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Wal-Mart has been one of the organizations in the forefront of initiating partnerships with the community in its operations (Fishman, 2012). As a result, the organization has initiated programs to reinforce the commitments of stimulating economic development, expanding access to the affordable groceries and creating quality jobs within the city. It is among the biggest corporations not only in America but across the globe with more than 1 million employees and with revenue that exceeds $250 billion (Berg & Roberts, 2012). It is a corporation experiencing a steady growth which has been attributed to the innovative and the revolutionary business strategies emphasizing complicated chain management and cutting on the overall operational costs. It has adopted business models that have transformed patterns used in the retail and wholesale trade. This is in addition to the adoption of the latest logistics strategies involving the transportation and the distribution of the commodities (Brunn, 2014). Wal-Mart has been offering a wide variety of products at relatively lower prices than most of its competitors. Moreover, the company adopts most of the intelligent people as its employees, and this makes it generate a considerable amount of sales as well as property tax for the locally residing communities (Berg & Roberts, 2012).

Wal-Mart historical background

Wal-Mart evolved from the Walton’s zeal for value and great customer service and opened Wal-Mart in Rogers, Arkansas in 9162 (Ferguson, 2015). Many of the competitors thought offering great discount for customers would never work. Much to the surprise among the competitors the idea even went beyond Sam’s expectations. Wal-Mart became public in 1970 and proceedings greatly financed the business expansion (Wal-Mart, 2015) .Sam credited the expansion of the business not only in the low prices offered but also to the business associates. This is because, he depended on them to give a great experience to the customers that would continuously enable them to always come back. Sam made his vision become known among his associates in ways which were almost unheard within the industry. He partnered with the associates to enhance the success of the organization.as the stores began to grow, so did his aspirations (Wal-Mart, 2015). He began experimenting with new stores, bringing new approaches and best retail technologies. His fearlessness in setting the prices below the market standard created more value in the customers which has enabled it to be one of the largest retail chains in the world. After receiving a Medal of Freedom, he died in 1992 although his left a continuous legacy (Vance, Scott, & Perkins, 2014).

Research methodology

The research involved a review of the corporation’s website and the database of the online journals which would have prior research reports concerning the operation of the corporation. In addition, the research also involved an analysis of the various organizations within the same industries to compare the operational strategies which have placed the organization in the global leadership. A review of the surrounding communities was also done to get some responses on the benefits and partnerships of the corporations. Due to the aspect of distance and costs, most of the interviews were done via internet or phone calls. The project concentrated on the qualitative research methodology.This is because; qualitative research is best used to uncover opinions and thoughts and hence enabling to dive deeper into the research problems. In addition, qualitative research extends to the ultimate beliefs of the interactive archetype and employs symbolic discourse consisting of conversations and texts and hence helping to get the best opinions for the research.

Results and discussions

Partnerships

The organization has partnered with the community and other charitable organizations whose profound performances have changed the lives of the community. In November 2010, Wal-Mart made an announcement to offer greater job options, shopping experience, and food choices to the residents of Washington DC in an effort of expanding the opportunities and access to the underserved residents in the city (Vedder & Cox, 2012).This was an initiative of increasing community partnerships between the organization and the community. The program was launched after listening to the community to understand better the unique challenges. While Wal-Mart leverages the scale and size for the purpose of influencing positive changes in a variety of ways, risks can never be solved by the company alone. Therefore, partnerships become a crucial aspect in a way of addressing some common issues which may finally be of great benefit to both the organization and the community at large (Vedder & Cox, 2012).Wall-mart is an alliance of a group of retailers and brands which seek to offer safe working conditions and improving the cooperation and condition of the surrounding communities.

The Wal-Mart Foundation has been supporting healthy eating, under relief, career opportunity, environmental sustainability as well as economic empowerment of the women (Fishman, 2012). This is in accordance with the belief of making a difference through cases that are crucial to the both the customers and neighborhood. The organization has been strengthening the system of the workforce by helping workers develop skills for new jobs for the rapidly changing economy. For example, in 2014, Wal-Mart Foundation committed more than $100 million in a way of helping to boost the economic mobility of workers entry in the adjacent sectors of the retail industry. Through the initiative, the organization funded programs aimed to provide training in the retail industry for more than 30,000 workers and helped most of them to move to middle skills jobs from entry levels (Loveless, 2011). This made the organization earn a very strong repute for the efforts.

Humanitarian considerations

It has also upheld the ethical standards in the community to make sure that everyone has been incorporated in the operations (Fishman, 2013). For example, Wal-Mart takes a direct and strong stance on many issues related to its sales .This has been portrayed in most of the items that they sell whereby they refuse to sell items such as games and music with explicit content, adult magazines and morning after pills. This shows a great sense of ethics in its operations due to the fact that they forgo some of the most profitable things so that they can enforce values that they believe are acceptable within the society

Cross cultural challenges

The culture of wall mart organization has been a great hindrance to its expansions .Considering the fact that the organization operates cross-culturally in different countries; some of the practices have become a challenge within some countries. For instance, in Germany, the expatriate managers underwent some cultural clashes when they refused to learn the language. In South Korea, the operation culture involved centers and departments far from city centers and most of the Koreans disliked its merchandise as well as the prices and this led to an immediate closure.

Demonstrate how the organization uses volunteers and the economic benefits associated with this

Many volunteers have come up to support Wal-Mart achieve its charitable visions in the community .Of great significance is the Office of the United Nations which have sent most volunteers in some of the projects in an effort of building the resilience of the community worldwide. Based on the statistics, the foundation has provided more than $40 million in the past ten years to various countries and regions which been overburdened by disasters. Wall mart foundation has been working with local facilities and associates to deliver some of the benefits to the community (Loveless, 2011). The other volunteers in most of the Wal-Mart’s community operations are the Volunteerism Always Pays .Other associates include Facility Giving and Associate Giving Program. According to the foundation’s spokesperson, David Tovar, the foundation has not only been helping the community but have also been benefiting from such activities.Such activities have set it apart from various competitions and have also found new ways of communicating with the customers.Other forms of partnerships which have been undertaken by the organization includes donations grants, volunteering, sponsorships, expert advice and mentoring.The organization has gained some points for its community partnership and social responsibility. Partnerships have worked to foster a viable and a healthy society which lead to the reinvigoration of the local support for the communities (Litfin, 2011).

Roadblocks

One of the main roadblocks facing the organization is the trend of shopping habit. In 1990s the organization built a lot of super-centres. However, due to the process of digitalization many of the shoppers are using the physical stores as pick up points. This is making the organization to incur extra costs of building separate pick up points .The other roadblock is the upcoming competition from different stores. This is because; since the economic recovery, there are upcoming retailers such as TJ Maxx, who are offering lower prices and this means that Wal-Mart should continue lowering the prices which raises a threat of decreased profits in future. Moreover, the company is facing pressures of raising the wages of the workers which would also comprise the profits of the company if they admit to the demands of the workers.

Organization’s vision for the future

In June 2014, Doug McMillan, Wal-Mart’s CEO affirmed the future vision of the company and outlined different ways in which the company would use to serve its customers. The first one was to be customer driven by making the customers as the bosses of the company and making the best decisions based on how to serve them to the best. The second one is to invest in the people. This is because, based on the CEO, it is the associates and the people who would make the difference of the organization. The third one is to lead with urgency by investing in the technology and innovation.

Areas for improvement

The executives of the organization should re-evaluate the layout of the stores for easy navigation, from temperature and lighting of the stores (Watrous, 2015). Moreover, instead of adding separate pick up points for online shoppers, the company would consider redesigning the supercentres to fit both the physical shoppers and the online shoppers to save on costs. Moreover, the organization should leverage the adjacencies of the operations such as financial services, care clinics and gas, to drive high a high traffic to the stores (Harris, 2014). Furthermore, the organization should improve the assortment across the merchandise, private label, grocery and fresh food.

Potential ways that I might contribute to the organization

Based on my skills, I would use the customer decision tree to help the company to understand its customers and analyse its market. This would reveal the role that would be played by the private labels, which services are substitutable and which products gain the loyalty of the customers. To reduce the problem of piled up and expired inventories I would use the strategy of lowering the prices of the products which are near the expiry dates to increase the chances of their sales. This would reduce some losses incurred when some of the expired products are disposed off.

Conclusions

Wal-Mart is a worldwide corporation in the retail industry which has been showing a significant growth in its operations. Its operations are based on values and ethics which make most of the stakeholders to have interests in its services. This research is aimed at exploring the corporation to find its ways of operation and how such operations have impacted the community as well as the society. It will employ qualitative research methodology to draw the various conclusions.

It is crucial for organizations to give something back, reconnect and reinvest in the communities through partnerships. Wal-Mart is one of the organizations which have given back to the society.The partnership program has been a two-way phenomenon in that as it benefits the society, it also enjoys some positive effects.Some of the partnership initiatives include sponsorships, training the society in the retail industry , donation, grants and many more.

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