Word: wal
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...film in some of the more than 50 countries where it will debut this month. He has met with nearly 700 clerics and scholars, journeyed to the Vatican, and addressed groups ranging from some faculty members of the Harvard divinity school (to seek their wisdom) to 4,000 Wal-Mart employees in Texas (to inspire them to sell a special Prince of Egypt promotional package). As the opening draws near, he is in an agony of suspense--a fact that he blurts out to virtually anyone. "I'm scared," he says plaintively...
Using that formula, which cut his margins to the bone, it was imperative that Wal-Mart grow sales at a relentless pace. It did, of course, and Walton hit the road to open stores wherever he saw opportunity. He would buzz towns in his low-flying airplane studying the lay of the land. When he had triangulated the proper intersection between a few small towns, he would touch down, buy a piece of farmland at that intersection and order up another Wal-Mart store, which his troops could roll out like...
...school in upstate New York. His goal: to hire the smartest guy in the class to come down to Bentonville, Ark., and computerize his operations. He realized that he could not grow at the pace he desired without computerizing merchandise controls. He was right, of course, and Wal-Mart went on to become the icon of just-in-time inventory control and sophisticated logistics--the ultimate user of information as a competitive advantage. Today Wal-Mart's computer database is second only to the Pentagon's in capacity, and though he is rarely remembered that way, Walton may have been...
...great delight, Walton spent much of his career largely unnoticed by the public or the press. In fact, hardly anyone had ever heard of him when, in 1985, Forbes magazine determined that his 39% ownership of Wal-Mart's stock made him the richest man in America. After that, the first wave of attention focused on Walton as populist retailer: his preference for pickup trucks over limos and for the company of bird dogs over that of investment bankers. His extraordinary charisma had motivated hundreds of thousands of employees to believe in what Wal-Mart could accomplish, and many...
...Wal-Mart's influence grew, 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...