Summary and Recommendations of Wal-Mart
Summary Wal-mart was started in 1945 by Sam Walton in Newport, (Manahan at M. and Shah A. 2009). This first franchise was operated as a small chain. Due to threat from competitors, Sam gathered ideas that led him to open discount stores in various areas.
Faster growth of Walmart kicked off in 1970s since the growth in early years was slow. Scott lee became the president and CEO of walmart in 2000 and was succeeded by Mike Duke in 2009, (Manahan at M. and Shah A. 2009).
Walmart is a business that carries sophisticated electronic products like research in motion limited’s blackberry smart phones; palm Inc’s smart phone and blu-ray disc players. In 2009, walmart began selling Dell Inc’s new studio one 19 touch screen computers. In the same year, it announced support for legislation that required employees to provide health insurance to employees. This was a centrepiece of president Obama’s effort to provide near-universal coverage to Americans, Manahan at M.
and Shah A. (2009). Walmart is the largest private employer in the US and it has a desire to level the job markets with its rival firms ecause it already provides health insurance to all its employees. The US chamber of commerce is against the provision of health insurance to employees by the employers. In over a decade, walmart has grown rapidly as compared to its competitors like Kmart.
Walmart has stores in all fifty states of the US, (Manahan at M. and Shah A. 2009).Walmart has no formal mission statement and their public relations coordinator explains that their customers are most interested in other aspects of the business and the company is focused on meeting their customer’s needs. If this company would have a mission statement, it would state that they focus on providing quality products at an everyday low price and with extended customer services. The culture of walmart is to provide genuine customer services at low prices.
This culture is based on respect for individuals, service to customers and strive for excellence. Walmart has a good has a good management team that is able to execute its strategy, perform every single day business and deliver results. It has 36 departments and offers a wide variety of merchandise that includes apparell for women, girls, men, boys and infants, Manahan at M. and Shah A. 2009).
In addition, each store carries curtains, fabrics and notion shoes, house wares, hard ware, electronics, home supplies and sporting goods among others. Recommendations I recommend that walmart should have a mission statement that should state the general mission of the company. Walmart should also ensure that all items sold are appropriate for the customers in the location where they are marketed. Due to increased customer population, walmart should ensure continuity in items sold in every store in order to avoid stock unavailability. More over, I recommend the expansion of distributions chains for walmart stores in order to adequately reach all its customers.
They should also enlarge their operations by opening more stores in different places to serve the growing customer needs. Walmart stores should adopt internet retailing in order to improve their services. Lastly, walmart should expand their store sizes in order to stock more products and sell wide range of items to improve their customer satisfaction capability.
