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Wal-Mart Case Study

Introduction
People say that there is traditionally a belief in the USA that anyone has opportunities to succeed and obtain a great fortune in their life though own effort in the freedom nation - it is called ‘American Dream’. Sam Walton was one of the men who gained an American dream in the recent ages.
Wal-Mart founded by him in 1962 is now the largest company in the world since they have exceeded Exxon Mobil in 2002 (Bronn, 2006 *1). Their activities often attract people through the media as a business trend today, on the other hand, the company has also been indicated the negative aspects, such as low wages, worse working condition, deficient health care or a disruption in local market (Fishman, 2006). However, although it should not be neglected to think, I strongly believe that Wal-Mart has much more advanced logistics and core competences on managing. Moreover, they have a great adaptation skill in environment power. Thus these are the reasons why Wal-Mart stays as the world number-one company. In this essay, I will examine my belief to analyse their strategies and the business environment.

Sales Achievement
Firstly, According to the most recent sales announcement ‘Wal-Mart Reports Record Fourth Quarter Sales and Earnings’ (walmartstores.com *2), they have achieved over $106 billion in the last quarter, November 2007 to January 2008. This increased in 8.3% from $98 billion which is the sales in the same period of fiscal year 2007. In particular, the net sales of international significantly grew to 17.5% throughout the fiscal year 2008. This is the first accomplishment that sales reached $100 billion within a quarter in the retail industry.

The main factors of big success in the sales
As a newspaper described “it is all coming together at once” (The Independent, 2008 *3), two critical strategies mainly boosted the high sales in the last fiscal year 2008. The first is that Wal-Mart made the statement which followed the slogan Sam Walton had raised...