Walmart Inc Is an American Family-Owned Business Founded

1. INTRODUCTION

Walmart Inc is an American family-owned business founded by Sam Walton in 1962. It became a publicly traded company on October 31, 1969. (Corporate.walmart.com, 2018) It is an international retail company which possesses a multitude of discount department stores and grocery stores. Walmart owns and operates several other retail chains including Sam's Club retail warehouses. Walmart is known nationally in the United States and Internationally around the world with 11,277 stores in 27 countries which operate under 55 different names of 2018. (Corporate.walmart.com, 2018)

Walmart is the world's largest company when it comes to revenue with over US$500 billion and, the biggest private employer worldwide with 2.3 million employees (dollars), 2018) . It operates in Mexico and Central America, in the United States and Canada, in Japan, in the United Kingdom, and is known as Best Price in India. Walmart is also a parent company to companies in Argentina, Canada, Chile, and South Africa. As of August 2018, in Brazil, Walmart retains 20% of the company's shares while the private investment firm Advent International holding 80% ownership of the company. (Corporate.walmart.com, 2018)

Walmart offers buyers a one-stop shopping experience from apparels, electronics, home furnishing, and toys while shopping for fresh produce. Although Walmart is leading worldwide, a few of its top competitors are Costco Wholesale Corporation, Alibaba Group Holding Limited, Amazon.com, Inc, Tesco, Target Corporation.(Bhasin, 2018).

Source: Deloitte Indian Retail Market - Opening More Doors (January 2013)

1.1 MISSION

Walmart Inc.’s mission is “to save people money so they can live better.” This philosophy is parallel to their strategic positioning slogan “Save money. Live Better” which validates that Walmart business approach is to use pricing to entice their target customers by minimizing selling prices to achieve competitiveness. (Corporate.walmart.com, 2018)

1.2 VISION

Walmart Inc.’s vision statement before 2017 was “To be the best retailer in the hearts and minds of consumers and employees.” At the time, its vision was to be the leader in the retail industry. With a fast-growing industry where the competition is using tactical methods to undercut each other, Walmart had to adjust its vision in order to adapt to the retail industry. (Corporate.walmart.com, 2018)

Nowadays, Walmart Inc.’s vision is to “Be THE destination for customers to save money, no matter how they want to shop.” (Corporate.walmart.com, 2018). This new statement goes in accordance and have the same objective as the previous statement but, highly the business versatility to accommodate its customers. Its customer’s way of shopping is a top priority for Walmart because it is focusing on convenience. The aim is to attain leadership instore and in online transactions. The modification in the company’s vision demonstrates Walmart's adaptation to change in a very competitive market of the retail industry.

Although Walmart’ mission and vision are very appealing and has been a success thus far, Walmart should highlight more the quality of its product to remove the negative impression that people associate with the low-price low-quality stigma that consumers may have.

2. WALMART CORE VALUES

Walmart

Product Strategy • Lower price across the border for all product line

• Product core competency

Service strategy • Service to the Customer

• Respect for all individuals

• Excellence/ Integrity

• Innovate

Segmentation Upper middle class, lower middle class, middle class

Positioning Consistent positioning with their “always low prices” concept

Walmart offers a diversity of products at low cost and even price matches to compete in the industry. This strategy helps the company grow its market share by attracting customers to purchase low price products. Walmart purchase products in bulk and reselling them at market price. The company continues to improve customer service and shopping experience by creating an online App facilitating in-store purchases. Walmart also created a curbside assistant program that allows customers to shop online before coming to the store and having their groceries delivered to their car (Walmart.com, 2018). This year, Walmart sales were reported to be 33% higher than the previous year. The goal is to focus on simplicity and customer’s convenience while shopping by delivering excellence services on all platforms. (Hirschand Rogers, 2018).

3. WALMART VS THE COMPETITION

Walmart Amazon Tesco Carrefour

Locations 11.200 75 7.000 12,300

Revenue (USD) Billions 495.76 56.58 56.44 177.8

Countries 27 16 13 30

Employees 2.3M 613.300 315.000 384.151

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/183399/walmarts-net-sales-worldwide-since-2006/

Source: https://www.slideshare.net/anshul408/walmart-competing-in-the-global-market

In 2017, Walmart’s revenue was US$500.343 billion. Its revenue in 2017 was more than the combined revenues its competitor (Facts, 2018). Walmart topped the Forbes as the 24th largest public company in the world in 2018 (Forbes.com, 2018). Although Walmart has over 2.3 million employees, the company is known to keep operational cost down by paying low wages to its employees.(Walmart.com, 2018). This strategy has had a negative and controversial impact forcing Walmart to increase its employees minimum wage due to the tight labor market. Walmart is currently competing with Amazon’s minimum wage in order to attract quality employees for the success of the business.

According to Business Insider, Walmart is making an intense effort to change its reputation by implementing a new strategy which is to find people who dislike the company the most, figuring out why. Walmart will analyze their feedback to see if there are some validations in what they are saying and implement them.(Business Insider, 2018).

4. MARKET