Walmart Case Study

In 1945, Sam Walton opened his first variety store and in 1962, he opened his first Wal-Mart Discount City in Rogers, Arkansas. Now, Wal-Mart is expected to exceed “$200 billion a year in sales by 2002 (with current figures of) more than 100 million shoppers a week…(and as of 1999) it became the first (private-sector) company in the world to have more than one million employees.” Why? One reason is that Wal-Mart has continued “to lead the way in adopting cutting-edge technology to track how people shop, and to buy and deliver goods more efficiently and cheaply than any other rival.” Many examples exist throughout Wal-Mart’s history including its use of networks, satellite communication, UPC/barcode adoption and more. Much of the technology that was utilized helped Sam Walton more efficiently track what he originally noted on yellow legal pads. From the very beginning, he wanted to know what the customers purchased, what inventory was selling and what stock was not selling. Wal-Mart now “tracks on an almost instantaneous basis the ordering, shipment, and delivery of literally every item it sells, and that it requires its suppliers to hook into the system, enabling it to track most goods every step of the way from the time they’re made and packaged in the factories to when they’re carried out store doors by shoppers.” “Wal-Mart operates the world’s most powerful corporate computing system, with a capacity (as of late 1999) of more than 100 terabytes of data (A terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes, or roughly the equivalent of 250 million pages of text.). Only the U.S. government maintains a bigger database.” Sam Walton was eventually considered “the most influential retailer of the century, and with good reason, for nearly every great retailer of the coming years would follow his business examples.” Industrial Revolution: When the Industrial Revolution took place in the United States, factories were now able to out produce consumer demand. For the first time, these new goods needed new ways to be sold, new ways to get to the public. “In New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, the first department stores opened their doors. Railroads and telegraph wires snaked across the country, giving storekeepers a new way to order goods and get them on the shelves faster than ever before. A whole new industry sprang up to persuade people through advertisements with enticing pictures and clever slogans, to buy things they’d never known they needed, to turn America, in the phrase department store pioneer John Wanamaker, into the Land of Desire.” At the same time, large corporations became another “dominant form of business”, such as with U.S. Steel, Swift, R.J. Reynolds, and Procter & Gamble. Department stores such as Woolworth, Penney, Sears, A&P, and Kroger became known in the retail environment. Early Discount Approach: “The first small discount stores” started in the 1930s, developed in the years after WWII and really began to take off in the 1960s as “giant discount chains”.

A Brief history of Sam Walton the founder of Wal-Mart

Sam Walton wanted to build a company that both cared for people and would make some money. With his timely thinking he and his partners built a company that has not slowed down. While staying one step ahead of the ever-changing technology and methods of today’s fast paced business environment, Wal-Mart executives still rely on many of the traditional goals and philosophies that Sam embroiled on his company. The company has faced and is still facing a significant amount of controversy; however these have not contributed to any kind of downfall within the company. The future of Wal-Mart looks extremely profitable especially if they continue to increase its profits and rely on the beliefs that got them to the point they are at. In 1962, Sam Walton opened the first Wal-Mart store in Rogers, Arkansas. Wal-Mart was at one time included in Fortune’s list of the “10 most admired corporations.” The Wal-Mart Philosophy-Wal-Mart is successful not only because it makes sound strategic management decisions, but also for its innovative implementation of those strategic decisions. Many trace discount entrepreneur birth to1962, the first year of operation for Kmart, Target and Wal-Mart. But by that time, Sam Walton's tiny chain of variety stores in Arkansas and Kansas was already facing competition from regional discount chains. Sam traveled the country to study this radical, new retailing concept and was convinced it was the wave of the future. He and his wife, Helen, put up 95 percent of the money for the first Wal-Mart store in Rogers, Arkansas, borrowing heavily on Sam's vision that the American consumer was shifting to a different type of general store.

Wal-Mart is a national discount retailer offering a wide variety of general merchandise to customers. Wal-Mart stores offer pleasant and convenient