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Walmart

Synopsis
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., an American publicly traded corporation that is currently the largest company based on revenue according to the 2007 Fortune 500. The company was initially founded by Sam Walton in 1962. Today, Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in the world and also the world's fourth largest utility or commercial employer, in the United States, "Wal-Mart is the largest grocery retailer…with an estimated 20% of the retail grocery and consumables business, and the largest toy seller in the U.S., with an estimated 45% of the retail toy business, having surpassed Toys "R" Us in the late 1990s." However, considering the company's substantial success, Wal-Mart has been the target of harsh criticism from such community groups as women's rights groups due to allegations of sexism targeted towards its female staff, human rights advocates condemning the corporation's poor working conditions of foreign factories producing goods for Wal-Mart, and labor unions protesting the low rates of employee health insurance as well as its resistance to union representation, and the company's extensive foreign product sourcing. Yet, despite these hurdles, Wal-Mart continues to be a profitable corporate behemoth by persuading its suppliers to establish their lowest total cost. Wal-Mart has mastered how to harness the power of consumer marketing as well as adhering to the order of business marketing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart).

Marketing Strategy
• Wal-mart convinces its suppliers to sell to them at the lowest wholesale rates
• The company slogan "everyday low prices" offers the customers immense savings and saved the company on merchandising and advertising costs
• Wal-mart has three value disciplines:
1. Customer Intimacy: persistent focus on satisfying the needs of the customer by providing customers access to quality goods, to make these goods available when and where customers want them, to develop a cost structure that enables...