Wal-Mart Case Study

Question: Discuss about theWal-Mart Case Study. Answer: Introduction: Wal-Mart is a giant amongst the chain of stores and is stated to be the second biggest organization all across the world. Its revenue is nearly $500 billion and they currently employ over two million people including their business associates. Their very impressive success story got started in the early 1960s when their founder Sam Walton started his initial venture of a discount store. The products sold at his stores were identical to what the competitors sold from their outlets but he managed to woo the public to his stores by keeping his prices highly competitive sold the same products as his competitors which he did by lowering his level of profits. This strategy caught on very quickly and his company got off to a flying start immediately thereafter. His strategy of Every Day Low Price (or EDLP) was a runaway success and has remained the basic philosophy of this group till today. With the accurate harnessing of the concepts of Economies of Scale this organization offer its custom ers the lowest in the market prices for products even of the top and exclusive brands(Walmart, 1962). In the next phase they expanded their operations consistently to not only work in geographically different places but also adding different product lines to ensure that the common customer could get all his requirements from them. Now like any other organization they too work in any environment where the challenges are several and the competition is ruthless. They cannot control the environmental forces but then they met the external challenges by building up their strengths. They built up a corporate image of being very highly focused not only on the customers needs but also their wants and to do this image building they adopted the strategy of inculcating organization wide basic three values and beliefs of Service to Our Customers, Respect for the Individual, and Striving for Excellence. This organizational philosophy was followed up with their very famous rule of ten feet where the employees of the stores promises that if he or she comes within ten feet of a customers to their out let then he or she will greet him, wish him and volunteer to help and render assistance(Goldman, 2011). These and other steps which generated additional value for the customers got cloned quickly by the competition and soon the results started tapering off. Thus in the next step of building internal competence and strengths they started developing a very efficient and effective Supply Chain which would enable them to have a more stronger grip on the input side whereby they could retain their strangle hold on the spiraling prices. Being efficient meant doing things right and being effective meant doing the right things. They made it a point to drive home to their vendors that they are their partners in their journey and hence they have to ensure that they invariably make constant efforts at adding extra value for the customers of Wal-Mart. This is a competence which is very important in the retail industry especially in the food sector. This effort of this organization has been found to be very difficult to clone(Edemariam, 2009). On the flip side is the fact that wherever this organization opened an outlet the local traders had either to roll down shutters for good or land into severe financial difficulties since their campaign of retaining low prices consistently which they could manage through superior planning and execution out priced the smaller local traders. Some people tend to believe that their approach of employing local people, buying from local vendors and participate in the welfare of the locality are all to offset this criticism(Corpwatch, 2006). They have also built up their internal strengths by having closer monitoring of the incoming supplies over RF tracking systems which strengthened their Inventory Management efficiencies. Of late they are trying to keep track of the customers changing preference trends by acquiring and getting a company called Kosmix which keeps track of the social media message exchanges to get the first hand knowledge of the changing trends in customer preferences(Allthingsd, 2011). This is again a new approach and perhaps the first attempt at being in known of the changing taste patterns of the customers. It may be added that Wal-Mart is known for their very unorthodox and innovative ways of conducting business and perhaps the first systematic efforts on a reasonably large scale so that they can prepare their operations well in advance to benefit from the changes in the offing(Nicholson, 2011). Wal-Mart believes in delivering the best to their customers and practices all methods, new and novel, to satisfy their clientele. References: Allthingsd, 2011. Exclusive walmart paid 300 million plus for kosmix. [Online] Available at: https://allthingsd.com/20110418/exclusive-wal-mart-paid-300-million-plus-for-kosmix/ [Accessed 24 October 2016]. Corpwatch, 2006. A Brief History: Walmart. [Online] Available at: https://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13796 [Accessed 24 October 2016]. Edemariam, A., 2009. It all began in a small store in Arkansas. [Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/mar/14/wal-mart-us-economy [Accessed 24 October 2016]. Goldman, L., 2011. The Incredible Story Of Walmart's Expansion From Five Dime To Global Megacorp. [Online] Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-incredible-story-of-walmarts-expansion-from-five-and-dime-to-global-megacorp-2011-7?IR=T [Accessed 24 October 2016]. Nicholson, C., 2011. Wal-Mart Buys Social Media Firm Kosmix. [Online] Available at: https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/wal-mart-buys-social-media-site-kosmix/?_r=0 [Accessed 24 October 2016]. Walmart, 1962. Our History. [Online] Available at: https://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/our-history [Accessed 24 October 2016].