Case Study of Walmart

Question 1: What were the rights of Walmart, the employer, during these two organizing drives?

A company can have extremely high sales and remain unsuccessful. The key to long term success of a company is its ability to control its costs. Some companies may control costs in one area and expect drastic improvements in profits; however, this is not the outcome many will achieve. Because the costs in different areas are intertwined, they must all be considered when trying to improve profitability. Walmart is a fantastic example of how controlling costs in multiple areas can improve profitability. The remainder or this paper will be considering how Walmart controlled costs in the following activities: Procurement, Distribution, Merchandising and Marketing, Stores, People, Management?

few decades, Wal-Mart 's rapid development has created a miracle in the retail industry. Wal-Mart

By 1990, Walmart had opened stores in 32 states and became the nation 's #1 retailer in both total sales and profit (http://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/our-history). Walmart’s business has largely matured. Besides its large scale in consumer product purchasing, Walmart also holds four key sources that give it a competitive advantage. First, Walmart has a highly advanced and efficient supply chain system. Walmart built a vendor-managed inventory system to manage its warehouses and its distribution centers are strategically located in order to ensure timely deliver of its products. Second, Walmart minimized its operational costs. Walmart built stores in small rural towns in the early years, and then concentrated on expansion once name recognition had been achieved. This significantly decreased the payroll and rent cost. Third, Walmart had sufficient Human Resources (HR) management. Walmart shared profit with associates in the form of salaries, bonuses, discounted stock, and information in contrast to other retailers. Lastly, Walmart developed an advanced information technology system. Walmart developed its own information system to help it manage all stores and distribution centers remotely by collecting and analyzing data in a timely fashion. As a result, Walmart garnered the capability to expand its market with dramatic cost savings improving profits and enabling continued growth of Walmart stock. Considering alignment with its competitive advantages, Walmart

Strengths of Wal-Mart include their ability to control operating costs, immediate restocking of shelves, and everyday low prices that they pass on to the consumer. Weakness of Wal-Mart includes the perception of crushing “mom and pop” stores in communities they enter and a lack of workers’ rights. These weakness are minor compared to their distinct advantages concerning cost, and are vigorously defended against. Wal-Mart’s bargaining power with suppliers is immeasurable. Whereas traditionally, retailers like Wal-Mart would make requests and wait for orders from suppliers, due to the sheer size and reach of Wal-Mart, they dictate to suppliers the terms, and often have increased clout concerning prices of units they wish to carry. Wal-Mart can make or break suppliers due to the reach they have with the American consumer. It is estimated that everyday one-third of Americans shop at Wal-Mart (Zimmerman 2008). Thanks in part to their dominance in the industry and

Due to the cheap rate that Wal-Mart is able to buy its products from suppliers, it is able to provide customers with even bigger bargains to encourage them to shop at its stores. In addition to its low prices, Wal-Mart should continue with its current strategy of large, super centers, which is basically a one stop shopping experience for everything you may need or want. The one-stop shop experience is appealing to customers in that it makes shopping easier. To provide the ease of shopping Wal-Mart is guaranteeing that the customers will find what they want when they want it. This is supported by convenient presentation and the right level of service every time the customer shops. In doing so, Wal-Mart can appeal to an even larger market. According to pages 151 and 152 in the textbook, this opportunity would become apparent if Wal-Mart used a low-cost strategy where the business produces basic, no-frills products for a large market of price-sensitive shoppers.

From reading the case study, it is evident Nike ships manufacturing to factories in developing countries to take advantage of low wages and poor human right laws so that they can gain financially. They can in turn spend more money on innovation and big market campaigns. Legally, they are doing nothing wrong, but ethically they are committing a serious crime.

With its rise in success, Walmart was faced with tribulations by media and individuals who accused the company of underpaying employees, dealing unfairly with customers, exploited suppliers, and also contributed to the bankruptcy of small competitors (Morrillo, McNally, & Block, 2015, p. 385). As Walmart dealt with the growing criticism and one action in particularly involved Esther Silver-Parker (former Walmart Senior Vice President for Corporate Affairs). As the senior vice president, she was in charge of transforming diversity from its current state of alienation to an everyday objective by eliminating the company’s negative reputation among women and African-Americans as well as advancing relationships with America’s diversity leaders

Wal-mart is very known in America for it has almost everything that people needs in a low cost, but their products might be low quality compared to other products but at least it gets the job done. Even by American gauges, Wal-Mart must be considered as an example of overcoming adversity without point of reference (equaled likely just by Microsoft's ascent). Forty years after its modest beginnings in 1962, when Sam Walton and his sibling Bud set up store No. 1, a five-and-dime outfit, on Walnut Street in little Rogers, Arkansas, consistent twofold digit development rates have not just changed it into the world's biggest retailer. Having been the greatest private-division business on the planet for a couple of years as of now, with around 1.38 million staff on its finance, Wal-Mart as of late likewise overwhelmed General Motors and Exxon to wind up the world's biggest company as far as income. In the wake of building up itself as the predominant player on its home market, Wal-Mart chose, in the late 1980ies, to set out upon a yearning internationalization drive to support its lively corporate development. The expressed vital objective was to have its outside operations contribute

Much of the popularity of supply chain management has been attributed to the success of Walmart’s partnership with Procter & Gamble (P&G). During the 1980s, the two collaborated in building one of the first Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment (CPFR) systems, a software system that linked P&G to Walmart’s distribution centers, taking advantage of advances in the world’s telecommunications infrastructure. When a Walmart store sold a particular P&G item, the information flowed directly to P&G’s planning and control systems. When the inventory level of P&G’s products at Walmart’s distribution center got to the point where it needed to reorder, the system automatically alerted P&G to ship more products. This information helped P&G plan its production. Walmart was also able to track when a P&G shipment arrived at one of its distribution warehouses, which enabled it to coordinate its own outbound shipments to stores. Both Walmart and P&G realized savings from the better inventory management and order processing, savings that in turn were passed on to Walmart’s consumers through its everyday low prices.

But, currently their net sales growth is $68 billion as per the annual report of Wal-Mart of 2014.

Walmart has excellent experience in their board composition. Board members should have industry and consumer knowledge, financial and technological expertise, and CEO experience (Nadler et al. 30). Walmart’s board members have extensive experience in accounting, investing, technology, strategy, law, and international business. Many members are former CEOs who have experience in major corporations including Yahoo!, Instagram, and KPMG. Every member is also a board member of another company. This allows them to draw on experience from different situations that they have faced ("Corporate Governance").

Retail stores can fill their shelves with many competing products from different producers, making their suppliers’ bargaining power very weak. Also considering how Wal-Mart constitutes for over 15% of sales for many of its suppliers. Suppliers are locked in with Wal-Mart or risk competing against its overwhelming influence in the market.

The Wal-Mart Discount Inc. was founded in the year 1962 by Sam Walton. The concept behind his retail-stores was to transfer the discount store model from bigger cities to small towns. This was at that time a bold move which resulted in virtually no discount-store competition near the newly founded markets.

Founded by Sam Walton, Walmart is an American multinational retail chain, incorporated in the year 1969, has fully transformed the landscape of retail organized business with it’s innovative business strategies.