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Wall-Mart Organization Industry Overview

Organization/Industry Overview
Introduction:
In the late 1940s, when Sam Walton was franchising a Ben Franklin's variety store in Newport, Ark., he had a simple but big idea. Like any retailer, Walton was always looking for deals from suppliers. Typically, though, a retailer who managed to get a bargain from a wholesaler would leave his store prices unchanged and pocket the extra money. Walton, by contrast, realized he could do better by passing on the savings to his customers and earning his profits through volume. This insight would form a cornerstone of Walton's business strategy when he launched Wal-Mart in 1962 (Frank, 2006).
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is the largest retailer in the world, with sales of $259 billion in 2003, 1.5 million employees, and 4,300 facilities. Each week, over 100 million customers visit a Wal-Mart store. Sam Walton founded the company in 1962 with a simple goal. Offer low prices to everyone. His notions of hard work and thrift continue to fill Wal-Mart today, although he died in 1992. Employees see their jobs as a mission to lower the cost of living. Wal-Mart’s philosophy is to enable people of average means to buy more of the same products that were previously available only to rich folks. The company works hard at being efficient and using its buying power to extract lower prices from suppliers, and then passes those savings on to the customers. Saving people money to help them live better was the goal that Sam Walton envisioned when he opened the doors to the first Wal-Mart.
Segment in the United States:
Our Wal-Mart stores in the United States, established discount stores, supercenters, and neighborhood markets with marketable merchandise for easy access for our customer, and customers can make orders on line at walmart.com. Our Company has retail store operations in 50 states, 47 states have concession operations. Furthermore, Wal-mart has supercenters in 48 states and has neighborhood markets in 16 states. Our Wal-Mart stores...