Walmart Case Study

Executive Summary

Wal-Mart is a massive retailer that originates its services in the U .S. it presents an immense selection of high-quality merchandises, friendly services, and attractive campaign like “Every Day Low Prices”. Sam Walton (1918-1992), the founder of Wal-Mart reveals that the company‘s basic strategy lies on its ability to provide products and services that customers want, they include a wide range of high-quality products , lowest price , convenience services , and a pleasant shopping experience . The company continues recording billions of earnings every year and has a significant proportion of the market.

Wal-Mart is already the largest corporation in the world, with more than two million employees. In order to further increase sales the company must either sell more products to existing customers or discover new ones. Wal-Mart's character affects both its ability to reach new shoppers and to build new stores.

In addition to positive value of Wal-Mart in the retail industry there is unfortunately some ethical issues that face the company. Sales are improving, but different measures of public opinion indicate that the company's reputation continues to decline; primarily because of the company's poor business practices. Wal-Mart's reputation remains the biggest obstacle to the company's long-term growth potential. Wal-Mart has done little to improve working conditions in its U.S. stores, refuses to raise wages and continues to provide a substandard health care plan for its employees.

Meanwhile, the Reputation Institute ranked the 150 largest U.S. companies based on "the overall trust, esteem, admiration and good feelings consumers have toward them." Wal-Mart, long known for damaging communities, sourcing from sweatshops and discriminating against female employees, came in at number 136 out of 150 companies, dropping 76 places from number 57 in 2007. Wal-Mart was joined in the bottom 15 by several oil companies and defense contractors, including Halliburton, high profile cases also continue to draw negative attention and damage the company's reputation (Reputation Institute Report, 2008).

Wal-Mart 2007

I. Current Situation:

Wal-Mart was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, and became incorporated on October 31, 1969, and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. Wal-Mart’s head quarter is located in Bentonville, Arkansas. Wal-Mart is also the largest grocery retailer in the United States. In 2009, it generated 51% of its US$258 billion sales in the U.S. from grocery business (Zimmerman, 2010). It also owns and operates the Sam's Club retail warehouses in North America. Wal-Mart has 8,500 stores in 15 countries, under 55 different names Wal-Mart’s. The company's foundation is built on selling a