 - 8 Economic Situation 8 - 10 Political Situation 10 - 11 Competition 11 - 12 Target Market 12 - 13 Global Market Participation 13 Marketing Research 14 - 15 Trading 15 - 16 USA vs. Turkey 16 - 17 Wal-Mart Failure in Germany 17 - 18 S.W.O.T. 18 - 21 Marketing Strategies 22 - 25 Conclusion 26 - 27 Exhibits 28 - 30 References 30 - 32 INTRODUCTION Wal-Mart has dominated the retail industry globally. From it’s humble start in Bentonville, Arkansas it has strived to improve the standard of living throughout the world. Wal-Mart is aware of the risks expanding into relatively underdeveloped countries, but they have not allowed any aspect to hinder their confidence. Expanding internationally will increase its global market share, and they understand the need to address cultural barriers within each market to succeed. Turkey has experienced tremendous growth in the retail sector, adding to its appeal and readiness for the Wal-Mart invasion. Can Wal-Mart succeed in a place like Turkey? We look at the economic, political and cultural environment of the country; what kind of competition will they be looking at and who is the target market. How did Wal-Mart get their start and how did they succeed in other countries other than their home base? The actual location is important to look at, as we analyze the country we look at the GDP, possible Pro’s/Con’s and the...
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...P E S INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY BANASHANKARI 3RD STAGE BANGALORE. Term paper submission on “SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT AT WALL-MART” -SUBMITTED BY SUJAY C 1PB12MBA51 INDEX S.NO DESCRIPTION 1. INTRODUCTION TO SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT 2. LEVELS OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT 3. HISTORY-WALMART 4. WAL-MART INTRODUCTION AND ITS BUSINESS PROCESSES 5. SUPPLY CHAIN MANGEMENT AT WAL-MART 6. PROCUREMENT AND DISTRIBUTION 7. LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT 8. INVENTORY MANAGEMENT 9. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE AND BUSINESS MODELS USED AT WAL-MART 10. RFID IN WAL-MART 11. EFFICENCY IN SUPPLY CHAIN WITH RFID 12. CONCLUSION Introduction to Supply Chain Management Supply Chain Management is the discipline which encompasses the end to end business activities carried out in any business, independent of the manufacturing or service sectors. It is the synchronization of a network of facilities and distribution options that performs procurement of materials, processing the materials into finished products, and distribution of the products to customers. SCM is seen as involving five fundamental processes. These include planning, sourcing, making, delivering, and returning. Typical supply chain showing interrelations...
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...MAA 703 Management Accounting Trimester 1, 2011 Assignment - A Group Case Study Due date: Monday 23 May 2011. Marks: 20% Length: approximately 1500 words This is a group assignment. Only in very exceptional circumstances will permission be given to complete an individual assignment. Details regarding assignment submission will be provided later. Please note the following requirements AND FOLLOW THEM CAREFULLY: • Your assignment should be presented as a Word document with a font size of 12. Include tables where appropriate, but do not include Excel worksheets. • Print on one side of the paper only. • Your group’s number should be on the first page near the top right hand corner. • The names and ID numbers of all group members should be shown on the first page. • Page numbers should be at the top right hand corner of each page. • The assignment has two parts: A and B. Keep your answers to Parts A and B of the assignment separate. Number each answer clearly. Do not combine answers to different questions. • Staple the pages at the top left hand corner. Do not put your assignment in any sort of plastic binder as the marked assignments will be posted back to the first person named in the list of group members as shown on DSO (clear plastic envelopes are acceptable). CASE STUDY – GIFTMASTER LTD The Business Situation (Part A) Giftmaster Ltd has operated for many years as a nationally recognized retailer...
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...Inventory management and Wallmart Upon doing some research and looking into the company Walmart I found some interesting statistics about this company and the volume of buisness they do in a day. The retail store Wal-Mart operates 8,400 stores worldwide, has more than 2 million employees and handles over 200 million customer transactions each year. It’s revenue in 2010 was around $400 billion and is more than the GDP of many entire countries. Rollin Ford, the CIO of Wal-mart admits that the sheer scale of the data is a challenge, and is quotes as saying “we keep a healthy Paranoia.” Wallmart uses an inventory management system called Retail Link. This system enables suppliers to see the exact number of their productse on every shelf of every store at the precise moment. The system also shows the rate of sales by the hour, by the day, or over the past year and more. This helps the suppliers manage their stocks better. This h as helped walmart to change the buisness model of retailing. In some cases it leaves stock management in the hands of its suppliers and doesn’t take ownership of it until the moment its sold. By doing this they are able to lesson inventory risk and reduce cost. This is a highly efectively managed inventory system. This has been an important part of the Wal-mart culture. In order for wallmart to sucessfully manage the buisness and provide the service they do they have to have a reliable inventory system in order to continue to operate...
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