Word: sams
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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John Huey, managing editor of FORTUNE, co-wrote Sam Walton: Made in America
Walton was an active student of retailing--all family vacations included store visits--so by the time a barber named Herb Gibson from Berryville, Ark., began opening discount stores outside towns where Sam ran variety stores, Walton saw what was coming. On July 2, 1962, at the age of 44, he opened his first Wal-Mart store, in Rogers, Ark. That same year, S.S. Kresge launched K Mart, F.W. Woolworth started Woolco and Dayton Hudson began its Target chain. Discounting had hit America in a big way. At that time, Walton was too far off the beaten path to attract...
...however, and passed that of competitors K Mart and Sears, Walton began to be villainized by some, especially beleaguered small-town merchants. They rallied a nostalgic national press, which--from its perch in Manhattan--waxed eloquent on the lost graces of small-town America, blaming that loss squarely on Sam Walton...
There is no argument offered here that Sam Walton didn't clutter the landscape of the American countryside or that he didn't force a lot of people to change the way they made a living. But he merely hastened such changes. The forces of progress he represented were inevitable. His empowering management techniques were copied by businesses far beyond his own industry; his harnessing of information technology to cut costs quickly traveled upstream to all kinds of companies; and his pioneering retailing concepts paved the way for a new breed of "category killer" retailer--the Home Depots, Barnes & Nobles...
...other than America have also grown superb business leaders. One legend in Japan is Konosuke Matsushita, whose company includes Panasonic and other well-known brands. Witnessing his father's bankruptcy as a small child prompted Matsushita to develop new values of how an enterprise ought to be run. Like Sam Walton, he paid attention to the consumer and sought ways to increase demand and reduce prices. He forced the competition to embrace this concept, making the market grow while creating more profit. He also showed that human well-being and making money are not inconsistent. In downturns he found other...