Word: wal
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Wal-Mart's centralization of power at its headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., could produce agitation among the managers of its stores, who have traditionally been granted considerable independence in stocking what locals want. And consumers get bored by one-size-fits-all merchandise. Says Ira Kalish, an analyst for consultancy Retail Forward, in a mostly bullish report on Wal-Mart: "Excessive size could breed bureaucracy as well as failures in the areas of merchandising and customer relations...
Whether--and how--Wal-Mart meets these challenges will be of vital importance to its customers, its 1.3 million worldwide employees, the owners of its widely held stock and even the U.S. economy. According to an independent study by McKinsey & Co., Wal-Mart's efficiency gains were the source of 25% of the entire U.S. economy's productivity improvement from 1995 to 1999. "When you become No. 1 and as big as we are, business has a tendency to complicate if you don't do things to force yourself to keep it simple," says Tom Coughlin, head of Wal-Mart...
...think Wal-Mart already sells just about everything, think again. Think PCs, ceiling fans, more fashionable clothing, gasoline and even cars. "Their goal is to have a 30% share of every major business they are in," says Linda Kristiansen, a retail analyst for UBS Warburg Equity Research. If there's no Wal-Mart store near you, just wait. If you shop at Wal-Mart, expect your store to get bigger or a new store to open even closer. The chain plans to expand from 3,400 U.S. locations today--half of them in the South--to a nationwide network approaching...
...Wal-Mart has 1,300 Supercenters, many of them converted from standard discount stores, offering everything from hardware to groceries and drugs. In some areas, it is placing these 180,000-sq.-ft. monsters as close as 5 miles apart. And in the spaces between, it's tormenting local grocery and convenience stores with Neighborhood Markets (call 'em Small-Marts). Wal-Mart is building its first urban Supercenter, in downtown Dallas. And without fanfare it is testing used-car sales alongside one of its Houston stores. "It's surprising how much room we have for growth," says Robson Walton...
...Wal-Mart to get where it isn't is going to be a lot harder than it was to get where it is. Even with sales expected to grow to about $240 billion for the fiscal year that ends Jan. 31, price wars in its grocery business narrowed Wal-Mart's profit margin to its lowest level in four years. The company plans to fatten profits by becoming more of a producer and even designer of its goods, especially clothing. It's making blouses in China and towels in India that it intends to sell everywhere from Berlin to Beijing...