...can assist management to formulate a strategic plan to gain control that may have potentially significant affect. Successful organizations like The Home Depot and Wal-Mart are dependent upon the ability of leaders and employees to adapt to the rapidly transforming external environment (Wheeler & Hunter, 2010). The Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer with more than 2,200 stores in the United States, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Canada, Mexico, and China (Annual Report, 2011, p. 7). The retailer sells approximately 40,000 products to consumers and its 321,000 associates are the key to the organization success who deeply believe in the values the organization. Instead of a mission statement, Home Depot has eight corporate values designed to guide the actions of all its employees. According to Home Depot, the corporate values are: “Taking care of our people, giving back to our communities, doing the right thing, excellent customer service, creating shareholders value, building strong relationships, entrepreneurial spirit, and respect for all people.” Home Depot long-term objectives are to maintain constant growth expansion, increase store modernization, increase investment in technology, and sustain control through the organization’s vertical growth strategy (Home Depot, 2011). The organization has taken the initiative in building relationships with do-it-yourself...
Words: 1525 - Pages: 7
...the oldest national retailer’s, the largest problem they shared was failure to stay current with the changes in trends throughout the years which was ultimately leading to their swift demise. Kmart was successful as a low-cost clothing and home-goods retailer, however once competitors such as Wal-mart and Target entered the game with similar quality products and the same low prices, Kmart took a large hit. In the 1990’s Kmart began opening a variety of ‘Super Kmarts’ that incorporated a larger grocery department that included fresh produce to compete with Wal-mart. In the end, the food retailing strategy was deemed a failure. In January of 2002, Kmart filed for bankruptcy protection after several of their suppliers began withholding deliveries and demanding cash from the retailer (Davies, James, Schindelheim & Valenti, 2002). Edward Lambert gained control of Kmart which lead to an increase in stock value based on Lambert’s previous successes. Kmart stores began closing in regions that were deemed the most unprofitable, and a focus was put on urban areas that were not in Wal-Mart dominant regions (Snavely, 2003) Sears battled similar problems especially in terms of staying current and competitive to large big-box retailers like Wal-Mart. Due to it’s historic image of quality goods and regular pricing, it was becoming difficult to draw in customers even with changes made in store. Just prior to the merger, Sears CEO Alan Lacy began a concept known as ‘Sears Grand’, which was...
Words: 2244 - Pages: 9
...in mind I narrowed the playing field down to three promising firms for my marketing manager profession. The three companies I have chosen are Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Home Depot, and Amazon.com. I will explain in detail throughout this paper why these three companies are my primary candidates Wal-Mart has been around for forty years and was founded upon saving the consumer money. In this fiscal year alone the company has had approximately $444 billion sales and we are only in the eight month of the year. This is a fast pace continually growing company. They currently have 2.2 million associates worldwide and are located in 27 countries as well as all fifty states in the U.S. The biggest asset for working at this company is that they service up to 200 million customers and associates on a weekly basis. Being a customer of Wal-Mart, I have noticed that when the employees have been trained on offering the consumer their brand for an even lesser amount. With this in mind, I would encourage the firm to maybe focus on advertising their own products more. I would even consider the low hanging fruit projects of them just changing and Making their products attractive to the consumer eye. The downfall of this is that maybe the money flow could lessen due to cutting out on some of the name brand competitors within their company. However Wal-Mart continues to manufacture all brands of products throughout the store; electronics,...
Words: 642 - Pages: 3
...Management at wal mart Submitted to: Prof Mhihr Das Submitted By: Kunal Bhatia (M00116, Hitesh Bambhaniya (M00126), Saloni Umraniya (M00128), Sagar Nathani (M00134) 3/6/2014 Table of Contents Introduction 3 Value Chain System of wall mart 4 Porter 5 force 4 SWOT 5 Competitors 6 Suppliers 8 Back haul of wall mart 9 Role of HR 10 Role of RFID 11 Strategy 12 Strategy of other companies 13 Conclution 16 Introduction The retail industry is dominated by few retail giants, with Wal-Mart competing in several retail categories. Wal-Mart competes against Kmart and Target in the general merchandise retailing; against Costco in the warehouse club segment; and against Kroger, Albertson’s and Safeway in the supermarket retailing. Competition among retailers centers on pricing, store location, variations in store format and merchandise mix, store size, shopping atmosphere, and image with shoppers. Further analysis provided by the following figure diagnoses the competitive environment of the retail industry. As a fact, Wal-Mart is considered as the world’s largest retailer nationwide that has been guided by its founder Sam Walton’s passion toward customer satisfaction, and his beliefs in excellence, as well as his philosophy in lowering his prices that has been proven with his famous slogan “everyday low prices.”1Visible outstanding success has required a lot of effort, strategies, dedication, and wide consideration. Such as Wal-Mart, victory...
Words: 3334 - Pages: 14
...________. A) ExxonMobil B) Sears Roebuck C) Wal-Mart D) Marks & Spencer 2) Which of the following activities does not fit within the scope of retailing? A) medical services to families B) direct-to-home sales C) vending purchases by factory workers D) sales to wholesalers 3) Which statement concerning retailing is correct? A) Retailing activities must involve a store. B) Retailing activities do not have to include a retailer. C) Retailing activities cannot be performed by a wholesaler. D) Retailing activities involve goods, not services. 4) According to the Department of Commerce, annual U.S. retail store sales are about ________. A) $200 billion B) $1.5 trillion C) $3.5 trillion D) $5.0 trillion 5) About how many people are employed by traditional retailers in the United States? A) 11 million B) 16 million C) 25 million D) 34 million 6) Data on U.S. retail employment understates actual employment because it does not include ________. A) store or department managers B) part-time personnel C) seasonal employees and unreported workers in family businesses D) teenagers under 18 who are full-time students 7) In 2007, the four largest retailing companies (in order of size from largest to fourth largest on the basis of sales) were ________. A) Wal-Mart, Sears, Safeway, and J.C. Penney B) Wal-Mart, Home Depot, CVS Caremark, and Kroger C) Wal-Mart, Kmart, Kroger, and Federated Department Stores D) Wal-Mart, Woolworth, Kroger, and Kmart MKT 310 WK 2 QUIZ...
Words: 614 - Pages: 3
...like Wal-mart, with its plastic bags and plastic junk Another is that Wal-mart couldn't hack the pro-labor union culture of Germany. Another is that Germany is anti-American when it comes to name-brand retailers (even though Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks are popular there).” B: Wal-mart failed because of their lack of knowledge, of foreign countries. In order for Wal-mart to have a successful business over seas, is to do research about the particular country that they want their cultural business to be located. “There are many reasons why Wal- Mart’s business model failed in Germany, such as Cultural attitudes, Customer Service, and Cultural arrogance all contributed to what one economist referred to as a failure. But under these basic economic decisions were a host of basic cross- cultural mistakes that fuelled the company’s poor strategic planning.” They had the right idea on how to approach Germany, but they didn‘t do their research on the country it‘s self. “Wal-Mart failed to take into account Germany’s cultural attitudes, especially with regard to such matters as labor law and the role of unions.” Wal-mart’s guide lines are focusing on just the company and not about the different countries values. “Wal-Mart also runs afoul of requirements that workers‟ representatives be consulted before introducing changes in working conditions.” If Wal-mart would have did more research on Germany, because Germany expects a discount store to stick with their corporate values. Wal-mart’s...
Words: 1662 - Pages: 7
...To the executives at Wal-Mart: Your plan to open two stores in Chicago is an example of your continuous efforts to expand your corporation into new markets across the United States. Unfortunately, as has happened with previous cities, these efforts have been met with some opposition. Your company has only “38 of your 3,000” [1] stores located in urban areas and in order to successfully enter these, you will need a plan for galvanizing the necessary support from local government leaders as well as the community. You will then need to follow through on your promise and strengthen the communities that you serve. Your critics continue to portray Wal-Mart as an inconsiderate monopoly that comes in to towns and wipes out their small retailers. Activists and union leaders claim your low pay drives down wages across the county. The United Food and Commercial Workers are concerned that Chicago grocery stores will suffer due to your lower grocery prices. The Chicago Workers’ Rights Board argues that by “squeezing more sales out of each man hour” [1] Wal-Mart will actually cost the city jobs. You will need to show that you can positively impact cities by being compassionate toward the concerns of your potential customers and employees. It is likely that if Wal-Mart can open these stores, the company will eventually gain public support with time as low prices and new local jobs inspire customer loyalty. However, the only way to make this happen is to obtain the required 26 votes from...
Words: 1629 - Pages: 7
...Wal-Mart Online Wal-Mart is one of the largest companies in America. It is definitely the largest retailer, both in terms of the number of stores (8,970 worldwide in 2011) and the level of sales ($419 billion from the 2011 Annual Report). By pushing suppliers to continually reduce costs, Wal-Mart is known for pursuing low prices and the stores often attract customers solely in-terested in lower prices. With Wal-Mart’s expansion into groceries, the company has be-come the largest retail grocer in America. Even by 2002, over 100 million Americans visit a Wal-Mart store in a given week (Press Action 2002). Yet, Wal-Mart has struggled in the online world. The company has tried several approaches to selling physical and digital products online. From electronics to books, music, and movie rentals, the company has an-nounced many different online stores. Wal-Mart has struggled with most of its attempts, while Amazon continues to grow and expand in e-commerce sales. Although Amazon has a fraction of the total sales of Wal-Mart, Amazon is substantially larger in online sales. Which raises the ultimate question of what Wal-Mart is doing wrong, or what it needs to do to get a larger share of online sales. Background Many articles and business cases have been written about Wal-Mart. Most customers are probably familiar with the store and the overall concepts, but a considerable amount of work takes place to manage the large inventory, suppliers, pricing, customers, and employ-ees. Wal-Mart...
Words: 2510 - Pages: 11
... |Paper Plates (50 pk) TOPS brand |TOPS Grant street | | |Plastic cups (100 pk) TOPS brand |TOPS | | |Napkins (250 pk) Bounty |TOPS | |Tuesday Sept 6 |Frosted Flakes (with free DVD) |Wal Mart Niagara Falls | | |Shreddies (with free CD-ROM) |Wal Mart | | |Cinnamon Toast Crunch (with CD-ROM) |Wal Mart | | |Luck Charms (with CD-ROM) |Wal Mart | | |(huge ad in paper for the free DVD / CD-ROM) | | |Wednesday Sept 7 |Big Kat chocolate bar |BSC vending machine | | |Buffalo News |BSC bookstore | |Thursday Sept 8 |Big Kat ...
Words: 360 - Pages: 2
...has chosen students to construct a campaign specifically for Wal-Mart stores to promote the sales of Glidden paint. Wal-Mart is one of the most prominent names in retail, while Glidden paint contributes a rich history of excellence in the paint market. Through both primary and secondary research methods our research provides information for the advertising campaign this following semester. Consumer demographics, purchasing habits, along with wants and needs, are all used to understand the potential market. Research on these topics is vital to the structure of effective advertising. By forming our focus groups we searched for deeper knowledge in the needs of paint shoppers and in the surveys we looked for more reasons people purchase paint and brand loyalty. We examined responses from painting professionals in order to compare results from nonprofessionals to see if these varied in any manner. The objective for getting into the Wal-Mart store was to pass out intercept surveys to the Wal-Mart shoppers. From the focus groups we found being able to match color, not having to apply many layers, customer service, quality, cost, and odor free are important to many shoppers along with word of mouth recommendations, however brand is not a concern. They believe adding jingles, and celebrities to a commercial will get people to buy the paint, and they would like to see design ideas incorporated. People shop at Wal-Mart because it has almost everything. People design and redecorate...
Words: 10978 - Pages: 44
...Wal-Mart is the world’s largest retailer. It is bigger than ExxonMobil, General Motors, and General Electric. It does more business in three months than its number two competitor Home Depot does in a year. Just to help you gauge how large Wal-Mart has become it does more business than Target, Sears, Kmart, J.C. Penney, Safeway, and Kroger combined. They provide many jobs within communities because there are 8500 stores in 15 countries under 55 different names. Wal-Mart’s goal is to provide low prices to its customers no matter what the cost, but behind the scenes how is it really to work for Wal-Mart? Wal-Mart has the highest employee turnover rate of industry, over 50% turnover rate the first year. That means approximately 50,000 employee’s turnover per month. Overall Wal-Mart’s business model doesn’t care about the high employee turnover because it’s not a bad thing to them since it lowers their payroll cost and means that fewer employees qualify for benefits. One out of 7 Wal-Mart employees has no health care coverage since associates must wait one year before qualifying for health care coverage. Also a leaked Wal-Mart memo shows that Wal-Mart employees spend 8% of income on health care which is twice the national average. Part of the high employee turnover rate contributes to the fact that most walmart associates earn below the poverty line. The average walmart employee working “full time” at 34 hrs a week and earning $10.11 per hour will earn $17,874.48 per year....
Words: 295 - Pages: 2
...utilized by Wal-Mart in today’s market. Trying to serve all customers can mean serving none of them well. Wal-Mart, the world’s largest company, has annual revenues greater than the GDP of all but the world’s 21 largest countries. Wal-Mart plans to more than double the number of its Neighborhood Market grocery stores in the United States by fiscal 2016, putting more pressure on traditional brand name grocers. The stores, which are smaller than traditional supercenters and focus on groceries, have become more profitable as Wal-Mart adds more of them. Sales at existing Neighborhood Market stores have grown at a rate of more than 5 percent, or double the rate of the overall Wal-Mart U.S. chain. E-Commerce Growth Online spending is growing, but maybe it has an upper limit. Maybe online shopping cannot duplicate the in-store experience. Wal-Mart realizes that it cannot put all of its marbles in one bag in regards to online or brick-and-mortar shopping venues. On Cyber Monday 2012, internet sales skyrocketed by more than 30 percent and the United States online division of Wal-Mart experienced its best sales day ever. Online transactions completed via Wal-Mart’s mobile applications rose to 280 percent above last year’s figures. Same-day delivery combines the convenience of online ordering and home delivery with something approximating the instant gratification of going to the store. Wohlsen (2012) Wohlsen (2012) explains that this makes sense especially for Wal-Mart, which has...
Words: 920 - Pages: 4
...CHAPTER 1 THE ROLE OF ACCOUNTING IN BUSINESS CLASS DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. The objective of most businesses is to max-imize profits. Profit is the difference be-tween the amounts received from customers for goods or services provided and the amounts paid for the inputs used to provide those goods or services. 2. A manufacturing business changes basic inputs into products that are then sold to customers. In contrast, a merchandising business purchases products in a form that can be sold to customers without any addi-tional changes. Examples of manufacturing businesses include Ford Motor Company, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, and Intel. Examples of merchandising businesses in-clude Best Buy, Circuit City, JCPenney, Of-fice Depot, and Home Depot. 3. A manufacturing business changes basic inputs into products that are then sold to customers. A service business provides ser-vices rather than products to customers. A restaurant such as Applebee’s has characte-ristics of both a manufacturing and a ser-vice business in that Applebee’s takes raw inputs such as cheese, fish, and beef and processes them into products for consump-tion by its customers. At the same time, Ap-plebee’s provides services of waiting on its customers as they dine. 4. The corporate form allows the company to obtain large amounts of resources by is-suing stock. In addition, in a corporation the stockholders’ liability to creditors for the debts of the company is limited to their investment in the corporation...
Words: 635 - Pages: 3
...Wal-Mart Wal-Mart is known for its low prices to the American market. There is a clash between these low prices they offer to the American customers and the interest of the American workers. The low prices that they have offered the American market has made if very difficult if not impossible for their competitors to keep up with them which in turn put those competitors out of business. Wal-Mart has given us efficiency which is a good thing and should not be held accountable for its competitors not being able to keep up. “Wal-Mart is not just the world's largest retailer. It's the world's largest company--bigger than ExxonMobil, General Motors, and General Electric. The scale can be hard to absorb. Wal-Mart sold $244.5 billion worth of goods last year. It sells in three months what number-two retailer Home Depot sells in a year.” Wal-Mart is just a good business because they can afford to give these rock bottom prices. We all know the downside twist to this great deal that Wal-Mart has offered. They are accused of shutting down local businesses, driving down employment rates and mistreating workers especially women and youth. If anything we realize that this is a very powerful enterprise. Their sales associates, who comprise the majority of workers within the company, only earned average annual wages of $13,861 in 2001. This was about $769 below the poverty line for a family of three. So when it comes to employment there is no debate that it is not the most beneficial thing...
Words: 690 - Pages: 3
...Verhaal Wal-Mart Case Study September 16, 2014 Sam Walton started Wal-Mart in 1962. When Wal-Mart was first introduced, it was believed to be the least likely to succeed in the discount retailing business. The central focus of Wal-Mart was on price. By 1970, Wal-Mart had expanded to 30 towns, all in small towns. In order to expand Wal-Mart beyond its small region, Wal-Mart decided to go public. By the 1990s, 100 shares increased in value from $1,650 to $3,000,000. At this time, Wal-Mart had also spread throughout the United States in both large cities and small towns. Wal-Mart had many different opportunities and threats facing them including, but not limited to, the general environment, five-forces, and their industry structure. Using the VRIO framework, one can assess Wal-Mart’s resources and capabilities and conclude whether or not they have sustainable competitive advantages. The overall general environment of Wal-Mart posed opportunities as well as threats. Technology posed disadvantageous to Wal-Mart and other companies in the discount retail industry. “Internet shopping was appealing because of the convenience and selection available, but perhaps the most attractive aspect was the competitive pricing” (Hesterly, p. 1-13). Less people were coming in to look around the stores, and many items could be ordered at the comfort of the consumers’ home with the click of a finger. The demographics posed an opportunity for the discount retail industry and Wal-Mart. Demographics...
Words: 1885 - Pages: 8
