Hello!!! friends as i have posted about Nobel Awards in the last post now i'm here to post about the great company which was founded by the great entrepreneur Sam Walton in 1962, which has 8500 stores in 15 countries, with 55 different names, which is the world's largest public corporation by revenue, according to the Forbes Global 2000 for that year.
It is none another than the great public corporation WAL-MART. This great public corporation has got a great name as ''If Wal-Mart is a country then it will be the 24th most productive country in the world.''
Sam Walton- The founder of Wal-Mart:
Sam Walton, a businessman from Arkansas, began his retail career when he started work on June 3, 1940, at a J. C. Penney store in Des Moines, Iowa where he remained for 18 months. In 1945, he met Butler Brothers, a regional retailer that owned a chain of variety stores called Ben Franklin and that offered him one in Newport, Arkansas.
Walton was extremely successful in running the store in Newport, far exceeding expectations. However, when the lease came up for renewal, Walton could neither come to agreement on the existing store's lease renewal nor find a new location in Newport. Instead, he opened a new Ben Franklin franchise in Bentonville, Arkansas, but called it "Walton's Five and Dime." There, he achieved higher sales volume by marking up slightly less than most competitors.
On July 2, 1962, Walton opened the first Wal-Mart Discount City store located at 719 Walnut Ave. in Rogers, Arkansas. The building is now occupied by a hardware store and an antique mall. Within five years, the company expanded to 24 stores across Arkansas and reached $12.6 million in sales. In 1968, it opened its first stores outside Arkansas, in Sikeston, Missouri and Claremore, Oklahoma.
The company was incorporated as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. on October 31, 1969. In 1970, it opened its home office and first distribution center in Bentonville, Arkansas. It had 38 stores operating with 1,500 employees and sales of $44.2 million.
Wal-Mart's business model is based on selling a wide variety of general merchandise at "always low prices." The company refers to its employees as "associates". All Wal-Mart stores in the US and Canada also have designated "greeters", who welcome shoppers at the store entrance.
For the fiscal year ending January 31, 2009, Wal-Mart reported a net income of $13.6 billion[5] on $404 billion of revenue (3.4% profit margin). For the fiscal year ending January 31, 2006, Wal-Mart's international operations accounted for about 20.1% of total sales.
Wal-Mart is governed by a fifteen-member Board of Directors, which is elected annually by shareholders. Robson Walton, the eldest son of founder Sam Walton, serves as Chairman of the Board. Michael T. Duke serves as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and Lee Scott, formerly CEO, serves as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board.
Each week, about 100 million customers, nearly one-third of the U.S. population, visit Walmart's U.S. stores. Walmart customers give low prices as the most important reason for shopping there, reflecting the "Low prices, always" advertising slogan that Wal-Mart used from 1962 until 2006. "Save Money. Live Better" is new slogan.
Wal-Mart is currently facing a gender discrimination lawsuit, Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., which alleges that female employees were discriminated against in matters regarding pay and promotions.Wal-Mart's EEOC filings showed that female employees made up 65% of Wal-Mart's hourly paid workforce, but only 33% of its management(according to 2001). Just 35% of its store managers were women, whereas 57% were at comparable retailers. But in 2007, Wal-Mart was named by the National Association for Female Executives as one of the top 35 companies for Executive Women.
SWOT Analysis Wal-Mart:
Strengths
- Wal-Mart is a powerful retail brand. It has a reputation for value for money, convenience and a wide range of products all in one store.
- Wal-Mart has grown substantially over recent years, and has experienced global expansion (for example its purchase of the United Kingdom based retailer ASDA).
- The company has a core competence involving its use of information technology to support its international logistics system. For example, it can see how individual products are performing country-wide, store-by-store at a glance. IT also supports Wal-Mart's efficient procurement.
- A focused strategy is in place for human resource management and development. People are key to Wal-Mart's business and it invests time and money in training people, and retaining a developing them.
- Wal-Mart is the World's largest grocery retailer and control of its empire, despite its IT advantages, could leave it weak in some areas due to the huge span of control.
- Since Wal-Mart sell products across many sectors (such as clothing, food, or stationary), it may not have the flexibility of some of its more focused competitors.
- The company is global, but has has a presence in relatively few countries Worldwide.
Opportunities
- To take over, merge with, or form strategic alliances with other global retailers, focusing on specific markets such as Europe or the Greater China Region.
- The stores are currently only trade in a relatively small number of countries. Therefore there are tremendous opportunities for future business in expanding consumer markets, such as China and India.
- New locations and store types offer Wal-Mart opportunities to exploit market development. They diversified from large super centres, to local and mall-based sites.
- Opportunities exist for Wal-Mart to continue with its current strategy of large, super centres.
Threats
- Being number one means that you are the target of competition, locally and globally.
- Being a global retailer means that you are exposed to political problems in the countries that you operate in.
- The cost of producing many consumer products tends to have fallen because of lower manufacturing costs. Manufacturing cost have fallen due to outsourcing to low-cost regions of the World. This has lead to price competition, resulting in price deflation in some ranges. Intense price competition is a threat.
 | ||||||||||
| Industry | Retailing | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Founded | Rogers, Arkansas, U.S. (1962) | |||||||||
| Founder(s) | Sam Walton | |||||||||
| Headquarters | Bentonville, Arkansas, U.S. | |||||||||
| Area served | Worldwide | |||||||||
| Key people | Mike Duke (CEO) H. Lee Scott (Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board) S. Robson Walton (Chairman) | |||||||||
| Products | Discount Stores Supercenters Neighborhood Markets | |||||||||
| Revenue | ▲ US$408.21 billion (2009)[2] | |||||||||
| Operating income | ▲ US$ 23.95 billion (2009)[3] | |||||||||
| Net income | ▲ US$ 14.33 billion (2009)[3] | |||||||||
| Total assets | ▼ US$ 170.70 billion (2010)[4] | |||||||||
| Total equity | ▲ US$ 70.74 billion (2009)[3] | |||||||||
| Employees | approx. 2,100,000 (2009)[5] | |||||||||
| Website | www.walmartstores.com www.walmart.com | |||||||||
So thanks friends for reading this post. I hope you will like this post. If anything wrong in this post then i apologize in advance. So if anything wrong then post a comment on my post. Thanks for being with me friends.
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