Week 2-strategic plannning: Walmart being socially irresponsible

Walmart (strategy to beating competitors)

At some point Sam Walton made the decision to achieve higher sales volumes by keeping sales prices lower than his competitors by reducing his profit margin. By 1970, he had eleven Walton's stores Inspired by the successes of other discount department store chains, Walton opened the first store in his own discount chain in Rogers, Arkansas that year. Responsible for the purchase and maintenance of signage, Walton's assistant, Bob Bogle, came up with the name "Wal-Mart" for the new chain. By 1967, the company grew to 24 stores across the state of Arkansas, and had reached $12.6 million in sales, and by 1968, the company opened its first stores outside of Arkansas in Sikeston, Missouri and Claremore, Oklahoma.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Walmart being socially irresponsible

Wal-Mart Tops List of Most and Least Socially Responsible Companies. When asked unaided which companies come to mind as the most socially or environmentally responsible companies, 7 percent of Americans named Wal-Mart, followed by Johnson & Johnson (6%), Procter & Gamble (4%), GE (4%) and Whole Foods (3%). Wal-Mart also topped the list of the least responsible companies (9%), along with Exxon Mobile (9%), GM (3%) and Ford (3%), Shell (2%) and McDonald's (2%). Interestingly, 41% of Americans could not name a single company that they consider the most socially and environmentally responsible.

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walmart

Over the last decade or so Wal-Mart has become involved in thousands of lawsuits for a variety of reasons. The majority of the suits are class action lawsuits in which employees are suing for unpaid wages. They have also run into many discrimination cases in which employees are suing for being profiled out of money or out of jobs. For instance, there were two separate cases, one in 2004 and one in 2005 in which African Americans were suing two different Wal-Marts for denying them jobs based on race. These became so popular that the reverend Jesse Jackson spoke during both of the proceedings. There are also many lawsuits in which women are suing Wal-Mart for discriminating against them. In one article written in 2004 USA today mentioned 32 different lawsuits that involved women suing Wal-Mart. All of this has not affected Wal-Mart financially however, according to Fortune 500, Wal-Mart still had $351 billion in revenue ($11 billion in profit) in 2007, a new high for the corporation.