Sam Walton founded Walmart and built it into the largest retailer in the world. He started his retail career at JC Penney and learned about merchandising. He then opened his own variety store in Arkansas. Walton believed in keeping prices low to increase sales volumes. He opened the first Walmart discount store in 1962. Through rapid expansion, Walmart became a publicly traded company. Walton emphasized excellent customer service and a partnership with employees. While highly successful, Walmart has also received criticism for its low wages and impact on local businesses.

1. SAM WALTON
Made in America:Sam Walton 1

2. Introduction
• Samuel Moore Walton (March 29,1918-April
6,1992)
• Founder of Wal-Mart
• Declared “richest man in America” in October
1985 by Forbes.
• Born in 1918 in Kingfisher, Oklahoma during the
Great Depression.

3. To Value a Dollar
• Sam always set extremely high personal
goals.
• Played football, baseball and basketball
and became youngest Eagle Scout in the
history of Missouri at that time.
• Graduated from University of Missouri in
1940 with a business degree.
• Since high school he paid for all his
expenses
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4. First Job
• Sam joined JC Penney, a retailing
company, as a management trainee.
• There watching store manager he got
excited about retailing.
• But due to war he had to resign the job
and move in 1942.
• He married Helen in 1943 while still on
commission.
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5. Starting on a Dime
• Sam learned much about money and
finances from Helen’s father.
• He purchased a store in Newport,
Arkansas, a Ben Franklin franchise.
• He learned a lot from running a store in
franchise program.
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6. Wal-Mart’s philosophy
• In his store, he would buy an item for 80
cents, priced it to sell at $1.00 and sell
three times more of it than by pricing it at
$1.20. The overall profit was much
greater. By cutting the price, it boosted
the sales to a point where it earned far
more at the cheaper retail price than it
would had by selling the item at the higher
price.
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7. Bouncing Back
• Due to lease contract,he has
to sell his store and move.
• It led him to bigger and better
things
• Sam moved with his family to
Bentonville, Arkansas to open
self-service Five & Dime store
which at that time was a new
concept.
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8. Bouncing Back
• He expanded very rapidly and opened
many variety stores.
• But, a new concept of discount store came
into existence and Sam immediately
sensed that discount idea was the future
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9. First Wal-Mart
• He built a store in Rogers, Arkansas.
• Nobody wanted to gamble on it so Sam
has to put up 95 percent.
• Sam always checked on competition and
always went around with his yellow pad to
note down any new idea.
• He always used to promote a items very
innovatively.
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10. Recruiting the team
• All along ,history of Wal-Mart has been
marked by having right people in right job
at right time.
• Whitaker- To get it started
• Ferold Arend- To get it organised
• Jack Shewmaker- To push new ideas
• David Glass- To keep cool in crisis and
get control
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11. Taking the Company Public
• Due to rapid expansion, Sam accrued a
huge debt.
• To get relief, he went public.
• Over the years, even though many has
written them off, Wal-Mart stock did very
well
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12. Building the Partnership
• Sam attributes Wal-Mart’s unbelievable
prosperity to the relationship managers
enjoy with its associates, employees in the
store.
• They have a profit sharing plan for all the
associates.
• Information is also shared with associates
to give them a sense of partnership.
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13. Making Customer Number One
• Sam always believed in secret of
successful retailing is to give customers
what they want.
• Strong customer demand in small towns
made it possible for Wal-Mart to get
started.
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14. Meeting the Competition
• Sam believes that one of the smartest
strategic decision was to meet competition
head on.
• He tributes Kmart and Target for
legitimizing discount stores and also
acknowledges that competition with them
made Wal-Mart a better company.
• Kmart attack on Wal-Mart best external
event in Wal-Mart’s history.
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15. • Sam always experimented with different
concepts like Hypermart, Discount drug
concept and Sam’s club.
• Sam’s club now is a $10 billion business
with huge growth potential.
• Sam’s club was result of competition from
Price club stores.
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16. Expanding the Circles
• Wal-Mart is known for its distribution and
transportation system.
• Sam always put up a good fight whenever
somebody wants to buy a new system.
• He tributes David Glass, Jack Shewmaker
and Ron Meyer for putting pressure on
him for new systems.
• They were the first to use satellite in
retailing
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17. • “So you see, technology and distribution
are every bit important to Wal-Mart’s
ability to grow and maintain control. But,
don’t let anybody kid you. Without the right
managers, and dedicated associates and
truck drivers all across the system, all that
stuff is totally worthless.”
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18. • Think one store at a time
• Communicate, Communicate,
Communicate
• Keep your ear to the ground
• Push responsibility and authority down
• Force ideas to bubble up
• Stay lean, fight Bureaucracy
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19. Running a successful company
1. Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody
else.
2. Share your profits with all your associates and treat them
as partners.
3. Motivate your partners. Money and ownership alone are
not enough
4. Communicate everything you possible can to your
partners.
5. Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.
6. Celebrate your successes.
7. Listen to everyone in your company.
8. Exceed your customers’ expectations.
9. Control your expenses better than your competition.
10.Swim upstream.
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20. Giving something back
• He discusses how he gave something
back to the community in terms of
scholarships etc.
• Another issue he discusses is Wal-Mart
being the huge importer of overseas
merchandise.
• He says in too many cases importing is
really their only option as American goods
are simply not competitive.
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21. • He accepts that Wal-Mart had fallen into a
pattern of knee-jerk import buying without
looking at alternatives.
• Today, Wal-Mart instructs their suppliers
to look for alternatives in America itself.
• He criticizes the Unions for not believing in
free market and new solutions and being
interested in only Union jobs.
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22. Wanting to Leave a Legacy
• Sam believes in global economy, successful
business is going to do just Wal-Mart is always
trying to do: give more responsibility for making
decisions to the people who are actually on firing
line.
• He would like to see American industry
challenge Japanese industry like auto industry.
• Thinks American management has bent too far
towards taking care of itself first.
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23. CRITICISM
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24. Criticism of his business policies
• Walton ''was to the faith of consumerism what the
Mahatma Gandhi was to nonviolence” – Bob Ortega
• Despite Wal-Mart's claims of ''Made in America''
program, much of Wal-Mart's merchandise was and is
made overseas.
• ''The history of the company,'' he writes, ''provides ample
evidence that Wal-Mart, like any corporation, is merely a
machine, an amoral construct with one imperative: the
profit motive. That pursuing that motive to the utmost
may have a corrosive effect on communities or
individuals -- including people within the corporation --
never enters into the equation.''
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25. Criticism of his business policies
• Unfortunately, what America demands is not fairness or
decency, but cheap goods and lots of them. It's called
capitalism.
• A stingy low-wage employer with an arrogant disregard
for local and national laws . – The Nation
• What do you get when you cross gutted labor laws with a corporate
culture of impunity? Why, Wal-Mart, of course!
• Who pays for Wal-Mart's cheap products from China: the
workers who make them.
• Managers are trained to call a special hotline at the first
sign of suspicious behavior, including “employees talking
in hushed tones to each other.”
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26. Criticism of his business policies
• “From the Chairperson of the ‘Board’ down
to the front-line manager … the entire
management staff should fully
comprehend and appreciate exactly what
is expected of their individual efforts to
meet the union free objective.”
• Open Doors, Closed Minds
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27. Criticism of Made in America
• Sam Walton says, he didn't believe in
giving "any undeserving stranger a free
ride."
• "We feel very strongly," he wrote, "that
Wal-Mart really is not, and should not be,
in the charity business."
• He did not believe in being generous with
company profits.
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28. Criticism of Made In America
• Money that Wal-Mart donated to charity,
he reasoned, would only come out of the
pockets of "either our shareholders or our
customers." (He didn't mention workers,
perhaps a tacit acknowledgment that
picking their pockets was just business as
usual.)
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29. WALMART AT PRESENT
Mike Duke (President & CEO)
S. Robson Walton (Chairman)
• The company is the worlds third largest
public corporation
• Biggest private employer in the world with
over two million employees
• Largest retailer in the world
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30. “Walmart remains a family-owned business,
as the company is controlled by
the Walton family who own a 48% stake in
Walmart”
”Its operations in the United Kingdom,
South America and China are highly
successful, whereas ventures in Germany
and South Korea were unsuccessful”
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31. Other Names
Walmart has 8,500 stores in 15 countries,
under 55 different names
US – Walmart
Mexico – Walmex
UK – Asda
India – Best Price
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32. Types of Walmart Stores
• Walmart Discount Stores
51,000 square feet to 224,000 square feet
• Walmart Supercenter
98,000 to 261,000 square feet
• Walmart Neighbourhood Market
average about 42,000 square feet
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33. • Supermercado de Walmart
Walmart opened "Supermercado de
Walmart" locations to appeal to Hispanic
communities in the United States
• Marketside
chain of four grocery stores, all in the state
of Arizona
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34. • Walmart Express
smaller discount store, with a range of
services, from simple grocery shopping, to
check cashing, and even gasoline service
• Sam's Club
chain of warehouse clubs which
sell groceries and general merchandise,
often in large quantities.
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35. Statistics
Employees – 2.2 Million
-----------------------------------------------------------
Revenue - US$ 446.950 billion
Operating Income - US$ 26.558 billion
Net Income - US$ 15.699 billion
Total Assets - US$ 193.406 billion
Total Equity - US$ 71.315 billion
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36. Walmart International
“Walmart's international operations currently
comprise 4,263 stores and 660,000
workers in 15 countries outside the United
States. There are wholly owned
operations in Argentina, Brazil, Canada,
and the UK.”
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37. Competition
• North America - Kmart, Target, ShopKo
and Meijer
• Canada - Zellers, Hart the Real Canadian
Superstore and Giant Tiger
• Mexico –Commercial Mexicana, Soriana
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38. THANK YOU!!!
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