Walmart is without a doubt the world’s biggest retails giants with its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. With its significant growth and expansion over the years, Walmart topped the list of Fortune’s Global 2000. It boasts large numbers of customers worldwide and more than 2 million employees in its outlets in various parts of the world. It is considered one of the biggest and most successful private employers in the United States (Hayden et al. 4). Founded in July 1962 by Walton, the company has undergone significant growth over the years. As of 2017, Walmart recorded $495 billion in revenues, which was a 2.1 percent growth from the previous year.
Regarding industry, Walmart is a household name in the wholesale and retail sector. Its operations in the retail industry are undertaken through three principal business segments including Walmart U.S., Sam’s Club, and Walmart International. Walmart U.S. segment focuses on digital retail operations and retail stores within the U.S. although it also offers financial services and related products and services such as wire transfers, bill payment, check cashing, prepaid cards, and money orders. Walmart International is further categorized into wholesale, retail and other formats of operations including hypermarkets, supermarkets, apparel stores, convenience stores, and others outside the U.S. Sam’s Club segment, on the other hand, offers specialty services, optical, pharmacy, auto buying, tire and battery centres, hearing aid centres, as well as business operations support services (Hayden et al. 5). One of the requirements for companies such as Walmart is that they should have ethical business practices. Walmart has not been left behind in this as it strives to offer low prices for its products and services always, helps needed members of society, helps customers to save money, and attend to over 100 million customers effectively every week.
Both the global and American retail industries are witnessing stiff competition given the ever-increasing number of competitors in the industry. In the American retail industry, there are other household names such as Target, Costco, Home Depot, and Macy. The industry has been facing financial problems in recent years with major retailers such as Macy’s struggling. For the fiscal year 2017, Macy’s recorded a decline of between 3.2 and 4.3 percent in sales. Amidst these struggles, Walmart seems to be winning given that it recently reported earnings per share of $1.00, revenues of $117.5 billion, around 1.4 percent growth in the same-store sales in the U.S., as well as 63 percent increase in digital sales. The fact that Walmart is winning can be attributed to the fact that the company has stayed true to its purpose and that it continues to execute and fulfill its purpose effectively (Hayden et al. 17). Walmart’s goal is to offer its products and services at the lowest prices, and this is what customers often expect whenever they walk into Walmart stores.
A primary marketing strategy for Walmart has always been to push huge volumes to customers at relatively low and affordable prices. In fact, this is one of the company’s core competencies. Its success in this is owed to the fact that it strives to maintain an efficient supply chain and the strategic placement of products in in-house stores. Also, Walmart focuses on location in its marketing strategy. The company often looks for the best possible sites for its new stores, and this helps it in the reduction of the cost of delivering products and services to customers (Hayden et al. 12). It should be noted that most of its stores are located close to communities, and thus, people easily access the stores to purchase products and services. Moreover, Walmart focuses on what is known as “retailtainment” and “shop-ability.” “Retailtainment” refers to the events in which customers may be engaged including game shows and contests. Most of these events play a crucial role in attracting customers to Walmart’s stores. The effectiveness of these marketing strategies is evident in the fact that Walmart continues to record increased sales and revenues. It also boasts a huge number of customers both in the United States and in other stores around the world beating close competitors such as Macy’s, Target, and Costco.
Another factor behind the success of Walmart is how it treats its employees. The company’s executives are known to focus on motivating employees as they believe that this causes increased productivity and performance in the long run. In a bid to motivate employees, the company provides numerous benefits to employees including networking services, providing them with discount cards, and providing continuous training as a refresher for different situations. Also, employees of the company have the freedom to select positions they are interested in and comfortable with. Depending on an employee’s schooling and work ethic, he or she could move up the ranks in the company at a faster pace as compared to those in other companies such as Target, Macy’s, and Costco (Hayden et al. 21). Additional benefits include the regular provision of lunch to employees, allowing employees to get involved in key events and decision-making processes, auditing individuals for improvement, as well as increasing the discount, especially during Christmas when the discount jumps to 25 percent from 15 percent.
As already mentioned, Walmart primarily deals with retail products that are directly sold to customers through their physical and online stores. In recent years, the company has been working to clean up its image regarding it’s the environmental impacts of its products. In fact, the initiatives put in place by the company have been welcomed by environmentalists around the world. One of the efforts of the company is to reduce energy consumption and carbon emission at its stores, distribution centers, as well as in its vehicles. In February 2010, the then CEO Mike Duke announced that the company had come up with the objective of eliminating 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gases from the company’s supply chain around the world. He equated this to removing over 3.8 million cars from the road in a year by the end of 2015. To achieve this objective, Walmart asked its over 100,000 suppliers to significantly reduce the amount or level of carbon emitted during the production, packaging, and shipment of products. In addition to this, the company resorted to eliminating large laundry detergent bottles since the shipment of these is water and energy-intensive while preferring to sell concentrates in smaller bottles. The initiative was later embraced by Walmart’s competitors who also currently sell concentrated laundry detergents as well. To reduce the levels of carbon emissions, Walmart convinced DVD, CD, and video game manufacturers to have lighter cases that would help in the reduction of transport carbon emissions (Hayden et al. 33). The company further spurred makers of light bulbs to refine their designs thereby ensuring energy efficiency.
Work Cited
Hayden, Patrick, et al. “Wal-Mart: staying on top of the fortune 500.” Corporate Strategy and Public Affairs Lecture, the Graduate School of Political Management, George Washington University, Washington DC (2002)., http://allman.rhon.itam.mx/~oromero/Wal_Mart_CaseStudy.pdf