...Organizational Structure of Walmart Doshiemae Johnson MGT/230 Patricia Ford February 1, 2016 Introduction Walmart’s humble beginnings started in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962 by Sam Walton. Today, Walmart has evolved into a multibillion dollar company earning 486 billion dollars (Wikipedia.com (Entreprenuer, 2016) (Entreprenuer, 2016), 2015). Walmart is currently located in over fifteen countries and have over eleven thousand six hundred twenty stores (wikepedia.com). Their slogan is “Save Money, Live Better.” Walmart’s success could not have happened without strategic planning of the company’s business processes. These factors decide which organizational structure would be appropriate for the company to use. This paper will discuss the organizational structure of Walmart and their corporate processes that include marketing, human resources, products, and geographical locations. Organizational Structure Walmart’s organizational structure is divisional. Under this type of structure, each division has its own executive, which is the vice president. The vice president is responsible for their own budgets, advertising, and hiring (Bateman, 2011). Each division is given enough resources and autonomy to function alone. Unlike other organizational structures such as functional where divisions are departmentalized based on common job functions and matrix where both employees and managers from different company departments work together to achieve goals and solve problems (Bateman,2011), the...
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...Since San Walton opened his first store in 1962, Walmart has grown into a global retailer with more than 4,000 store in the United States and more than 6,000 internationally. Walmart is comprised of three business segments, Walmart US, Walmart International and Sam’s Club. Walmart Global eCommerce works across all three segments. Walmart’s mission statement “We save people money so they can live better”, is not indicative of where its strategic focus areas are, but it does sound good for the average customer who has a limited budget. This mission statement leads directly into Walmart Global eCommerce goals which include combining online, social innovations with physical stores to give consumers “anywhere, anytime shopping experience” in addition to its organizational sustainability goal of creating zero waste, using only sustainable energy and selling products that sustain the environment which is important to all of Walmart’s segments including eCommerce. Walmart’s overall objective is to deliver shareholder value by increasing earnings per share, returns and maintaining strong stable returns on investment. According to Walmart CEO, Mike Duke, Walmart’s strategic focus areas are: •Making sure the company has the best retail talent at every level of the organization by recruiting, developing and retaining the best associates; •Delivering on the productivity loop that enables Walmart to operate for less so the company can drive prices even lower for its customers ...
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...1. Walmart's three major areas of external environment 1.A. The General 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...
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...Control Mechanisms of Walmart Corporation Companies all across the world use control mechanisms to achieve and monitor the success of the organization. If a company has planned poorly the goals, objectives, or a disagreeing management, the likelihood of the company surviving for any length of time becomes slim and considered an out-of-control company. Managers today must control their people, inventories, quality, and costs, to mention just a few of their responsibilities (Bateman & Snell, 2009). The three broad strategies for achieving organizational controls consist of bureaucratic control, market control, and clan control (Bateman & Snell, 2009). When planning for these controls managers follow four steps for each: setting performance standards, measuring performance, comparing performance against the standards, and determining deviations, along with taking actions to correct problems and reinforce success. The paper will focus on the control mechanisms of Walmart Corporation and how the mechanisms compare and contrast from others, their effectiveness, positive and negative reactions, and how each affect the four functions of management. Walmart Corporation Walmart serves more than 200 million customers and members throughout their 8,650 retail units between the companies 55 operating banners in 15 countries on a weekly basis (Walmart, 2010). With sales in 2010 of over $405 billion, employing more than Two million associates worldwide, and receiving the title of 2010s...
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...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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...Walmart is expanding its presence on the Internet and the usage of mobile apps in stores. This summer Walmart will place lockers in some of the stores and customers will be able to pick up their orders from pre-assigned lockers 24 hours a day (Banjo 2013). The retail environment is changing; customers are using new technologies in every aspects of decision making from finding alternatives and comparing them to buying and using them. For almost every purchase customers start their shopping by an Internet search. They are also able to compare different retailers’ prices and check the availability in different retailers online. Technology has reduced the effort to find the cheapest and fastest options and by using smartphones you can do it everywhere even when you are standing by the item shelf in a brick and mortar shop and making decisions. On the other hand regulation is changing for online retailers. Online retailers are losing the advantage of tax free sales. Amazon as the biggest online retailer will be charging for tax in some states which cover more than half of the U.S. market (Gera 2013). It may change Amazon’s ability to offer competitive prices. For now as a physical retailer, Walmart offers a fast and lower price shopping experience to its customers. It has a broad assortment of merchandise and tries to be a one-stop shopping convenience. In 2011, Walmart added 8500 items or 11 percent in an average store (Walmart Broadening Product Assortment...
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...Ways Walmart Can Improve Their IT Systems Allison Malan Keller Graduate School of Management This paper is prepared for: Managerial Appls of Info Tech, Spring 2015, taught by Stephen Wheeler. Abstract 1. The subject of this paper is to discuss different IT problems and solutions in a large retail company. 2. This paper will discuss the IT Walmart currently uses and the ways in which Walmart would benefit by updating their systems. 3. The problem with Walmart’s current system is it is old and dated, making it harder and more time consuming to guide through. 4. Updating their current system will make it easier and more efficient to navigate through. 5. Initially this will cost a lot of money, since Walmart is such a large corporation. Over time, however, this will save the company many hours of labor. 6. This paper is directed to Walmart’s Home Office IT. Since the first Walmart store opened in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas, we've been dedicated to making a difference in the lives of our customers. Our business is the result of Sam Walton's visionary leadership, along with generations of associates focused on helping customers and communities save money and live better. (1) The Walmart U.S. segment includes the Company's mass merchant concept in the United States operating under the Walmart or Wal-Mart brands, as well as walmart.com. Walmart U.S. is the Company’s largest segment, having generated approximately 59% of the Company’s...
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...at a structure, it looks for the most efficient ways to categorize the company’s divisions, departments, and partnerships in a way to produce the most return on investment. Walmart and More Walmart was founded in 1962 by Sam Walton. He opened the first Walmart in Rogers, AK. Walmart incorporated in 1969 under the name Walmart Stores, Inc. With more than 245 million customers, the most efficient organizational structure may not be obvious. Today Walmart has over 11,000 stores in 27 countries. Employing 2.2 million people worldwide and generating revenue above $466 billion ("Walmart.com", 2013). Walmart has three separate divisions, two of which are in the United States; Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club. The third division is the international division which operates stores internationally. Examples of some companies that use a different approach are Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. These two use a matrix style organization; there are multiple U.S. divisions, broken up into different geographic territories. Matrix structuring maximizes communication lines so the delivery of a fast changing product can be achieved. Also, the advantage of a matrix-style structure is the ability to accommodate Human Resources needs in all the different areas that service and products are provided. The divisional structure that Walmart uses has proven effective in today’s economy with thousands of different products in...
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...ORGANIZATIONAL ASSESSMENT Organizational Assessment Sherry Crowe MGT416 Operations Management A02 Dr. Carson March 19, 2014 Argosy University The Wal-Mart Corporation On May 9, 1950, Sam Walton opened up Walton’s 5&10 in Bentonville, Arkansas. The first store with the Wal-Mart name, opened in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962 and was financed 95% by Sam Walton himself. Since its beginning in Arkansas, Walmart has helped millions to save money and live better. Walmart has changed from being a retail store accessible with set hours to be available anytime and anywhere for their 245 million customers. Walmart offer its 245 million customers retail shopping in 11,000 stores under 69 banners in 27 countries and e-commerce websites in 10 countries (Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 2013). The company is considered one of the largest employers in the world; Walmart employs 2.2 million associates worldwide. In the U. S., Walmart Supercenters, Neighborhood Markets, and Sam's Club warehouses comprise the choices of Walmart stores to which customers have access (Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 2013). As Walmart continues growing successfully the corporation has experienced global success, which has led the corporation to be in constant of change of strategies that provide that the corporation continues fulfilling its mission while offering new products, bettering the human resource management and developing its personnel, and expanding its social responsibility by helping the different communities where stores...
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...accomplishing the following process of the marketing plan phase one. Selecting an existing organization and discussing its overviews is the first step in phase one. The second step is giving a description of the new product or service. Step three is explaining the importance of marketing for organizational success. The fourth step analyzes the factors of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and trends (SWOTT) of the new product or service. Step five is the marketing research approach for developing the marketing strategy and tactics of the new product or service (Perreault, Cannon, & McCarty, 2011). Organizational Overview Team Charlie chose the Walmart organization for completing this assignment. Walmart is one of the best known organizations in the world that have successful marketing plans and strategies. Sam Walton is the founder of Walmart and opened the first store in Rogers, Arkansas, 50 years ago in 1962 (Walmart, 2012). Currently Walmart operates in more than 10,000 retail stores under 69 diverse banners in 27 different geographic locations across the world. They service customers and members in excess of 200 million times per week with sales of approximately $444 billion continually for the fiscal year 2012 (Walmart, 2012). Sam Walton’s visionary leadership and focus point centered on helping customers and...
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...Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. | | Type | Public | Traded as | NYSE: WMT Dow Jones Industrial Average Component S&P 500 Component | Industry | Retail | Founded | 1962, Rogers, Arkansas, U.S. | Founder(s) | Sam Walton | Headquarters | Bentonville, Arkansas, U.S. | Number of locations | 11,088 (April 2014) | Area served | Worldwide | Key people | S. Robson Walton (Chairman) Doug McMillon (President & CEO) | Products | Apparel/footwear specialty, cash & carry/warehouse club, discount store,hypermarket/supercenter/superstore,supermarket, eCommerce | Revenue | * * US$ 476.294 billion (2014) * US$ 468.651 billion (2013) | Operating income | * US$ 26.872 billion (2014) * US$ 27.725 billion (2013) | Net income | * US$ 16.022 billion (2014) * US$ 16.999 billion (2013) | Total assets | * US$ 204.751 billion (2014) * US$ 203.105 billion (2013) | Total equity | * US$ 81.339 billion (2014) * US$ 81.738 billion (2013) | Owner(s) | Walton family | Employees | 2.2 million (2013) | Divisions | Walmart Canada | Subsidiaries | Asda, Sam's Club, Seiyu Group,Walmex, @WalmartLabs, Walmart eCommerce | Website | Corporate.Walmart.com Walmart.com | Executive Summary: Wal-Mart has shown continued success in their use of information technology with e-commerce, a system that allows managers to view point-of-sale information, and the possible use of RFID chips in the near future. After reviewing the 2005...
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...Running head: THE UNETHICAL WORLD OF WAL-MART.1 OL 500: Human Behavior in Organization Final Draft SNHU Dr. Castellon Roger McGinness Abstract Ethical issues are problems faced by thousands of corporate workers on a daily basis. With technological advances these problems are more magnified than ever before and when you are the world’s largest employer and sit atop the Forbes Fortune Fifty list your ethical dilemmas become the focal point of millions. Building ethical principles and guidelines are vital to help Wal-Mart remain on top of the Fortune Fifty list and prevent unethical or immoral issues from rising. This paper will take an in depth look into policies, procedures and practices that are in place at Wal-Mart and have the nation if not the World debating their fairness. There are a number of people in which the blame can easily be placed to include corporate leaders and political figures however a vast majority of Wal-Marts unscrupulous business practices could be elevated by simple satisfaction of a smaller profit margin. Bigger Not Always Better In the internet, 24 hour news world we live in today business practices are more visible and evident than ever before. There is a saying that when you do something nice for a person they may tell one or two people, however do wrong by them and they will notify everyone they know. This saying holds very true with employees and corporations today. A quick internet search on unscrupulous business practices...
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...MARKETING AND SALES STRATEGY21 COST STRATEGY21 CAPITAL STRUCTURE STRATEGY21 FINANCIAL ANALYSIS22 GENERAL OVERVIEW22 OPERATING EXPENSES AND NET SALES22 OPERATING INCOME23 FREE CASH FLOW23 ACCOUNTING ASSUMPTIONS AND METHODS23 INVENTORIES23 DEPRECIATION AND AMORTIZATION24 GENERAL STRENGHTS24 ACCOUNTING ASSUMPTION AND METHODS25 EVOLUTION AND CAUSE FOR THE CHANGES26 KEY FINANCIAL RATIOS27 LIQUIDITY RATIOS28 PROFITABILITY RATIOS28 DEBT RATIOS29 OPERATING PERFORMANCE RATIOS30 ANALYSYS OF RISK31 FX AND INTEREST RISK32 SOLVENCY RISK33 COMPETITORS ANALYSIS34 SWOT ANALYSIS37 RECOMMENDATIONS38 BIBLIOGRAPHY39 INTRODUCTION Walmart Stores, Inc. (WMT) is an American public corporation that runs a chain of large discount department stores and a chain of warehouse stores. Walmart operates more than 8,692 retail units across three business segments of retail stores worldwide that offer a wide array of general merchandise including groceries, apparel, electronics, and small appliances. In addition, the company is the world's largest retailer and grocery chain by sales and just over half of the company's sales comes from grocery items. Over 54% of the company's stores are located in the United States, with the majority of international stores located in Central and South America and China. The company focuses on offering the lowest prices across its business segments, which together earned $408 billion in revenue in 2010, a 1% increase from sales...
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...Walmart’s Strategy Walmart’s Current strategy In Walmart's thinking, there are three types of shopping trips (Depillis, 2013): The stock-up mission- this kind of shopping trip brings families to Walmart's 3,200 nationwide Supercenters. The basic grocery run- where shopping trip shoppers want to go someplace nearby, such as one of Walmart's 300 neighborhood markets. The "immediate access" stops - where shoppers head for the traditional convenience store. As of today, Walmart hasn't really touched the third segment, except for a handful of "express" stores in Arkansas. Bill Simon, Walmart’s chief executive, vision to put all three segments together on what he called “ecosystem”. Walmart believes that “tethering” is the key to make this system work. From tether hiring and back- office functions, to tether inventory distribution systems, and even online orders, for greater efficiency and quick response to demand. In other words, instead of having one huge store with endless goods, Walmart will offer three kinds of stores with most of those goods, at the time and place customers need them. Walmart’s current strategy includes more emphasis on smaller-format stores and more e-commerce. (Cheng, 2012). Competitive Advantage Walmart enjoys several of competitive advantages that are the source of the company’s market dominance. However, Walmart’s primary competitive advantage is low costs. Low cost culture and leadership initiated by the company’s founder, Sam Walton...
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... Student Marketing Plan for Walmart Supercenter A Marketing Plan Presented by: Mission Statement "We save people money so they can live better." Is the mission statement for Walmart supercenter stores internationally, as is their slogan of “Save Money. Live Better” generally supporting one another. Goals Financial: 1. Financially be stable in the first five years to continue growing. 2. Provide the city of Kerman with jobs. 3. Rise to the same level of success as all other Walmarts in the Central Valley. Nonfinancial: 1. Provide the community with savings and jobs. 2. When meeting financial goals give back to the community. 3. Provide necessary materials for schooling. 4. Within 5 years provide the Kerman athletics with state of the art athletic facilities. 5. Give the community of Kerman and others around recreational areas for growing kids. Competitive Advantage Walmart has a competitive advantage over all other stores in the world hands down. It has the lowest prices guaranteed, providing the community of 20,000 with a Walmart will be a great move for the town. Walmart Supercenter’s advantage is that there are no others around in a 40 mile radius. Kerman is indeed the “Gateway to the Westside” to go to other town or communities you must pass through Kerman, there is no other option. The closest Walmart Supercenter is 40+ miles away in the well known city of Clovis, Ca. Walmart Supercenter can provide far cheaper...
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