The Harvard Case Studies Course Pack Wal-Mart in 2005

1. Identify the primary issues facing Wal-Mart. Should the retailer have been able to anticipate the issues it now faced?

From the beginning of its opening, I believe, Wal-Mart faced a lot of issues as many new businesses can. Yet, as it comes from the Harvard Case Studies Course Pack Wal-Mart in 2005 in 2005 Wal-Mart had a lot of issues. The primary that was reported in the media that was a huge number of stakeholder problems. One of the issues was that media always portrayed Sam Walton, founder of the company, as a cheap man. That could probably create a false image of the company in the eyes of the public. Contrary to that, Walton remained favorite with media in being a simple person when he lost his bet to one of his executives. Also, Wal-Mart struggled with bad public relations concerning bad work environment in overseas factories, union issues, and low wages for employees. Moreover, that is not all. Wal-Mart being accused of sending job overseas at the same time opening a new store in some neighborhood followed with going out of business some local businesses (Freeman R. E. & Mead J., 2006, p.2, 15-27).

As the largest company in the USA, Wal-Mart has a lot of issues that most of the society knows about it. Not a secret from the public that by providing discounted products for customers Wal-Mart has low wages and not affordable health insurance for its employees. I believe that this is now a problem in this country that people do not realize that going for cheap goods can create more problems, like more low-income people with low wage job, but with discounted stores.

2. Sam Walton had three founding principles and beliefs, which he articulated in 1962 as the Wal-Mart credo:

a. Respect for the individual

b. Service to our customers

c. Strive for excellence

How do these principles and beliefs resonate in the 21st-century world and for the Wal-Mart that existed in 2005?

I believe that from the beginning all principles were obeyed. Yet, after the death of Walton things changed. Moreover, today a lot of companies too are more concentrated on profit, saving money, cutting costs. Management forgets to take care of its own employees. Employees more become just like disposable and easy replaceable force. Definitely, in the job market, anyone tries to compete for a better place under the sun. Especially today, when there is such high number of the companies that are laying off employees or company getting smaller. I think that company can be presented as an apple if it starts get rotten from inside then nothing can save it.

10 rules for Building a Business that Walton outlined in his biography are the great tools that will be useful for any company to keep successful and trustworthy business