Part 2

Running head: WAL-MART STORES, INC 1

WAL-MART STORES, INC 7

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc

1ST ASSIGNMENT

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Wal-Mart is an American worldwide company that deals with various stores, hypermarkets, discount stores, and grocery stores in the United States. Notably, the first Wal-Mart was opened in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas, by Sam Walton. In 1967, Wal-Mart had up to 24 stores, and in 1969, the company's name consolidated as Wal-Mart, Inc and later on changed to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc in 1970, which is its current name up to date (A short history of Walmart, the world's largest retailer, 2018).Remarkably, Wal-mart was inspired by the founder's have better lifestyles. Sam Walton's rule of leadership through service is the reason behind Wak-mart success story. Notably, for any organization to prosper and achieve its goal in the long run, there has to be a well-detailed organizational structure that will act as a watchdog and guide the organization's operations to work towards achieving its goals and a successful supply chain integration. This paper will analyze the organizational structure of Wal-mart and the strategies fo Wal-mart successful supply chain integration.

Wal-mart organizational structure determines the operations of the company activities. In this manner, the company’s corporate structure imposes rules on how the people should operate in the business. Most importantly, Wal-Mart’s organizational structure works handily with the organizational culture to stay competitive against other companies like Amazon. It is important to note that Walmart became a worldwide retailer shop in 1990 when it opened several other stores in California and other countries hence the need for a strong organizational structure. Its organizational structure adopted the hierarchical functional organization structure with entails two sections that include hierarchy and function-based definition (Lombardo, 2019). Hierarchy structure contains a chain of command in that every employee has a direct supervisor that they have to report to. Similarly, decisions and instructions come from the top management level like the managers and directors.

On the other hand, the function-based definition element entails the company’s corporate structure whereby employees are given the mandate to act as leaders in various departments. For instance, three important departments facilitate the company's functions, and they include Human Resource Management, Information Communication Technology, and the Marketing department. What makes Wal-mart's organizational structure stand out is the managers' ability to corporate and work together as a team. For instance, Walmart has several stores globally but whenever there are new policies and strategies, the chain of commands in various regions cooperate and en sure that the information is well passed to every person responsible.

Wal- mart organizational culture is also another essential aspect that makes the company unique and competitive. Notably, the employees are guided by four essential functions that add value and increase profit. These functions include services to customers, respect, excellence, and integrity. Without doubt, Customers are the main reason an organization exists, which is an element that Wal-Mart priorities by promoting integrity through honesty, fairness, and quality of services. Consequently, the company's motto, introduced in 1994 as "Always Low Prices Always’’ shows how the company's founder was interested in service leadership and ensuring that the people get services at low prices (Sivakumar, 2020). Another remarkable aspect of Walmart culture is the ability to appreciate employee’s performances which boost productivity and helps employees serve the customers better.

The supply chain integration is an important aspect in any organization as it increases flexibility hence meeting customer’s demands. Supply chain integration entails corporation of all protocols, individuals, resources and technology needed for the creation of a product. Notably, it ensures that there is adequate communication in all stakeholders for effective planning, execution, and proper logistics during the lifetime of a product. Wal-mart supply chain integration is used as a competitive advantage to the company from a local retailer in Arkansas to a global retailer .It was marked as the largest retailer in the fiscal year 2016 with $482, 130 million revenues. Additionally, it was also ranked as number one in the Global fortune 500 List and as per now, the company has over 10,000 retail outlet in more than 27 countries (Nguyen ,2017).Without doubt, Wal-mart supply chain management is cost-effective and highly competitive. Most importantly, the information technology of Wal-mart sees to it that it provides necessary information for a speed and cost-effective supply chain management.

Without a doubt, the decision-making system that depended on data analysis, data collection method, and a point of sale system are the factors that made Walmart a leading retailer worldwide. Undoubtedly, it is a leading business retailer and a technology-savvy whereby the company applies the use of technology to boost its supply chain. The company's supply chain strategies were the reason why other companies like Amazon might not beat it. For instance, its competitive strategy that initiated low-budget plans on their high-quality products was one success Story for managing the supply chain (Nguyen ,2017).Seemingly, Everyday Low Prices( EDLP)was a technique that paved the way for consumers to purchase products on a relatively low piece, unlike what other retailers were doing, which in return boosted the supply chain. Some of Wal-mart's strategies in the ( EDLP) initiative included cutting costs of distribution centers by ensuring that there was real-time information on every store, hence pushing products automatically.

Another strategy was that the Wall-mart information department ensured that every department and producer are aware of any necessary information hence reducing unnecessary costs. Most importantly, each employee, manager, and all other management chains in the organization are thoroughly informed on information based on the products. Without a doubt, to manage the supply chain, a company must focus on procurement, distribution, logistics, and inventory management. In this case, Warl-mart initiated a negotiation with its manufacturers to learn their costs and estimate their purchasing power, hence boosting the procurement and distribution sectors (Nguyen ,2017.In simple terms, they avoided intermediaries and instead went direct to the manufacturers and procure the items they needed. Wal-Mart's logistics infrastructure is on a higher level since it has a powerful transport system that entails 3,500 tracks used to distribute its products (Nguyen, 2017). Additionally, the cross-docking system that allows efficiency in distribution helps the company reduce inventory and operating costs. On the other side, Walmart's inventory management depends highly on information technology to reach customer's satisfaction, hence boosting the supply chain. For instance, Walmart has a system that can track customer demands by storing products that are highly needed by the customers, thus reducing inventory costs.

Walmart, whose motto is Everyday Low Prices, is a multinational retailer which opened in 1962 by Sam Walton. The retailer shop is influenced by the founder's visionary leadership on service in customer’s satisfaction by lowering price in order to better lives. Remarkably, its organizational structure in collaboration with its cultural structure has enabled the company to be the most prominent leading retailer globally. On the other hand, its supply chain integration is unique, making the company stay top in the competitive market. As much as all companies depend on supply chain management, Wal-mart strategies in managing its supply chain are on a higher level. Notably, the company works hard to ensure that procurement and distribution, logistics, and inventory are well managed to reduce costs, hence increasing profit.

References

A short history of Walmart, the world's largest retailer. (May 10th, 2018). CBNBCTV18. Retrieved from: https://www.cnbctv18.com/retail/a-short-history-of-walmart-the-worlds-largest-retailer-56871.htm/

Lombardo, j. ( February 15th, 2019). Walmart: Organizational Structure & Organizational Culture.Panmore Institute. Retrieved from: http://panmore.com/walmart-organizational-structure-organizational-culture/

Nguyen, T. T. H. (2017). Wal-Mart’s successfully integrated supply chain and the necessity of establishing the Triple-A supply chain in the 21st century. Journal of Economics & Management, 29, 102-117.

Sivakumar,B. ( July 26th, 2020). The History of Wal-Mart. FeedDough.Retrieved from: https://www.feedough.com/the-history-of-walmart/