Wal-Mart Stores - Essay Example

The company was incorporated On October 31, 1969, as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Sam Walton died in 1992, since then the Company has progressed tremendously, transforming from being just the largest American retailer to securing the top spot as the largest company of the world on Fortune 500 list. (Lichtenstein, N. (2006). Business: The CEO of Wal-Mart U.S. believes that tremendous oppertunitunies are waiting to be seized by growing the Company through setting up Walmart ExpressTM and similar new formats in urban as well as minority areas of the United States of America.

Walmart has a total of 4,700 retail stores in American, making it the America’s largest retailer. Site to Store®, Fed-Ex Site to Store® and Pick up today® are Walmart’s leveraging innovations which ensures shopping flexibility for customers. Walmart offers web services across 15 countries which do not require the physical presence of the store to provide large discount services. The Company aims to organize its web efforts and meanwhile expand the services to many other countries of the world.

The professional leadership of Walmart stores is fully prepared to launch financial plans to strengthen important financial issues regarding growth, returns to shareholders and leverage. Profit: Wal-Mart began as a dream which was nurtured with determination, passion and the desire to expand and resulted in being one of the most successful ventures in the American history. Like always, a strong solid financial performance was delivered by Walmart in the fiscal year 2011.Walmart’s net sales showed an increase of 3.

4 % and therefore the net sales were increased to $419 billion. In addition, the overall operating income increased by 6.4%. Hence, the operating income was increased to $25 billion. The Company’s diluted earnings from continuing operations showed a rise of 12%, thus increasing the diluted earnings to $4.16 per share. The company, through dividends and share repurchases was able to return $19.2 billion to its shareholders. The great results of the fiscal year of 2011, reflects the strong basis of its underlying business and the ability to deliver shareholder value.

The success of Walmart is due to the fact that it strives hard to maintain a momentum in areas of success, while simultaneously work on weak areas to bring a change. Business Environment: Warlmart owns a total 8000 retail stores worldwide whose global sales are approximately $400 billion annually. Wal-Mart team proposed the idea of forming a supercenter in low income community area near Los Angeles in 2004. The idea behind the construction of large discount supercentre in Inglewood was to introduce the Californians with Wal-Mart’s supercentre project.

Due to the consistent efforts of the Walmart team, the Company is the greatest positioned retailer of the world. Wal-Mart Supercenters were first established in the early 1980s and are characterized by a full grocery line and many specialty departments which offer products at large discounts. Thus, accomplishing Wal-Mart’s mission which states: “We save people money, so they can live better.” The company now intends to expand its supercenters and introduce new formats across many countries of the world.

(Fishman, C. (2006). Economy: The 4,700 Wal-Mart departmental stores across America have provided employment to more than 1.3 million individuals. However, the Company is blamed for causing serious economic impacts such as net loss of jobs. Some economists believe that a single