Wal-Mart: The Main Street Merchant of Doom
Issue / Problem Identification
The central facts of the case are Sam Walton targeted small, undeserved rural towns with populations of fewer than ten thousand people to initially open Wal-Marts. He later expanded and opened them in large cities. Sam started the “Buy American” and the “Environmental Awareness” programs at Wal-Mart. He empowered Wal-Mart employees. Wal-Mart has had successes and failures in opening up stores across the US and the nation even though they continue with aggressive growth. One assumption would be that Wal-Mart’s success is at the expense of the small merchants. Although he received a lot of criticism he was still determined to be successful. A major issue is the conflicting perceptions of Wal-Mart. They are being displayed with negative and positive impacts on the community. There is a lot of conflicting data. You have some people that regard Wal-Mart as one of the leaders in the area of social responsibility and being good for America, while others feel as though Wal-Mart shouldn’t be allowed to be built in small towns and they view Wal-Mart as too powerful.
Analysis/Evaluation
The stakeholders are the employees, the community, the consumers, the owners and the Government. The employees are all the people that work for Wal-Mart. They encourage customer service and offer profit sharing, stock options and incentive bonuses. The community is the environment and the area that surrounds the Wal-Mart. The consumers are the people that shop at one of the many Wal-Mart stores. The owners are anyone that has a vested interest in profits and owns a share of Wal-Mart. The Government is all US, international and local municipalities that have dealings with them. By Wal-Mart being ...