Word: marte
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...Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize - and an Oscar. Hardly a day goes by without major corporations like Wal-Mart announcing new green initiatives. Priuses are still hot, oil is near $100 a barrel and even Detroit is hyping fuel efficiency. With all that attention, global warming is surely set to become one of the biggest issues of the 2008 Presidential campaign, right...
Given that hardship, retailers seize the opportunity. Now it's not only school that starts the day after Labor Day; so does Halloween. Target and Wal-Mart had their spooky gear out by the following weekend. Monthly magazines do Halloween in the September issue, so Christmas can hit in October. This year the weather even conspired to confuse and collapse the calendar--outdoor pools open in Washington in January, leaves defiantly green and aloft in the Northeast through October, when they're supposed to lie curled and dead and sweet-smelling beneath the feet of the little witches and ghouls...
More to the point, outgoing executives have characterized Wal-Mart as hopelessly inflexible, clinging to its old culture. Even if the company wants to change its image, argues Roehm, who helped reposition Chrysler and Ford, it can't help itself...
Another issue is more basic: absolute size. "One of the difficulties that we face at Wal-Mart is scale, the fact that we have so many stores. Getting execution across all stores is difficult," says Castro-Wright. Any big change is difficult for large corporations. To change so many things, as Wal-Mart is doing, is asking...
Next year is critical for Wal-Mart: it must deliver on the promises made to Wall Street. In its struggles, Wal-Mart faintly resembles another company that once ruled retailing from a central HQ. Sears, Roebuck grew fat supplying rural and small-town America, but ultimately its culture couldn't adjust to shopping-mall America or to discounters. Shoppers today have little idea how awesome was the power of the Chicago merchant. And before Sears there was the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., the A&P, an urban power that once ran nearly 16,000 U.S. stores. Competitors quaked before...