Word: wright
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This kind of central command and control, long out of favor in corporate America (not to mention the People's Republic of China), is now being de-emphasized. Castro-Wright, 52, is pushing executives out to where the stores are and bringing in local hires. The company has created five U.S. regions and staffed them as if they were independent $8 billion-to-$12 billion retailers. The Southeast regional headquarters is in Atlanta; the Midwest is run out of Chicago. Both regions are headed by locals, which will give the company more political clout in the sometimes contentious battles...
...shoppers in Dallas don't buy the giant bags of dog food that they've become so expert at supplying. What if doggie apparel is just as sellable in Big D? (Stop that snickering.) "In Bentonville, you don't have a lot of dogs running around in sweaters," Castro-Wright says, almost containing a giggle...
...supply-chain logistics grinds away at costs but doesn't allow it to know the neighbors. The new strategy tries to make that connection--editing for the area, offering a point of distinction. "It's going to tell the customer that we understand what they need," says Castro-Wright. "We not only understand what you need, we respect your point of view. We want to be your store of choice because we understand you better than anyone else in the marketplace...
...while Castro-Wright and his team plan the Wal-Mart of the future, the company's legal team has been fighting the same old ugly labor battles. Wal-Mart has been tarred by an ongoing gender-discrimination class action filed in California in 2001, and it recently was ordered to pay $62 million in penalties on top of the $78.5 million judgment awarded by a jury last year after it found Wal-Mart guilty of shortchanging associates in Pennsylvania who worked during their breaks or after they clocked out. (Wal-Mart says it will appeal.) Nor has it looked...
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...