The qoellar testretail chain store employing over 1.
5 million full-time and contractual employees (NY Job Source 2005). The stores are famous for their variety of goods and services offered, at very low and competitive prices. For 2004, Wal-Mart earned of $285. 2 billion, with net income of $10.
3 billion. Sales rose 2. 9% in Wal-Mart stores. The sales are big enough that Wal-Mart can earn in three months what Home Depot sells in a year (Fishman 2003). As a huge transnational Company based in Bentonville, Arkansas, Wal-Mart faces tremendous challenges with its labor policies and worldwide expansion.
Walmart organizational behavior is noteworthy to study because the phenomenal ways with which it handles customers. It does not entail merely completing feasibility studies, finding the most efficient place of production, ensuring and getting sufficient workforce and paying who those who needs to be paid. For all of the top and high-profit companies in the United States, like IBM, Walmart, Procter & Gamble, and Johnsons & Johnsons to name a few, managing their businesses is also developing an organization. An organization involves management, communication and interaction in the hierarchical system of administrators and their workforce.For a new company on the rise, understanding the complexity and the systemic function of the organization also means the thorough study of the company’s material and, with even more difficulty, its cultural status. It is a given fact that every business needs to be innovative.
There has been a tremendous growth of innovations throughout small and large businesses worldwide. Examples include multilevel marketing, viral marketing, member-get-member (MGM) programs, affiliate marketing, Internet marketing, and the likes. There is also the direct marketing, PR, telemarketing, web marketing and now, SMS marketing.Analysis The issues covered pertain to Wal-Mart’s impressive and unimpressive strategies and operations, core competencies of the management, financial condition, continued success, and recommendations. There corresponds three impressive strengths of Wal-Mart’s strategies and operation. The expansion plan, that stretches around the world, impresses me because it shows the financial, and management prowess of Wal-Mart.
The ownership and integration of a variety of Wal-Mart stores, on one side, signifies an aspect of internal expansion and growth of Wal-Mart.The variety of stores leads to differentiated products that appeal to more customers. Also, the vastness of the Wal-Mart Empire enables them to control prices set by their suppliers, and in turn provide low-cost products and services. Broad differentiation and low-cost focus comprise the key features of the Wal-Mart’s strategy. With more brands, more products, and more services, at lower prices, outsourced from different parts of the world, Wal-Mart highlights one of its striking appeal and difference from its competitors.In addition, the increase of stores has improved for the past five years due to the company’s growth.
Although Wal-Mart’s long-term debts and obligations increased to sustain their worldwide expansion. Benchmarking is the continuous process of comparing an organization’s strategies, products or processes with those of best-in-class organizations. It helps employees learn how such organizations achieved excellence and then set out to match or exceed them. Benchmarking has been used to assess most aspects of organization’s operations.It identifies the “best” that is occurring elsewhere and helps organizations determine how to develop their own strategic or tactical plans and processes to reach that level.
Benchmarking includes seven basic steps. Step 1 involves defining the domain to be benchmarked. This step includes a careful study of the organization’s products and processes that are to be compared to benchmark products and processes. In the advertising for the 1998 Dodge Ram pickup (a new model), the company claimed that about 100 different aspects of the pickup were improved upon to meet or exceed current benchmarks in pickup design.Improvements included the new four-door option called the “quad cab” design. The management's corporate plans and strategies boosted corporate financial growth, as well as the expansion of branches worldwide.
The ability to improve distribution at the performance and technological dimensions enhance the delivery system of Wal-Mart. Also, the management pushed their employees to be innovative in accomplishing their tasks at hand, starting with Walton’s aggressive hospitality. All of these components produce a strong Wal-Mart culture that symbolizes most of its strength in the Bentonville headquarters.Yet, a fragmented culture arises due to geographic distances, socio-economic, political and cultural differences among branches located at different countries. However, there exist certain weaknesses that present challenges to Wal-Mart.
The corporation handles and handled labor concerns and issues. They mostly brush labor problems under the carpet, just like in closing stores that exhibited unionism. This makes one skeptical about how Wal-Mart can sustain a fast-paced expansion, without responding appropriately to their labor issues.Moreover, people are wary of how Wal-Mart can maintain and improve their retail chain store leadership at other countries, where different cultures, social status and lifestyles reside. Nevertheless, the internal growth of portfolio and spur in profits, side-by-side international expansion, showcases Wal-Mart’s success. Great leadership accounted chiefly for Wal-Mart’s growth, as the managers developed the major business plans, and charted accompanying strategies, to expand business around the world, while improving customer service and sales at every branch.
It takes leader-managers to envision dominating retail shopping at an international scale. Wal-Mart’s management must take into consideration its complex labor system, and learn to integrate all internal and external factors of company development. A company does not just develop through profit yields and branch expansions, and mergers. A company must also grow strong from within, so that it can magnify the strength it wields out in the economic field.
In order for Wal-Mart to effectively project a corporation with a social conscience, it must take a low-profile position during these pressing times.No company remains always on top, and even Wal-Mart’s empire can be toppled by simultaneous ‘small’ mistakes. It can be a small price for Wal-Mart to lose employees now, but consequences will develop and negative impact on company ethics and integrity can be magnified in the long run. Thus, Wal-Mart must start cleaning its own backyard, and at the same time, improve its fragmented corporate culture. Everything must start from the top management analyzing where the company went wrong that caused the labor problems, and from there, negotiate a win-win situation for the company and the its employees.Referenceshttp://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/business/23nwalmart.htmlhttp://www.nyjobsource.com/walmart.html
