BY-HARSHIM KAUR GOGIA AMANDEEP SINGH

The companys founder is Sam Walton. He was born in 1918 at Oklahoma. In 1940, he worked for the famous retailer, J C Penney.
By 1969, Walton had established 18 Wal-Mart stores. By late 1970s, the retail chain had established a pharmacy and an auto service center. In 1980s, Wal-Mart continued to grow due to huge customer demands in small towns.

Wal-Mart suffered a setback in 1992, when Walton died. But it continued its growth in the 1990s, focusing on overseas stores.
1992, Mexico (joint venture with Cifra) 1994, Canada (acquired 122 Woolco stores from Woolworth) 1997, Germany (acquired 21 store of Wertkauf) Korea, Brazil, and so on.

This

phenomenal growth of Wal-Mart is attributed to its continued focus on customer needs and reducing cost through efficient supply chain management practices.

In the early 1970s, Wal-Mart became one of the first retailing companies in the world to centralize its distribution system, pioneering the retail hub-andspoke system. Under the system, goods were centrally ordered, assembled at a massive warehouse, known as distribution center (hub), from where they were dispatched to the individual stores (spoke).

The

hub and spoke system enabled Wal-Mart to achieve significant cost advantages by the centralized purchasing of goods in huge quantities..

and distributing them through its own logistics infrastructure to the retail stores spread across the U.S.

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emphasized the need to reduce purchasing costs and offer the best price to the customer.

company directly procured from manufacturers, by passing all intermediaries Wal-Mart finalizes a purchase deal only when it is fully confident that the products being bought is not available else where at a lower price.
The

 Wal-Mart

spends a significant amount of time meeting vendors and understanding their cost structure. making the process transparent, the retailer can be certain that the manufacturers are doing their best to cut down costs.

By

The computer systems of Wal-Mart were connected to those of its suppliers. EDI enabled the suppliers to download purchase orders along with store-to-store sales information relating to their products sold. On receiving information about the sales of various products, the suppliers shipped the required goods to Wal-Marts distribution centers.

 An

important feature of Wal-Marts logistics infrastructure was its fast and responsive transportation system.

The

distribution centers were serviced by more than 3500 company owned trucks Wal-Mart believed that it needed drivers who were committed and dedicated to customer service.
The

company hired only experienced drivers who had driven more than 300,000 accidentfree miles, with no major traffic violation.

To make its distribution process more efficient, WalMart also made use of a logistics technique called cross-docking.

In this system, the finished goods were directly picked up from the manufacturing plant, sorted out and then directly supplied to the customers. The system reduced the handling and storage of finished goods, virtually eliminating the role of the distribution centers and stores.

The manufacturer directly forwarded the goods to a place called the staging area. The goods were packed here according to the orders received from different stores and then directly sent to the respective customers.

Executive Vice President and President and Chief Executive Officer, WalMart International Division since 1999 1995 1999 Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for WalMart Stores, Inc. 1999 CFO Excellence Award from CFO Magazine Prior to joining Wal-Mart, he was President of Ben Franklin Retail Stores, Inc

Sam Walton in 1962 On this picture in 1984 he does the hula at high noon on Wall Street, making good on promise to associates after company achieves pre-tax profit of 8 percent in 1983.