Sam Walton Made in America
Sam Walton Made in AmericaThis report is going to focus on Sam Walton and his world “ Wal-Mart.” Mr. Walton was a man who never dwell on his disappointments. He always had an idea of what he wanted and followed through with it. I will show you his drive in my report, and the procedure he used to become number one in the business.
General Strategy and Values
Mr. Walton had many secrets to creating a retailing empire. One of these secrets was what he called the “ secret of successful retailing.” The secret of successful retailing is to give your customer what they want. Once this has been accomplished the customer will more than likely come back. This is how you create a successful relationship. One very important ingredient of Wal-Mart success was the treatment of his people working inside his stores. If you make sure you the company is taking care of the people working in the stores. Then the effect will be that your people will take care of the customers. This in effect increases the customer’s satisfaction and your employees as well. One more important formula Walton used for his success was the way he “roll it out.” “Roll it out” refers to the way Walton planned his saturation strategy into the market. Walton was one who would go where no one else would even think to go. He moved into small towns with else than 5,000 people and set up a store. He implemented this by building stores so that the distribution centers, or warehouses could take care of them, but they so could be controlled. This saturation strategy saved a fortune in Marketing and Advertising costs.
Distribution and Technology
Wal-Marts distribution was a very important strategic point for growth. With Walton’s distribution systems gave him one of his greatest competitive advantages. Distribution was very important to Walton because of his saving and flexibility of controlling distribution. With his private fleet of trucks and distributions centers set up everywhere. Walton set costs to run less than 3 percent to ship goods to his stores. With his competitors shipping costs between 4.5 to 5 percent for the same goods. With these savings meant even lower prices for the consumers. Technology at first for Walton had a great uncertainty, but eventually he gave in and went with it. With new technology helped him move way out front of the industry in both communication and distribution. Walton was always still convinced that technology are just tools and people in the system are primary responsible for the customers.
Store Visit Comparison
With my experiences at Wal-Marts have been much the same to what the book explains. I have shopped there many times for anything and everything for college. I love having Wal-Mart in every town I visit so I know if I need anything anytime 24hours a day I can go get it. In today’s Wal-Mart atmosphere I see it to remain the same to what Walton had build in the past. I feel Wal-Mart is an important part of any town anywhere to insure the best prices available to anyone anywhere.
Conclusion and Evaluation
What I found enjoyable about this book was the appoarch of one man’s vision to change the whole retail world, as we knew it. For Walton’s strive toward the best possible price on anything for everyone. I would definitely recommend this book for all BADM 01 classes for the future.