Wal-Mart’s Recent Performance

Over the past few years, the company has experienced a lot of improvement with regard to investment, market share, and profitability. Walmart has heavily invested in marketing and promotion, particularly with the increasing use of social media as a marketing tool. It is important to note that Wal-Mart has the largest retail stores across the globe, with the most significant number of revenues and employees. In 2017, the company generated revenue of around $482 billion (Wal-Mart, 2019). Today, the company attends to more than 26 billion customers each week through its 11,000 stores in 28 different nations (Walmart, Inc., 2019). In the last five years, for instance, Wal-Mart has made numerous acquisitions that have increased its financial performance in recent years. E-commerce sales for the company are today soaring at greater heights with the US e-commerce operations, innovations such as grocery pick up, and the expanded inventory of the company’s website, and free 2-day shipping for orders that are $35 or above (Wal-Mart Inc., 2019). In the US, the sales have increased by about 50% in the most recent quarter, and this year, the company expects the sales to grow for another 40% (Wal-Mart, 2019).

Mission and Vision Statement

The mission statement of Walmart Inc. is “to save people money so they can live better.” The mission statement is a reflection of the principles of the organization’s founder Sam Walton. The strategic decision that the company makes is a direct manifestation of the mission statement that corresponds to the organization’s motto, “Save money. Live better.” With regard to this statement, it is evident that the business strategies of Wal-Mart entail the use of price as a selling point (Wal-Mart, 2019). For example, the company uses the 4Ps marketing mix involving low pricing as an approach. Other sectors of the organization are controlled by the desire to reduce the selling prices of their goods as a way of achieving competitive advantage.

The company tries to fulfill its “save people money” element of the mission statement by implementing low selling costs (Wal-Mart Inc., 2019). For instance, customers can save money by using less to buy products from the stores of the company in comparison to purchasing similar products from high-end stores or midscale stores. But it is not evident how the organization implements the “live better” aspect of the mission strategy (Wal-Mart Inc., 2019). This is because the company has been having many issues with low wages which seemed a great challenge for the company’s employees when talking about the improvement of their lives.

The vision statement of Walmart is to “Be THE destination for customers to save money, no matter how they want to shop” (Walmart Inc. 2019). The vision statement was incorporated into the organization in 2017. Previously the company had a different vision statement which was “To be the best retailer in the hearts and minds of consumers and employee” (Walmart Inc., 2019). This change in the firm’s vision is a reflection of the different strategic approaches that Wal-Mart is implementing in reply to the shift in the competitive environment and the general situation within the retail market. Previously, the vision statement of the company was to emerge as the leading player within the industry. But presently, the vision statement of the company entails the same objective but with more emphasis also put on the flexibility of the business to accommodate customers. For instance, irrespective of how the consumers want to shop, the components show that the strategic objectives of the company to achieve leadership in the customary brick and mortar activities and the online retail transaction. Similar changes, however, portray the elimination of “employees” as a significant component of the company’s vision statement (Walmart Inc., 2019). This change shows a possible decrease in the support that employees of the organization get. The change could reflect issues of human resource management, with regard to the fact that employees are major stakeholders relevant to the company’s corporate social responsibility as well as stakeholder management.

Good mission statements ate short and unique to the business. They should not be generalized in a manner that any company can steal and use it as their own. A good mission statement makes the company different, special and unique (Suranga, 2017). A mission and vision statement should embrace the expectations of the audiences targeted for something they want. At the same time, good mission statements are realistic, memorable, active, positive, and adaptable (Pace, 2017). A good vision statement should be future-oriented, can guide to a better future for the company by fitting the organization’s culture and history, reflects on the values of the organization, set standards for excellence, explains the organization’s direction, and purpose inspires commitment and enthusiasm, and reflect on the organization.

Wal-Mart’s vision and mission statement are good because they describe the basic guiding principles of the company. Wal-Mart designed its retail business plans to accomplish its present global position within the industry. The company’s success has been associated with the effectiveness of fulfilling the mission and vision statement (David et al., 2014). This has been through the implementation of the generic competitive strategy which has grown its business to enable the company to improve its business and competitive advantages, based on the mission and vision statement. The mission and vision statement is preceded by the cost leadership generic strategy which builds its competitive advantage in handling rivals firms. The mission and vision statement are good because they have enabled the company to have developed different intensive growth strategies such as penetration into and development of the market to allow the company to achieve its objectives and goals (Suranga, 2017).

Board of Directors

From the start, Sam Walton has been surrounded by different kinds of people with big ideas and are ready to take a risk to bring the plans they have to life. Doug McMillon is the President and Director of Walmrt Inc. He has worked on the board of directors for the company since 2013. As the CEO, he manages with a strong team of management that works to deliver the purpose the company to save people money and help them live a better life. Under his watch, Wal-Mart has been able to bring together its stores in different locations, digital commerce approaches, and supply chain in manners that brings a new experience to the customers. Doug has a bachelor of science in business administration from the University of Arkansas and joined the University of Tulsa for MBA in finance (Walmart Inc., E-commerce, 2019).

Another member of the board of directors is Greg Foran. He is the president and CEO of Walmart US. He is responsible for the performance of Walmart’s stores and strategic decision making for the numerous stores. He was elected to the board in 2014, and since then, he has led a transformation of the US business. Greg has been at the center of designing approaches for the development and execution of strategies around Wal-Mart’s business principles of Everyday low prices, and everyday low costs. At the University of Virginia and Harvard, he studied advanced management programs (Walmart Inc., E-commerce, 2019).

Judith McKenna, is the president and CEO, of Walmart International. This is a growing segment of the overall operations of Walmart She was elected into the board of directors in 2014 and through her passion for training and teaching, she has led to the development of the Walmart US Academy stores program. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in law from Hull University in England before going ahead to pursue her Institute of Chartered Accountants in Wales and England accounting qualifications at KPMG (Walmart Inc., E-commerce, 2019). Others members of the board include John Furner, Marc Lore, Brett Biggs, Dan Bartlett, Simon Belsham, Rachel Brand, Andy Barron, among others (Walmart Inc., E-commerce, 2019).

References

David, M. E., David, F. R., & David, F. R. (2014). Mission statement theory and practice: A content analysis and new direction. International Journal of Business, Marketing, & Decision Science, 7(1), 95-110.

Pace, S. (2017). Shaping corporate brands: From product features to corporate mission. International Studies of Management & Organization, 47(2), 197-205.

Suranga, J. M. (2017, March). Importance of corporate vision. In Proceedings of International HR Conference (Vol. 1, No. 1), 34-40.

Walmart Inc., (2019) Leadership. https://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/leadership

Walmart, Inc. – E-commerce Website.