...What’s the matter at Walmart? Gordon Wade – Partner Amidst a severe recession, Walmart, the retailer which claims the lowest prices…always…is suffering a continuing downturn in same store sales, the standard metric for evaluating retail success. How can this be? What’s going on? The facts are fairly clear. For seven straight quarters, same store sales in Walmart’s heartland US market have declined. The stubborn persistence of this downtrend supports the conclusion that something basic has gone awry. The stock market seems to agree. Walmart’s stock has been the poorest performer on the big board since the DJI reached its nadir some 3 years ago. The alarming answer is that Walmart’s traditional everyday low price (“EDLP”) positioning is less competitive in the very economic environment in which it seemed designed to prosper. Consumers are more stressed than ever, but now instead of blindly accepting that Walmart has the lowest prices …always… these struggling digitally enabled cybershoppers are surfing the net comparing Walmart’s prices with their competitors. And there are LOTS of competitors, ultra low priced Dollar Stores and hi-lo food retailers, category killers such as Best Buy and Home Depot. Let me give one simple personal example. Yesterday my wife came home from Publix with two huge boxes of Cheerios, which she bought on special for $5. On its best day, Walmart could not match this price or that of dozens of promo items at numerous retailers including...
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...When analyzing the advantage points of Amazon vs. Walmart, the value chain and competitive force mode for each company is the most important aspect in competing in the e-commerce market. As a quick overview, Walmart was established as a physical retailer back in 1962 and is recognized as the world’s largest retailer and recently entered into the world of e-commerce a few years ago. Amazon joined the dot-com scene back in 1995, and has grown into the largest e-commerce retailer in the world, without a physical location. Amazon and Walmart both sell electronics and general merchandise, which is the most prominent area of competition between the two companies. It was said e-commerce is estimates indicate that e-commerce could account for 15-20 percent of total retail sales in the U.S. over the next ten years, as more and more customers prefer to purchase items online. In this case, Amazon is in the best position to benefit. Amazon’s powerful technology platform is large enough to support sales of other companies on their website. This gives them an advantage over other e-commerce websites because they can focus on their own business while integrating other products into their website and collect 10-20 percent on the sale. This allows them to carry a wider array of products, while keeping inventory costs low and increasing their revenue. On the other hand, Walmart has a much larger brand than Amazon. They are known to the lowest price because of its size and ability to keep...
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...keep up with the needs of their customers. If you are the owner or the manager, you know that you need a change, but you are uneasy about the challenges that you may face, or unsure as to how to go about making the change happen. One organization that is constantly changing is Walmart. It is considered to be the largest retailer in the world (http://www.viewamerica.net/art/en-walmart.html). For a large organization such as Walmart they need to be able to keep up with the needs of the customers by reinventing themselves through change. Being relevant to customers and maintaining their high standards has been one of the reasons why Walmart has been so successful. Over the past eight years, I have had the opportunity to get a first-hand look at how the company has changed using different approaches such as Kotter’s eight step method – create an urgency, form a powerful coalition, create a vision for change, communicate the vision, remove obstacles, create short term wins, rebuild on the change, and anchor the changes in corporate culture. The history of a company is important to change, knowing where the company began and how that company has gotten to their current position through the change process. Walmart began in 1962 with the vision of one man, Sam Walton, wanting to sell products for less and to give excellent customer service. He believed in leadership through service and had a servant leadership...
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...how to differentiate a good mission with a bad mission statement. A bad mission statement uses jargon, it's too long, complicated to understand, and it does not communicate why, but rather how and what. In contrast a good mission statement, it’s a powerful, straightforward, and memorable sentence explaining what the business is. The mission statements explain about customers, locations, products and services and gives the competitors a sense of rivalry. In addition, mission statement describes the business morals and gives guidance and encouragement to their employees. This will...
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...Japanese tends to prefer quality over low prices, which constrasts with Walmart core value as Wal mart's motto is Every Day Low Price. Also, Japan is a small country with limited spaces, which has several implications for Walmart. Small housings and apartment sizes, with high rent prices means that Japanese would need to minimize their purchases. Japanese are having trouble with lack of storage room to store purchases. For example, a typical apartment in Japan would be 1 room apartment with Living, Dining, and Kitchen area. A normal size of Japanese apartment are an average of only 27,55 sqm. Japanses likes to make several small purchases frequently. They minimize purchases, they would make their purchases several times a week, in small quantities. This means that stores would have to be readily available within reasonable distance, and bulk purchasing is discouraged. Compared to Walmart usual practice of centralized, big stores, with bulk purchasing to save costs, a neighborhood convenience store would be more suitable for the Japanese people. Japanese have high operating costs, especially because of the prices of rent and buildings in general. An average commercial land prices in Japan is 156,857 Yen (USD 2,017)/sqm, with average commercial land price in Tokyo reaching 1,551,400 Yen (USD 19,956)/sqm, followed by Osaka with average commercial land price of 493,700 Yen (USD 6,360)/sqm. I suppose it is very expensive compared to the U.S. They are also inability to apply original...
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...Wal-Mart: Corporate Giant or Corporate Beast? Ever since Wal-Mart’s establishment, there has been an ongoing debate amongst shoppers of whether or not the company is a magnificent creation or a complete monster. On one side, costumers cannot deny that their everyday savings certainly do draw a smile on their faces; while on the other side, costumers feel that there must be some terrible reason for the prices of their products to be so low. This mystery that has stewed up this ongoing debate over the years about Wal-Mart needs to be discovered. In order to discover this mystery, research on the topic has to go all the way back to the beginning stages of the company. From the birth of the company to present day empire it has created, one question must be answered: corporate giant or corporate beast? Wal-Mart has a long history and they have been around much longer than what most people think. The founder of Wal-Mart was Sam Walton. Sam Walton was born into a farmer’s family in Kingfisher, Oklahoma on March 29, 1918. [31] He had one brother whose name was James Walton. Sam’s father was a farmer until he decided that farming was not producing enough revenue and decided to become a mortgage man. Sam grew up in the great depression where he learned many moral values like working hard. He had many odd jobs so he could help his family out with money. The family then moved to Florida, while there Sam became the youngest Eagle Scout in the state’s history. After graduating...
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...Group Dynamics and Processes Paper Walmart Employees No Longer “Get Happy” I recently read and article written by Rocco Pendola about the systematic struggles that the huge super-retailer Walmart is facing concerning its staff and lack of “team” environment. Rocco’s article begins when he initially posted 24 concerning pictures of various issues surrounding a huge variety of Walmart stores. Rocco began to receive a huge over pour of emails, photos and comments from Walmart employees around the country. In his article, Rocco uses the issues that he has researched about Walmart, as well as some of Walmart’s current and past employee letters to illustrate some of the current problems Walmart is facing. This article complies a great deal of information that helps us determine some of the mistakes Walmart has made on a corporate level as well as in it’s stores. Based on Rocco’s article, it is undeniable that Walmart suffers from a lack of Group Dynamics, and processes. Without continued use of Group Dynamics a company cannot continue to be successful, and ultimately a company cannot survive. According to our text, “a group is a number of individuals who join together to achieve a goal.” (Johnson & Johnson, pp. 5) this means that all members in the group are ultimately responsible for the outcome of the performance of the group, and all members have some kind of stake in the group, whether they know or understand their role, they all have one. If the group has several weak...
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...Cross Cultural Perspectives The Walmart Corporation is a major American retailer. Walmart is the largest and most successful general merchandise retailer from the US. However, when Walmart attempted to branch out into new countries they failed time and time again. Is this report I am going to cover a few of the reasons they failed in several countries. Identifying the actual issues at fault. Then describe the issues in detail and how they affect Walmart as a result of being a global company. Walmart Cultural Issues One major issue Walmart ran into is bulk sales. In America people travel longer distances with their own cars and buy enough food to last them a month or more in one trip. It is typical for foreign countries to buy food daily. Foreign cultures are more accustomed to buying fresh food from butchers or local markets. Additionally Walmart is notorious for selling items in bulk. This again is an American cultural habit. In most foreign cultures people take public transportation or walk to the stores. This they do not have the ability to buy multiple bottles of shampoo at once, and prefer to buy it one bottle at a time. On a different note, Walmart failed again on the design of their stores. I will use South Korea as example here, mainly because I lived there for four years and have experienced all of these. In South Korea everything is about presentation. Their largest vendors, E-Mart, Home-Mart, etc. are all finished with an artistic design. They...
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...Brenna Becker Com 280 Tues/Thurs 11:00 Anthony Bianco and Wendy Zellner, "Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful?" Business Week, October 6, 2003. This article in Bloomberg Week Magazine deals with one of the biggest companies in the world… Walmart. It towers over its competitors with hundreds of millions of people visiting its stores each week and saving more money in this economic depression. It lowers the prices of everything to help your average middle and lower class families out when they need it the most. One main reason customers keep returning with smiling faces and will continue to return are because of these blow out prices. I know and understand even when people start to hear more about the risks Walmart employes are taking they will continue to shop here. The deals are to good to pass up and until something bad were to happen to individuals they will come week after week. How this article opens our eyes as to how Walmart is anti union and does not meet with competitors on employee wages. "On average, Wal-Mart sales clerks -- "associates" in company parlance -- pulled in $8.23 an hour, or $13,861 a year, in 2001, according to documents filed in a lawsuit pending against the company. "How is one supposed to live their lives off off this and support a family in this day and age of high gas price and low jobs available. Anthony and Wendy point out that it only takes time for people to stand up for themselves and revolt. "Indeed, the company now faces a revolt of sorts in the...
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...more opportunities for consumer brands to also reach them along the way. Among the retail behemoth's recent and upcoming moves: revamping its internal employee social network and switching publishers as a prelude to beefing up its in-house magazine, Walmart World, with both more content and outside advertising. The latter could prove an even greater magnet for brand marketers trying to sway Walmart's in-house influencers, particularly now that the chain is allowing local managers more agency to green-light items and is encouraging employees to promote specific items in their stores. Walmart will also give store managers and employees credit for online sales that come from their territories as of Feb. 1, the start of its fiscal year. Walmart isn't owning up to any blanket campaign to better leverage employees as brand ambassadors (a spokesman declined to comment), but it appears to be moving in that direction. With social media potentially giving employees an even bigger impact on brands today, the role of human resources in marketing is even more important, said Scott Bedbury, principal in consulting firm Brandstream. "Social connectivity is often seen as an external thing but can have a very powerful dynamic internally." Walmart U.S. CEO Bill Simon and new Chief Merchandising Officer Duncan McNaughton have encouraged reinvigorating the "Volume Producing Item" program originated by Sam Walton in which individual employees adopt and promote items in their stores, according to...
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...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 in the company and was recognized several women alliances and magazines. 4. Despite these high accolades not everyone is enamored of walmart, the world’s largest employer is also the top target of the special interested groups and political organizations. Several political organizations and anti-walmart organizations were trying to drop down the company image and goodwill to pressure...
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...Summary of Case Table of Contents Summary of Case History Overview: * Vision, Mission, and Goals Major Issues Swot Analysis CSR Analysis - “Buy American” program and “Environmental Awareness” program Sam Walton: A motivational Genius? Walmart’s responsibility to it employees Stakeholder analysis Competitors Ethical Practice towards Walmart Walmart’s and the international arena Critique Recommendations References History Overview Walmart’s mission statement is “We save people money so they can live better.” Walmart's vision statement is to 'promote ownership of Walmart's ethical culture to all stakeholders globally.’ Walmart Corporation has guidelines to help associates to uphold this vision. Some of these guidelines are following all laws, being fair, having integrity, respecting others and embracing diversity. They also believe in the idea of “working together, we’ll lower the cost of living for everyone, and give an opportunity to see what it’s like to save and have a better life.” One of their many goals is to become an international brand. Walmart was founded and opened by Sam and Helen Walton in Rogers, Ark. in 1962 while using their family home as collateral. The store was just 18,000 square feet of selling space, and had clothing racks made of plumbing pipes. Store 1 was modest, but customers loved the great prices and the wide assortment. Starting off with Sam Walton’s idea of low prices in the 1940s, Wal-Mart has since then become the world’s...
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...[Learning And Management Development]- HRM4060 Management Development Program – Wal-Mart [Eruemulor E. Stanley]- M00517817 [School Of Business Studies] [5th may 2014] Executive Summary This report entails the problems pertaining to the Wal-Mart, which was faced by the organisation due to their diverse workforce, vast geographical difference, and management of resources. This report contains both primary and secondary data analyses, where secondary data was collected through libraries, books, scholarly articles, peer journals and articles. Whereas, the primary data was collected from 20 employees of the Wal-Mart, where series of open ended questions were asked from them. The survey aimed to identify the current problem faced by the Wal-Mart and how those problems are affecting the employees of the Wal-Mart. In the report, different management development activities that have been employed within the Wal-Mart, where to overcome the problem, future strategies are also suggested, along with the benefits that will be laid on the organization. These development programs include, diversity management, manager - employee relationship, employee involvement and feedback, bridging gap between today and tomorrow, focus on individuality and matching skills with goals. The estimated cost for the program will be £100,000, which will be spent over a year’s time. Therefore, this report is based on the human resource, organisational resources, and management of all these resources efficiently...
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...Environment of Walmart can be summarized as follows: a) Economic:Despite the general weakness in the world economy and the uncertain environment that prevailed, Walmart had reported sales growth of 11%, amounting to $6.4 billion. The company's associates were indeed doing the Walmart cheer in faraway places like Germany, South Korea, China and United Kingdom. In three decades, it had grown from its rural Arkansas roots to become the world's largest company, and quite possibly the most powerful retailer. b) Socio-cultural: Walmart stores were geared toward the low-income customer segment; headquarters were reflective of the company's tendency to be tightfisted as they were housed in warehouse style buildings with minimalist decor. Frugality was a central tenet at the company, and every associate was expected to fully adopt this value in all its manifestations. It was also said that the company is homogenizing the marketplace by letting smaller towns dictate popular culture. c) Global: Walmart worked globally under the philosophy: Different store for different folks. As it grows around the world, it is important to its success that it exchange best practices among all the countries where it operates. Walmart launched its globalization efforts with an initial foray into Mexico, then to Brazil, as well as Argentina. It then penetrated Europe with its stores in Germany and in the United Kingdom. Its Asian strategy composed of China, Korea and Japan. d) Technological: Walmart was a leader...
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...Introduction According to Joseph Schumpeter, creative destruction describes the "process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one"(Schumpeter, 1942). This argues that in the economics development process, the new products will eventually take place of the out-of-dated ones, for the single company and even the whole society. To take the music players as an example, Sony Walkman was extremely popular in 1980s, but it was finally forced to exit the market because of the popularity of MP3 in 2000s. However, nowadays, even MP3 could not survive in the music player market, as the appearance of smart phones becomes a substitute of it. Creative destruction is a common economic phenomenon happening in the business cycle and to some extend, it is a process of wealth accumulation under capitalism. (Karl, 1848&1857&1863) In the long run, it would result into a high rise of service and products quality, a progress in the humanity society. However, if focusing on the individual unit, creative destruction is a challenge. Those who do not play well, like because of lacking skills or technology, will be eliminated out of the game. In the following sections, this paper is going to illustrate the importance of innovation strategy in this game from the enterprise perspective, how could innovation strategy fit the strategic planning well, and how big data could work for the strategic...
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