Case study—Wal-Mart Stores, Inc
The Wal-Mart Co. has been established more than forty years. Starting from the country town, it became the first retail store in America and retains its leadership till now. As the whole world retail business has cool down because of the overload competition, in contrast, the Wal-Mart still operate more than 6000 stores with 1.8 million employees in ten countries. Furthermore, it also retains the average of 20% increase per year in retail revenue. Now Wal-Mart has more than 6,800 shopping plaza or membership stores in the Americas, Europe, Asia and other 14 countries.
It focuses on discount and low prices of various products, even with a branded product. Entering into a globalization era, Wal-Mart has used technology advances in order to improve its business efficiency such as the RFID to control and management the inventory. And the distribution center was the strategically placed so that it could provide the 150-200 Wal-Mart stores within a day.
Wal-Mart’s guarantee “everyday low prices”; this was the way to attract the customers to patronage the store. Traditional discount retailers relied on advertised “sale.” And they have the “people greeter,” provide customers good services and let customers feel decent.
In the Wal-Mart’s management, the Sam Walton implemented a process requiring store managers to fill out “Best Yesterday” ledgers. These relatively straightforward forms tracked daily sales performance against the numbers from one year period. He was offering profit sharing for employees’ loyalty and dedication. Wal-Mart also have several other policies and programs for their employees such as bonuses, to purchase the discount stock, promotion from within, pay raises based on performance not seniority, a ...