Word: wal
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...billion, is struggling. So it requires a big, bold fix. The company that Sam Walton created for the rural South is being massively overhauled to compete in the more urban, more competitive universe where it now lives. You might not notice it yet if you shop there, but Wal-Mart is in the midst of a revolution, an audacious three-year plan that will change practically everything the company does: the way it builds and operates stores, the way it buys and stocks merchandise, the way it hires, trains and compensates employees...
...truth, Wal-Mart is a little desperate--it launched a price war for Christmas toys in early October and then slashed 15,000 prices storewide. It increasingly seems the company's 45-year-old business model--based on a continuously improving supply-chain loop--is better suited to developing economies like Mexico, Brazil and China, where it is doing well, than to mature markets like the U.S. and Japan, where it isn't. In the U.S., same-store sales increases are bumping along at 1% to 2% a month, while rival Target, the fashion-forward, design-centric glamour girl...
...know what? So has Wal-Mart. Under Castro-Wright's prodding, Wal-Mart is trying to become a local merchant again. It is moving managers away from the all-powerful Bentonville, Ark., headquarters and closer to the customers. It is developing snazzier and highly efficient store designs to entice existing customers to shop more broadly across the store rather than just for groceries and health- and beauty-care products. "We have enough customers," insists Scott, 57, who can boast that nearly 20 million Americans shop at a Wal-Mart every day. But while they're happily buying toys, toothpaste...
...pressure is providing impetus to attempt new things. Back at headquarters, Wal-Mart is also trying to improve its standing as a corporate citizen. The company has overhauled its wage-and-benefits package and rolled out an ambitious sustainability program that even cynics are praising. Using its negotiating muscle against rising health-care costs, the company expanded the number of drugs available in its $4 generic-prescription program to 361 drug products...
...What Wal-Mart does matters--certainly to its 1.35 million U.S. employees but also to its competitors, since Wal-Mart ends up effectively setting wage rates in retailing. And to organic farmers, whose industry has been turbocharged by the company's decision to promote organic foods; and to refrigeration manufacturers, who must create greener equipment to meet this giant customer's desire to shrink its carbon footprint. And to the economy itself: the "Wal-Mart effect" of those $4 generics is being cited as one reason drug prices are falling after years of double-digit inflation, just as its entry...