Walmart company analysis by belton bates

Wal-Mart Company Analysis

By

Belton Bates

Company Overview

Name of Company: Wal-Mart

Type of Company: Retail Chain

Status in the Industry:

Share of the Market 20% of Retail

45% of Toys

Fortune 500 Standing 2nd in 2012, 1st in 2011

Sales (US) $446 Billion

Number of Employees 2.2 Million

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walmart)

Latest Stock Market Quote:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=WMT&ql=1

As one can see, Wal-Mart has gone up in stock from the previous day by .66. Wal-Mart has also been climbing over the past 52 weeks from 57.57-79.50. The company is in good shape.


http://www.macroaxis.com/invest/market/WMT--volatility--WalMart_Stores_Inc

As one can also see, Wal-Mart (which is represented in blue) is performing much better than the rest of the retail market (which is represented in red)


Recent News and Developments:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/wal-mart-ceos-pay-jumps-205428206.html

Recently in the news, Wal-Mart CEO, Mike Duke received a $2.6 million increase in pay. This was due to Wal-Mart’s rising sales despite a nationwide economic slump. Mike Duke has been the Wal-Mart CEO since February 2009, and his base salary was $1.3 million plus possible incentives. To re-ignite its US business, he implemented low prices throughout its stores, and brought back cancelled items that customers desired, which increased Wal-Mart profits.


http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/wal-mart-and-amazon-battle-over-same-day-delivery-and-2-more-dow-movers-to-watch.html/?ref=YF

This article pertains to a new express same day delivery service Wal-Mart has implemented. Amazon.com has also implemented this service, so these two companies are competing for the edge is same day delivery sales. Walmart has an online service, but it’s also a “brick and mortar” store, while Amazon is online only, which might give Walmart the competitive edge. The real question is: Will same day delivery be a functional service? Whoever profits more, will either company be able to fulfill its same day quota?



Scope of the Company:

International 8500 stores in 15 countries

Names in other countries:

Mexico Walmex

UK Asda

Japan Seiyu

India Best Price

Subsidiaries: Sam’s Club

Corporate Officers: Founder Sam Walton

Chairman S. Robson Walton

President/CEO Mike Duke

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walmart

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walmart

Products and Services (Divided into Departments):

Electronics Auto & Tires Apparel Photo CenterBooks Sports/Outdoors Home

Home Improvement Baby SeasonalPatio & Garden Toys Health Pets

Grocery Gifts/Registry BeautyMovies/TV Video Games Party/Occasion

Pharmacy Jewelry

(With all of these departments and products in these departments, Wal-Mart’s target is basically everyone)

http://www.walmart.com/


Innovative Strategies:

“Going Green”- provides efficient energy usage and promotes good press

Business Tactics- Wal-Mart’s “everyday low prices” were built on leveraging economies of scale, low-price Chinese suppliers, advanced satellite-based IT systems for inventory and shelf management, and ‘float’ – paying suppliers in 90 days, while selling their goods within 7.

http://www.slideshare.net/lekshmik/walmart-innovations-case-study

http://timnovate.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/business-model-innovation-at-wal-mart/



LinkedIn Network

Web Analysis 2.0

Blog: “Walmart Moms”

Walmart Moms is a website which features mothers from around the country (and even the world) from different types of backgrounds and nationalities. These women are stay at home mothers, business women, mothers who do arts and crafts, etc. The main page features all of the Walmart Moms and their biographies. If you click on one of the Moms, you will be directed to her personal webpage where you can read her blogs, mostly pertaining to personal experiences, home remedies, and recent situations. In one way or another, the women were able to mention Walmart products to help with their situations.

Walmart has definitely maximized this Web 2.0 tool. The fact that they used the idea of “Walmart Moms”(instead of using a cooperate blog), and having their biographies online makes the consumer relate better, making Walmart feel like the local general store instead of a gigantic cooperation. This gives the consumer a more at home feeling.

http://instoresnow.walmart.com/Community.aspx


http://cutiebootycakes.blogspot.com/

An example of one of the mother’s personal blog


Wiki: Shopwiki.com

Shopwiki.com is used by consumers who try to find the best deals for certain products. Walmart utilizes this Web 2.0 tool by putting their products on the website and coupons so consumers can print them out and use them at Walmart, which increases revenue. One can utilize the wiki by first entering an item a customer is interested in. Afterwards a list of items appear one can scroll through, and what store you can buy it at. On the left you can narrow your search by choosing a specific store to buy from. If Walmart has the item, Walmart will appear on the left menu. There’s also an icon to click next to the product one is interested in that can redirect you to the Walmart website.

Walmart uses this Web 2.0 very efficiently. Its presence is felt and Walmart products are abundant on the website. Compared to how other companies use wikis, it seems that consumers don’t have as much control over adding input compared to other wikis. The control is left more to the retailers.

http://www.shopwiki.com/l/walmart?sb=#!/l/walmart?brand=&site_id=3738


RSS Feeds: My Yahoo

Wal-Mart uses RSS Feeds to promote new products, and give recent news articles relating to Wal-Mart. One can learn about these new products, and get recent news instantly without going to the Wal-Mart personal website or searching the internet. A consumer can receive a Wal-Mart RSS Feed, if RSS Feeds are available on their browser. If not, one can go to an RSS Feed Website like MyYahoo.com for example. First open the Wal-Mart Website and go to the RSS Feed section. You can find the RSS Feed Section by typing RSS Feeds in the Wal-Mart “Search” box. The Wal-Mart website with all of its possible RSS Feeds will appear, and whatever feeds you prefer, you can copy and paste the URL in the appropriate fields, and the RSS Feed will appear on your browser, showing you Wal-Mart news and products. Wal-Mart has RSS Feeds for all of its merchandise, categorized by departments (electronics, housewares, etc.) and also by special deals (clearances, Rollbacks, special buys, new arrivals, etc.)

Wal-Mart, since being a large retail chain has numerous RSS Feeds to choose from, covering all of their products. The feeds are organized so a customer can specify what products they are interested in, which is appealing to customers. Other companies’ feeds can be random and customers have to search harder for the perfect feed to suit them to subscribe to.

http://my.yahoo.com/p/2.html

This is my personal yahoo account; my Wal-Mart RSS Feed is on the top left.


Facebook: facebook.com/walmart

Facebook is a social network used to bring people together online. It is the biggest and most popular social network to date. As of December 2009, Facebook reported that more than 30 million people had signed up. Wal-Mart utilizes Facebook to promote its brand. People can go to the Wal-Mart Facebook page and push the “thumbs up” icon, meaning that person is a fan of Wal-Mart. When the friends of that particular person explore his or her page, they can see that that person “likes” Wal-Mart and they can explore the Wal-Mart page “by way of” their friend’s page. Wal-Mart puts their information, biography, and products on their page to promote their brand. If the friend likes what they see, they also can “like” Wal-Mart and can be potential customers.

Wal-Mart’s presence is felt on Facebook, having at least three different pages to like. One page that sticks out is “People of Wal-Mart,” which a lot of people like. It shows humorous photos of people who shop at Wal-Mart all over the country that dress outrageous, and do crazy things that people happen to catch on their cell phone cameras. This informal page is a strategy used by Wal-Mart to attract clients, which is very innovative compared to other companies.

https://www.facebook.com/WalMartPoeple?ref=ts&fref=ts

This is the “Wal-Mart People’s” fan page. Somebody actually had the audacity to make a cot and fall asleep in a Wal-Mart aisle.


Twitter: twitter.com

Twitter is also a social network which allows people to keep in touch with each other by exchanging short messages of 140 characters or less. Wal-Mart utilizes twitter by sending tweets to the public to promote their brand, to let people know about new products, future sales, and unlike other Web 2.0 tools, speak to the public on a personal level, without a middleman like a news anchor for example. Since Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in the country, they have the right not to be involved in labor unions, and there have been past situations with Wal-Mart and its employees. When these situations became national news, Wal-Mart used Twitter as a platform to speak on those matters, defending their point of view. Twitter gave Wal-Mart access to the nationwide public without fear of a news anchor, or blogger twisting the company’s word around. Wal-Mart uses Twitter on an exceptional level compared to other businesses because of this.

https://twitter.com/

This is my personal twitter page. I chose to follow Wal-Mart, and they sent out a recent tweet on the bottom right corner of the webpage window.


Web 2.0 Concepts and Applications

Folksonomy:

The collective result of what happens when different people individually apply tags to the same online content

Folksonomy can be used by business people in a firm to label information so other people in the firm can easily find the needed data in another department. The other people can also label the information under a different name that a different department in the firm might recognize.

I can label my photos online and send them to my friend. My friend might label it differently that another person might recognize.

Textbook: Web 2.0 Concepts and Applications

Web Conferencing:

A service that allows conferencing events to be shared with remote locations. These are sometimes referred to as webinars

Businesses use this Web 2.0 tool to have meetings with people that are in other parts of the country.

I can use this Web 2.0 tool to talk to my mother who lives in Northern Virginia, and to see my niece while I am still in Norfolk attending school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_conferencing


http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&sa=N&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=927&tbm=isch&tbnid=53-vPprYfPavbM:&imgrefurl=http://www.howstuffworks.com/business-communications/how-to-host-a-web-conference.htm&docid=TelMr3rIjX_38M&imgurl=http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/host-web-conference-1.jpg&w=400&h=267&ei=ghJ7UbbfHq3H4APzhYGgBg&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:9,s:0,i:127&iact=rc&dur=3228&page=1&tbnh=181&tbnw=275&start=0&ndsp=21&tx=10&ty=25

Mashup:

Web applications that combine content from multiple online sources

Companies can use mashups to gain information and promote their products. For example, Wal-Mart can put multiple products they promote on a mashup website, containing APIs from YouTube, Google, etc.

I can use mashups to listen to music from multiple music websites at one time.

http://www.programmableweb.com/tag/photo


Social Bookmarking:

The process by which users share the URLs of their favorite Web sites online, adding tags and additional commentary

Companies can use social bookmarking to save websites that may be beneficial to the company to social bookmarking websites like socialbookmarking.com, and send the link to different departments so they can also be aware of the new content.

I can use social bookmarking to do the same. I can save certain YouTube URLs in socialmarker.com and send them to friends.

http://www.socialmarker.com/


Recommendations

First of all, I would like to say that this pilot course has taught me a lot about how I can utilize the Web and Web 2.0 Concepts. I graduated high school in the year 1999, and the Web has evolved tremendously since my last class concerning the Internet. Facebook, RSS Feeds, mashups, and all other Web 2.0 tools were non-existent. I learned how to utilize the Web to a higher capacity after taking this course, and I will take this newfound knowledge with me into the business world. I was already aware of the social networks like Facebook and Twitter, but the Web 2.0 tools like LinkedIn, Delicious, folksonomy, and other tools were new to me. To be more competitive in the business world, I would recommend utilizing more of the Web 2.0 tools that the average student doesn’t already know about, and to have the students create mashups as future assignments, set up web conferences with the teacher and a group of students, and to have the students send URLs to other students by using the process of social bookmarking.

References

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walmart)














Textbook: Web 2.0 Concepts and Applications




Walmart company analysis by belton bates

Technology

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