INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS (WAL-MART STORES, INC.)
Wal-mart Stores, Inc., (since 2008 commonly known as Wal-Mart), ranks eighteenth among public corporations in the world and the largest if revenue-based. It is a multinational public corporation based in the United States. It is comprised of large chains of discount warehouse and department stores. It is also the United States biggest grocery retailer that produced more than half of the more than two hundred fifty billion dollar sales in 2009 from its business dealing with grocery products.
In 1962, Sam Walton established the company and by 1972, it was traded in the New York Stock Exchange publicly. Within five years of its launching, the company grew to twenty-four stores in the state of Arkansas registering more than twelve million dollar in revenue. The first stores launched outside Arkansas were in Oklahoma and Missouri in 1968.
It grew rapidly and in its twenty-fifty year, the satellite network of the company was completed and launched. It enabled all the company’s operational divisions to be linked to its headquarters in Bertonville through a video communication and a data and voice transmission. It also enabled the headquarter office to immediately communicate to its spread out units and to track its sales record as well as its inventory record.
Wal-Mart Supercenter was launched in 1988 in Missouri. When it opened, its toy sales surpassed Toys “R” Us. It also started its international expansion. South American expansion started in 1995 in Brazil and Argentina. By 1999, it entered Europe by buying for ten billion dollars the company Asda of the United Kingdom.
Wal-Mart established in 1998 the “Neighborhood Market” theme in Arkansas. A Neighborhood Market concept is a chain of small grocery stores that intends to capture target market by providing parking spaces, bigger store aisles and a speedier checkout counter along with a diverse selection of grocery products. An estimated twenty percent of retail consumable business was said to be controlled by Wal-Mart when the year 2005 rolled in.
By the year 2002, Wal-Mart was recorded by Fortune 500 as the United States’ biggest corporation with 6.7 billion dollar profits from a 219.8 billion dollar revenue. It occupied the position except for the year 2006. In 2005, Wal-Mart registered sales of 312.4 billion dollars with less than four thousand stores in the American shores and less than three thousand stores in its international market with more than 1.6 million employees worldwide.
According to Lee Scott, Walmart’s CEO, [i]to be a “good steward for the environment” is one of the primary goal of Wal-Mart. They made known to the public in 2005 that they would put into practice measures to promote energy efficiency. Their primary aim was to enhance their fleet of truck’s fuel efficiency by twenty-five percent in a three-year period, and fifty percent upon reaching its tenth year. They also aim to decrease by twenty percent in seven years emissions of greenhouse gas, and reduce solid wastes and used energy in their stores by thirty percent.
They plan to utilize energy from sources that are renewable and to create zero waste. In their experimental stores in Nevada, Colorado, and Texas, the designs of the stores were such that they were able to use photovoltaic solar panels (utilizes semiconductors to transfer solar radiation to produce direct current electricity), water-cooled refrigerators, wind turbines, biofuel-capable boilers, and xeriscape gardens (minimizes or removes the need for water).
Aside from the above environmental measures, Wal-Mart was also lauded with being the largest purchaser of organic cotton and largest retailer of organic milk worldwide. They were also given recognition through their efforts to trim down packaging and diminish costs of energy.
They recently formed Texas Retail Energy, Walmart’s electric company, to enable them to provide cheap power to their various stores. They might even sell their electricity power to consumers. A fifteen million dollar annual savings is expected to be generated by the creation of Walmart’s own electric company.
Starting 2006, they started targeting the more affluent market. They launched their Supercenter store to attract the class A and B consumers. The store has wider aisles, deli shops with free Wi-Fi access, floors are constructed of wood, and their products are of the more expensive brands.
Today, it operates in fifteen countries under different names. It has more than eight thousand stores worldwide. For example, it is known as Seiyu in Japan; in Mexico, Walmex; in the United Kingdom, Asda; and in India, Best Price.
[i] En.wikipedia.org
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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