TITLE: WALMAT STRATEGIC PLANNING AND

EXECUTION

1.0. INTRODUCTION

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is a US-based global discount supermarket chain that

has more than 11,000 stores in 27 countries and serves nearly 260 million
customers each week under 72 banners (Annual Report, 2015). Founded in
1962 by Sam Walton, today Wal-Mart employs 2.2 million people globally and
it is the world’s largest retailer. Wal-Mart U.S. delivered net sales of USD 288
billion, a more than 3 percent increase in the fiscal year of 2015 and
consolidated fiscal revenues equaled to USD 486 billion (Annual Report,
2015). During the fiscal year of 2015 Wal-Mart revenues grew by more than
USD9 billion to nearly USD 486 billion and earnings per share were USD
4.99, a nearly 3 percent increase from the previous year. On a constant
currency basis, net sales surpassed USD 141 billion, while operating income
increased to more than USD6 billion (Annual Report, 2015).

Wal-Mart is the world’s largest company by revenue and the largest retailer in
the world (See Annex 1). The company is a retail market leader in the U.S.
and is a major competitor in all geographic markets in which it operates.

Wal-Mart’s revenue reached US$500.343 billion in 2017, more than

Carrefour, Costco, Tesco and Amazon.com revenues combined. The
company employed twice as many people and owned about 5 times more
retail space than its top 3 rivals (Figure 1).

Forbes listed Wal-Mart as the 24th most valuable brand in the world in 2018,
worth US$24.1 billion. No other direct competitor, except Amazon, has made
it to the Forbes list of the top 50 most valuable brands.

2.0. STRATEGIC FORMULATION

Strategy formulation is process involving a number of steps with the initial
phase being analyzing the company. The main aim of strategizing is to ensure
the company takes full advantage of any opportunity that may arise and also
detect any shortcoming that may arise.

When evaluating a company one can employ a number of strategic tools,

which include SWOT an acronym for the evaluation on the company’s
Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, as well as Threats (Lu, 2010). SWOT is
analyzing tool that is commonly applied to demonstrate the strengths that a
company utilizes to neutralize the shortcomings in order to gain from any
opportunity that comes along more so in the market. Having a good
understanding of the company helps one to formulate a strategy with more
details. The detailed strategy formulation is a six-step process. The six-step
process begins with defining the company, then the set objectives that guide
it, then define the competitive strategies and the long run goals. The fifth and

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six steps are: strategy implementing and lastly carrying out an evaluation of
the whole process.

Getting a better understanding of the company’s target customers is what is

known as defining it since; this is on the basis that for the company to
succeed, then the needs of these people must be met first. With this idea of
customer focus in mind, then there is a need by Wal-Mart Company to come
up with a list of all the factors that there customer’s value. Identifying these
factors will lead to more success since the company is able to understand the
taste and preferences of their customers hence prioritizing their investment
towards provision of products that match the market demand. One strategy of
ensuring that provision of deeper understanding on all aspects of the
company is ensuring proper communication with all the employees in a bid to
share the mission and visions statements as well as the set objectives. The
company’s vision as well as mission statements are integral parts of any
strategic plan.

2.1. Wal-Mart’s Mission Statement

Wal-Mart Inc.’s corporate mission is “to save people money so they can live
better.” This statement reflects the ideals of the company’s founder, Sam
Walton. Strategic decisions in the business are a direct manifestation of this
mission statement, which is synonymous to the company’s slogan, “Save
money. Live better.” Based on this statement, it is clear that Wal-Mart’s
business strategies involve using price as a selling point to attract target
consumers. The significance of such a selling point is exhibited in many of the
company’s strategies. For example, Wal-Mart Inc.’s marketing mix or 4P
involves low prices as a strategy. Other areas of the company are determined
by the need to minimize selling prices as a way to achieve competitiveness.
Wal-Mart fulfils the “save people money” component of the mission statement
through its low selling prices. For example, consumers save money by
spending less in buying goods from the company’s stores, compared to
buying the same or similar goods from midscale and high-end stores.
However, it is not yet clear if the company satisfies the “live better” component
of this corporate mission. There are criticisms regarding very low wages that
pose challenges for Wal-Mart’s employees when it comes to improving their
lives, in addition to various human resource management issues in the
organization. There are also criticisms about the long-term economic effects
of the company’s large-scale sales of cheap imported goods.

2.2. Wal-Mart’s Vision Statement

Wal-Mart Inc.’s corporate vision is to “Be THE destination for customers to

save money, no matter how they want to shop.” This vision was officially
articulated in the company’s 2017 investment community meeting. The
company’s previous vision statement was “To be the best retailer in the hearts
and minds of consumers and employees.” The change in the corporate vision
reflects strategic changes that Wal-Mart implements in response to changes
in the competitive landscape and the overall condition of the retail industry.

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2.3. Business Model Canvas for the Wal-Mart

Business Model Canvas is a strategic management and entrepreneurial tool

that allows entrepreneur to describe, design, challenge and invent and pivot
their business model

1) Key Partners

a) Direct Suppliers
b) Landlords
c) Investors
d) Manufactures
e) International Labor Organization

2) Key Activities

a) Inventory Management Systems

b) Vendor Control Negotiations
c) Supply Chain Management Approach
d) Shrink Management

3) Key Resources

a) Vendor Relationships
b) Distribution systems
c) Highly Skilled Management
d) Purchasing and Procurement

4) Value Proposition

Offering everyday lowest price on a wide variety of basic products. Value

proposition canvas is a plug of the Business Model Canvas. It helps to project,
test and build the business Value Proposition of customers in a more
structured way, as the Business Model Canvas helps you during the process
of design of Business Model.

5) Customer Relationships

a) Mobile Apps
b) Advertisements
c) Mailing

6) Channels

a) Physical stores
b) Online stores

7) Customer Segments

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 a) Low Income
b) Frugal
c) Rural Customer Base

8) Cost Structure

a) Payroll & Benefits

b) Rent
c) Costs of Goods sold
d) Logistics
e) Maintenance
f) Utilities

9) Revenue Streams

a) Financial Services
b) Commissions
c) Retail Sales
d) Warranties & Insurance

10) Strategic Risks

a) Changing consumer values

b) Technology threats and data crashing
c) Economic Disruptions in China
d) Radical Replacement by Amazon
e) Various tax burdens

11) Strategic Opportunities

a) Economic Crisis
b) Discovering new, less expensive outsourcing opportunities
c) Building strong relationships with 3-F printing industry

12) 3-D Industry as a Key Opportunity for Wal-Mart

a) Producing less expensive products

b) Accelerated product development cycle
c) Reducing manufacturer’s footprints
d) Adding value to the products
e) Selling 3-d printers in Wal-Mart stores

(Source: https://prezi.com/wfitrhvbsx0s/wal-mart-business-model-canvas/)

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3.0 STRATEGIC ANALYSIS
Hypothesis

Wal-Mart has the largest information technology infrastructure of any private

company in the world, and it is this state-of-the-art technology and network
design that allows Wal-Mart to accurately forecast demand, track and predict
inventory levels, create highly efficient transportation routes, manage
customer relationships, and service response

I hypothesize that if Wal-Mart were to invest more heavily on information

technology infrastructure that they would be able to maintain their valuable
competitive position in the world.

Core Assumptions

Is that Wal-Mart can afford to make investments in information technology

infrastructure. It would also have to be assumed that the leadership of the
organization has completed the due diligence necessary, such as a robust
analysis of information technology, risk management and cyber security
analysis, to know what kind of Wal-Mart Infrastructure will impact their
customers who will enjoy safe, secure and user friendly platform.

This hypothesis needs to be applied against the following tests: the value test,
the execution test, the scale test and the defensibility test. As technology
continues to shape the way we shop online, the market and customers
demands that Wal-Mart Infrastructure evolve with these advances so that it
continues to provide value to the Customers on shopping in stores, online or
with their phones which is more seamless than it used to be. Wal-Mart
possesses unique assets and capabilities to serve customers with their
stores, clubs, global supply chain, data and great associates and how they
integrate with each other. Wal-Mart want their customers to find what they
want, at a value, in a convenient, enjoyable way, regardless of how they shop.
Wal-Mart customer proposition is focused on four areas – price, access,
assortment and experience, thus passing the value test.

This hypothesis definitely passes the execution test because Wal-Mart

already have the existing capabilities to bring new features to the market
through our more than 11,000 stores, websites and mobile apps, and
customers can access Wal-Mart in more ways than ever before. It’s vital to
have relevant formats in each market Wal-Mart serve.

This hypothesis would pass the scale test because on the e-commerce front,
Wal-Mart provide those same things through an expanded assortment of
approximately 8 million items on walmart.com in the U.S. Interestingly, 75
percent of walmart.com sales come from non-store inventory, thus providing
incremental sales growth beyond our stores. And, this is a global effort. In
Brazil, for example, Wal-Mart online assortment, including from marketplace
partners, grew 10-fold last year.

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All these core assumptions need to pass the defensibility test.

Lastly, these core assumptions need to pass the defensibility test. While it is
possible for other competitors or potential competitors to imitate Wal-Mart
information and technology infrastructure but they have a long way to go to
keep up with Wal-Mart since in all markets, Wal-Mart is committed to
providing customers convenient access to Wal-Mart. They are innovating
through e-commerce, mobile and various pickup sites to provide customers
more shopping options than ever before. They are especially focused on
grocery home shopping, with expanded operations in the U.K., Mexico and
Japan. Asda doubled its Click & Collect sites, and in Japan, Wal-Mart
automated the order picking process to fulfill Seiyu.com grocery orders more
efficiently and sustainably. E-commerce sales growth has been strong. Brazil
e-commerce sales in fiscal 2015 grew faster than the market despite strong
competitive pressures, and in China, Yihaodian saw traffic increase more than
60 percent. No matter the shopper preference, we’ll continue to strive to be
the destination of choice.

In summary, the core assumptions pass all four tests. Since the assumptions
passed all four tests, we can put them up against a series of thought
experiments to identify the following: what we know, what we don’t know,
what we don’t know but can and what we don’t know but can’t.

What we know is that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is a US-based global discount

supermarket chain that has more than 11,000 stores in 27 countries and
serves nearly 260 million customers each week under 72 banners (Annual
Report, 2015). Founded in 1962 by Sam Walton, today Wal-Mart employs 2.2
million people globally and it is the world’s largest retailer.

We know that through innovation, Wal-Mart is striving to create a customer-

centric experience that seamlessly integrates our ecommerce and retail stores
in an Omni channel offering that saves time for our customers.

Wal-Mart strategy is to lead on price, invest to differentiate on access, be

competitive on assortment and deliver a great experience. Leading on price is
designed to earn the trust of our customers every day by providing a broad
assortment of quality merchandise and services at everyday low prices
("EDLP").

We know that EDLP is Wal-Mart pricing philosophy under which we price

items at a low price every day so our customers trust that our prices will not
change under frequent promotional activity.

We know that Price leadership is core to who Wal-Mart are. Everyday low
cost ("EDLC") is our commitment to control expenses so those cost savings
can be passed along to our customers. Wal-Mart Omni-channel presence
provides customers access to our broad assortment anytime and anywhere.
We strive to give our customers and members a great digital and physical
shopping experience.

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We know that during fiscal 2018, we generated total revenues of $500.3
billion, which was primarily comprised of net sales of $495.8 billion.” (Figure
1).

What does ‘being the largest retailer in the world’ mean to Wal-Mart?

 Economies of scale. The company can share its fixed costs over many
products, which makes Wal-Mart one of the cheapest places to shop.

 Efficient and effective use of resources. Wal-Mart can use its

resources, such as distribution facilities, information systems,
knowledge and other capabilities and skills, more efficiently and
effectively over a large number of locations.

 Huge gains from implementing best practice. The company can identify
better ways of performing tasks; managing stores and hiring new
employees and can achieve huge gains by implementing these best
practices in its vast network of stores.

 Experimenting with less risk. The company can engage in many

experiments within its stores or in new store formats without the risk of
losing a substantial amount of profits or revenue.

 Market power over suppliers and competitors. Due to its size, Wal-Mart
can exercise its market power over suppliers by requiring lower prices
from them. The company can also affect the competition by selling
selected items at a loss, thus driving competition out of the market.

What we do not know is that what will happen after 5 years from now taking
into consideration that information technology is changing fast and that way
can Wal-Mart maintain its retailer superiority in the world?

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4.0 STRATEGIC IMPLEMENTATION

First, we will look at alignment while applying the 4A Model (Annex 2) to Wal-
Mart. Let us go straight to alignment to determine if Walmat is aligned both
externally and internally. Wal-Mart Constant improvements of assortment,
price and access are basis of Wal-Mart business strategy. In simple terms,
Wal-Mart strives to offer the widest choice of products for the cheapest price,
along with giving customers the opportunity of choosing the most convenient
channel to facilitate the purchase.
Wall Mart competitive advantage relies on cost leadership. Moreover, the
strategic level management consistently aims to associate Wall Mart
competitive advantage with price, access, assortment and experience. Since
his appointment as CEO in February 2014, Doug McMillion introduced
important changes in Wal-Mart business strategy in the following three
directions:
1) Increasing focus on customer services. In February 2015, the company
announced a USD1 billion investment in U.S. hourly associates to
provide higher wages, more training and increased opportunities to
build a career with Wal-Mart.
2) Improving groceries. Due to increasing level of health-consciousness of
consumers, Wal-Mart is attempting to increase its range of organic
options and fresh produce. This change is more evident in the US
market and it is being actively integrated into marketing communication
message of the brand.
3) Enhancing the flexibility of the shopping experience. It has been noted
“Wal-Mart is working to integrate its physical stores with the digital
business”. For example, thanks to the latest changes, customers are
able to collect their online orders from stores and they can also get text
reminders from the pharmacy.

To achieve better alignment (Figure 2), Wal-Mart must continual institute

organizational alignment from vision, mission and purpose. Employees must
know Wal-Mart three basic principles, which make them unique that are:
a) Service to the customer
b) Strive for excellence
c) Respect for individual

The next segment of the 4A Model we will look at is ability to implement its
strategy focusing on talent.

Lana Bryon, Wal-Mart Canada's Head of Talent Acquisition, examined talent

acquisition in time during her keynote presentation to Argyle's CHRO
membership at the 2017 Human Capital Leadership Forum in Toronto on
October 17. During her presentation, "The Right Talent on Demand: Proactive
Talent Acquisition Strategies for Delivering Talent in Time," Bryon explained
how talent acquisition professionals can take a proactive approach to hire top
talent in time.

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According to Bryon, the global business landscape is rapidly evolving. No
longer can talent acquisition professionals wait for job candidates to reach out
to organizations. Instead, organizations must take a proactive approach to
talent acquisition, or they risk missing out on opportunities to attract, hire and
retain qualified professionals.

At Wal-Mart, the business was forced to revamp its talent acquisition strategy
to keep up with the pace of change in the retail market, Bryon said. Wal-Mart
evaluated its talent acquisition strategy, and ultimately, found that it needed to
develop new strategies to find talent in time.

"The pace of change in retail is really fast. And if you're not keeping up with it
and don't have the right skills to create strategies, you're going to find yourself
in a position where you're not viable in the marketplace for very long," Bryon
stated.

With the ability to find talent in time, an organization can employ the right
professionals, at the right time, every time, Bryon indicated. This capability
can make a world of difference for any organization, as it enables an
organization to consistently connect with top talent when necessary.

With regard to architecture segment of the 4A Model and Wal-Mart

infrastructure to drive performance, Wal-Mart leadership attempts to integrate
the values of its founder Sam Walton into the organizational culture in order to
improve employee morale with positive implications on the bottom line. In
1988 the roles of Chairman and CEO were separated and today Gregory B.
Penner and Doug McMillion perform these roles respectively.
Doug McMillion has assumed Wal-Mart leadership position in February 2014
and a range of initiatives introduce by the new CEO include enhancing the
priority for customer services via employee training and development and
increasing wages of floor-level employees and focusing on improving
nutritional aspects of foods. Wal-Mart leadership academy instituted in 2009
aims to accelerate the preparedness of leaders and is modelled after the
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

Wal-Mart organizational structure is highly hierarchical due to the massive

size of the company. In other words, the company employs about 2.2 million
people globally and therefore, there is no alternative organizational structure
for Wal-Mart to ensure effective management of such a large number of
employees. The Board of Directors consists 16 members and it includes two
members of Walton family, as well as, young, but proven business executives
such as Kevin Systrom, CEO and Co-Founder, Instagram and Marissa A.
Mayer President and CEO of Yahoo! Inc.

Wal-Mart organizational structure at the very top executive has a pattern as

illustrated in Figure 3

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Wal-Mart operates on a line of business (or divisional) organizational
structure, which has helped them to move to the top and stay at the top of the
retail division.

The chain of command is going from the top, or CEO, down to the lower level
managers in each department in each store. The accountability is going down
from the lower end managers at each store to the top executive or CEO. The
functional structure would not work for Wal-Mart because it is an organization
structure that is designed for smaller businesses with little to no chain of
command and communication within its company. The Matrix structure “is a
hybrid of divisional and functional structure (Writing, 2014). This particular
structure can create power struggles because there are different managers
working in area with the same level of Authority.

The matrix of Wal-Mart is very important to the structure as it provides

corporate affairs, finance, legal, characteristics, and merchandising and
product development among other things to the structure and corporation.
They have a very strong wide product line that allows them to accommodate
all of the their consumers around the World. The corporation uses
departmentalization when they base the product to stock in their stores on the
geographic area that the store is in; if the store is in a beach community they
stock more beach activity products than a store that is in deserts areas like
Nevada. This can also be identified in the functions within the corporation’s
structure.

The customer base within the Wal-Mart Corporation is a very versatile part of
the corporation. Due to them having stores worldwide, they have many
different cultures and nationalities shopping at their locations for a variety of
things. With this, they have to base their product on their location so that they
can provide for the local consumers and keep them coming back.

Out of all the organizational structures, Wal-Mart would not have gotten where
it is today if they used a functional structure or a matrix structure. Using the
line of business (or divisional) structure has very profitable for the Wal-Mart
Corporation. It has allowed them to divert power among the different store
managers and district managers and to build and maintain a customer based
that is devoted to them.

Providing a diversity of products, geographic locations, departments within the

store, and the advancements of the “superstore” they have enabled
themselves to be power king in the retail industry. The many organizational
functions within the Corporation, such as marketing, finance, human
resources, and operations has allowed them to form a positive line of
business structure.

The geographic, functional, customer based, product, service, matrix,

marketing, and departmentalization of the organizational design has helped to
determine that the line of business (or divisional) structure is the best-suited
organization structure for the Wal-Mart Corporation.

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With regards to agility segment of the 4A Model, which evaluates an
organization’s ability to be responsive and nimble with their strategy to drive
performance, as part of an effort to make the world’s largest retailer more
agile, Wal-Mart Labs has been working behind the scenes to define a micro
services architecture that leverages a two-year effort to change the
organization’s approach to DevOps. Now Wal-Mart Labs is looking to share
the fruits of those investments by contributing the core code it uses to
manage DevOps to the open-source community.

In 2013, Wal-Mart acquired a DevOps platform that was developed by a

small startup called OneOps for a specific platform-as-a-service (PaaS)
environment. Since then, the IT teams in Wal-Mart have spent two years
enhancing that software to create a DevOps platform that scales and is both
cloud and programming language neutral, according to Tim Kimmet, vice
president of platform and systems for Wal-Mart Labs.

Kimmet says that Wal-Mart Labs has decided to make OneOps an open-
source project to give back to the open-source community it has been relying
on for core technology since 2011. Specifically, the retailer is making use of
open-source technologies such as Node.js and Cassandra databases to
make it possible to construct various applications using thousands of micro
services that can be dynamically invoked using well-defined application
programming interfaces (APIs).

The strategic goal is to make it easier for application developers working in

all Walmart's business units to own their own applications in a way that
ultimately reduces their dependency on a centralized IT organization. Within
Wal-Mart Labs, the team that Kimmet manages is specifically tasked with
managing the software lifecycle and monitoring those applications to ensure
their optimal performance, while the developers themselves manage the
deployment and ongoing upgrades to those applications.

“We have a motto that says 'if you built it, you own it,'” he says. “OneOps
gave us a solid foundation to accomplish that goal.”

In effect, Wal-Mart Labs is embracing micro services to drive the adoption of

a continuous deployment methodology across the entire organization. In
fact, the organization reports that some 3,000 engineers are using OneOps
to drive 30,000 changes per month to Wal-Mart software.

A Significant Increase in Business Agility

Wal-Mart is hardly the only company to aggressively embrace open-source
software to transform how it manages IT, but it certainly is among the
largest. While that effort may require the retailer to devote more resources
to developing and refining open-source software, Kimmet says the end
result is a significant increase in business agility that derives from the ability
of developers to extend the backend e-commerce services that Wal-Mart
has spent years developing in multiple new directions.

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Hose new applications, which span everything from mobile devices to the
Internet of things (IoT), are crucial weapons in a global e-commerce contest
that pits Wal-Mart against the likes of Amazon and Alibaba, as well as a
host of other rivals that are emerging as the cost of entry into the online
retail sector continues to decline in the age of the API economy.

In fact, Wal-Mart just predicted that its sales growth for this year would only
be in the range of 2 to 3 percent, rather than the 5 percent it previously
forecast. Since then, the company’s stock has been taking a pounding on
Wall Street, wiping out millions of dollars in valuation.

To rectify that problem, Wal-Mart plans to open hundreds more of its

smaller stores in additional locations, and it's investing $1.2 billion to $1.5
billion on e-commerce and digital projects next year—up from about $1
billion in the current fiscal year. In addition, Wal-Mart reports that Internet
sales will amount to about $12.5 billion worldwide this year, and it expects
those sales to rise roughly 25 percent the following year. After that, the
company is forecasting that online sales growth should average 30 to 40
percent through fiscal 2018.

Making Progress, but Playing Catch-Up

Judith Hurwitz, president of the IT consulting firm Hurwitz and Associates,
says Wal-Mart clearly underestimated the impact that rivals such as
Amazon would have on its sales. “From day-one, Amazon was investing in
IT systems to take on Wal-Mart,” she points out. “They were not just
thinking about books.”

In the last few years, Hurwitz says, the company has made a lot of progress
in terms of providing an improved customer experience that spans both their
online and retail outlets. But overall, she adds, Wal-Mart continues to play
catch-up.

Much like many IT organizations these days, a core part of the Wal-Mart IT
strategy is to hire lots of engineering talent to build new applications using
open-source software. But Scott Crawford, an industry analyst with 451
Research, notes that open-source software cuts both ways in terms of
benefits and costs.

“With open-source software, you can lower your costs and gain more
visibility into the code,” says Crawford. “But support can be a challenge in
the sense of finding a fix to a particular issue because there isn't one vendor
throat to choke.”

Regardless of how the company goes about becoming more agile from a
technology perspective, IT organizations across the board would be well-
advised to pay close attention to how the retailer’s IT strategy is evolving.
As a company that generates billions of dollars in annual sales, Wal-Mart
has an impact on almost every part of the economy in one form or another.

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So, when Wal-Mart changes the way its applications interact with its
backend systems, it’s only a matter of time before every organization that
does business with the retailer will be required to follow suit.

5.0. CONCLUSION

In evaluating Wal-Mart and developing its strategic execution plan, I came

across three main findings when looking at how the formulation, analysis and
implementation all come together. All three support the hypothesis that these
three steps are crucial for Wal-Mart to maintain its valuable competitive
position: Increasing focus on customer services, Improving groceries, and
Enhancing the flexibility of the shopping experience, greater investment talent
management, stronger internal alignment and simplification and clarity around
organizational architecture and agility.

In the formulation of my strategic execution plan, in the Business Model

Canvas that some of Wal-Mart’s most important key resources are Vendor
Relationships, Distribution systems, Highly Skilled Management and
Purchasing and Procurement. In the key activities section, those listed are
Inventory Management Systems, Vendor Control Negotiations, Supply Chain
Management Approach, and Shrink Management. It is very critical that
alignment on these activities is very key to maintain their valuable competitive
position.

In the analysis of my plan, I hypothesized that a heavier investment in

information technology and talent would be instrumental in Wal-Mart
maintaining its valuable competitive position, and what I found was that this
hypothesis passed a series of tests validating it and that made it clear that in
order to scale, execute, remain defensible and deliver value, investing in
information technology and talent are non- starters when it comes to growth
and success of the organization. With the hypothesis that investment needs to
happen in the realms of information technology and talent, Wal-Mart needs to
make it simple to achieve that.

While evaluating the implementation of my plan, the geographic, functional,

customer based, product, service, matrix, marketing, and departmentalization
of the organizational design has helped to determine that the line of business
(or divisional) structure is the best suited organization structure for the Wal-
Mart Corporation and it must continue to be so.

In summary, the strategic plan should be to simplify the architecture of the

organization and double down on investments information technology and
talent management. This will allow Wal-Mart to remain defensible and kingpin
in an increasingly competitive market and continue to deliver value to its
users.

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6.0. ADDENDUM OF EXHIBITS AND CITATIONS

6.1. Addendum of exhibits with data, charts, and graphs.

Figure 1. Comparison of the top 5 retailers in the world in 2018

Wal- Carrefour Costco Tesco Amazon.com

Mart

Revenue (in US$ 500.343 94.760 126.172 62.433 177.866

billions)

Locations 11,718 12,300 746 6,809 80

Countries served 28 35 11 9 14

Employees 2.3 378,923 239,000 460,000 566,000

million
Source: The respective companies’ financial reports (Wal-Mart reports its revenue for 2018, but most of
its financial year is in 2017, so we compare the company’s 2018 data with other businesses’ 2017 data.)
Available at: https://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/walmart-
swot-analysis.html.

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Figure 2: Source: http://www.larrykeiter.com/site/wp-
content/uploads/2015/12/WalMart_Alignment_Mission.jpg.

Figure 3

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One step down the hierarchy form the above, Wal-Mart executive team
comprises 29 senior managers for the following roles:
1. Executive Vice President and Treasurer
2. Executive Vice President, Softlines and General Merchandise, Wal-Mart
U.S.
3. Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs
4. Chief Operating Officer, Global ecommerce
5. Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
6. Chief Merchandising Officer, Wal-Mart U.S.
7. Executive Vice President, Global People Division
8. Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Wal-Mart U.S.
9. Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer
10. Executive Vice President, Operations, Sam’s Club
11. Executive Vice President-Merchandising, Sam’s Club
12. Executive Vice President, Global Governance and Corporate Secretary
13. Executive Vice President, Consumables and Health and Wellness and
U.S. Manufacturing Lead
14. Executive Vice President, Merchandising Operations, Wal-Mart U.S.
15. President and CEO, Samsclub.com
16. Executive Vice President, Global Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer
17. President and CEO, Walmart.com
18. Chief Operating Officer, Wal-Mart U.S.
19. Executive Vice President, Supercenters – Wal-Mart U.S.
20. Executive Vice President, Neighborhood Markets – Wal-Mart U.S.
21. Chief Administrative Officer – Wal-Mart International; President and
CEO, Wal-Mart Asia
22. Executive Vice President, Food, Wal-Mart U.S.
23. Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
24. Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Wal-Mart U.S.
25. Executive Vice President, International People Division
26. Executive Vice President, Logistics, Wal-Mart U.S.
27. Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer
28. Senior Vice President and Controller
29. Executive Vice President, Global Sourcing

Lastly, on operational level, Wal-Mart organizational structure can be

illustrated in the following manner Figure 4:

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Figure 4. Wal-Mart organizational structure at operational level (source: https://research-
methodology.net/walmart-leadership-and-walmart-organizational-structure/)

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Annex 1: Company Background

Key Facts
Name Wal-Mart Inc.
Founded July 2, 1962

Logo

Industries served Retail

Geographic areas
Worldwide (11,718 stores in 28 countries)
served
Headquarters Bentonville, Arkansas, U.S.
Current CEO C. Douglas McMillon
500.343 billion (2018) 2.98% increase
Revenue (US$)
over 485.873 billion (2017)
9.862 billion (2018) 27.7% decrease over
Profit (US$)
13.643 billion (2017)
Employees 2.3 million (2017)
Alibaba Group Holding Limited,
Amazon.com, Inc., Costco Wholesale
Corporation, Dollar General Corporation,
Main Competitors Dollar Tree, Inc., Kohl's Corporation,
Macy's, Inc., Sears Holdings Corporation,
Target Corporation and many other
retailers/wholesale companies.
https://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/walmart-
swot-analysis.html.

Annex 2: 4A Module
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Alignment Agility

Talent Architecture

6.2. CITATIONS

1.0. https://www.slideshare.net/giantepedino/strategy-implementation-wal-mart-
case?from_action=save. Internet Accessed on 27/12/2018.
2.0. http://panmore.com/walmart-swot-analysis-recommendations-case-study.
Internet Accessed on 27/12/2018.
3.0. https://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/walmart-swot-
analysis.html. Internet Accessed on 27/12/2018.
4.0. https://research-methodology.net/walmart-business-strategy/. Internet
Accessed on 27/12/2018.
5.0. Strategic Management An in depth analysis of Wal-Mart and its global strategic
management and electronic distribution Analysis for Business Policy: Strategic
Management. Instructor: Dr. M. Reitzel, DeVry University, February 2007, Austin, TX.
6.0. https://research-methodology.net/walmart-stores-inc-report-2/. Internet
Accessed on 27/12/2018.
7.0. https://www.businessinsider.com/wal-marts-new-strategy-2015-2? Internet
Accessed on 27/12/2018.
8.0. http://www.argylejournal.com/chief-human-resources-officer/walmart-talent-
acquisition/. Internet Accessed on 27/12/2018.
9.0. https://research-methodology.net/walmart-leadership-and-walmart-
organizational-structure/. Internet Accessed on 30/12/2018.
10.0. https://lawaspect.com/organizational-structure-walmart/. Internet Accessed on
30/12/2018.
11.0. http://www.baselinemag.com/enterprise-apps/walmart-embraces-
microservices-to-get-more-agile.html. Internet Accessed on 30/12/2018.

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