Business Process of Wal-Mart the Major Retail organization in the US - Case Study Example

Running head: Business Process analysis and measurement Business Process Analysis and Measurement: Wal-Mart Affiliation August 28, 2009 Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Abstract 3 Wal-Mart 3 A-Performance 4 B- Stakeholders 6 Market stakeholders 7 The Employees 7 The Stockholders 8 Non-Market Stakeholders 8 Labor Unions 9 Politicians 9 C- Performance measurements 10 Conclusion 10 References 11 Abstract This paper presents the detailed analysis of the main processes that the Wal-Mart uses to determine the performance in their daily business. This research will present the detailed overview of the stakeholders of the Wal-Mart. The main reason behind the identification of the stakeholders of the organization is to analyze the effect of them on Wal-Mart business processes. This research will also identify and describe the performance measurements that are used by Wal-Mart business and will describe why these are important to the Wal-Mart business’s success. Wal-Mart Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is the major retail organization in the United States which has been given number one rank on the Fortune 500 Index by Fortune Magazine (Hayden, Lee, McMahon, & Pereira, 2002). The Wal-Marts massive and great size, makes it wields incredible power and economic king. It has driven lesser retailers out of commerce; forced companies to be well-organized, frequently leading these suppliers to move industrial jobs overseas; and changed the methods that up till now large and established organizations were using. Wal-Mart has existence or death decisions over all the customer supplies industries that survive in the US, for the reason that it is the number-one supplier-retailer of the majority of customer goods, they sell not only toys, clothes, and shoes as well as home applications, electronic goods, sporting products, food, bicycles, groceries (Anderson, 2003). Wal-Mart has long been attached in world’s economy. The stores have facilitated customers to carry out most of their shopping in one convenient place, for that reason cutting down the quantity of time needed to carry out our shopping contrasted to going all over city to shop for what customers want on everyday basis. In recent times, people have been arguing whether Wal-Mart is in actual beneficiary or not to the financial system, and regarding the method it delights its employees. One group of such type calls its self the Wal-Mart watch and they are a set of widespread persons that share similar visions on how Wal-Mart is damaging to the economy and how poorly it treats its workers On the other hand there are community who almost beg Wal-Mart to approach to their city or town and construct a Wal-Mart shopping center (Bianco & Zellner, 2003). A- Performance This section is presents the detailed analysis of the main four processes that the Wal-Mart uses to determine process performance in their daily business. The basic and most important intention and Wal-Mart are not direct competitors for the reason of having piercingly diverse customer demographics, with the past reacting towards low income and the later reacting towards stably middle class (Wealth, 2008). Possibly the simplest mode to demonstrate the socioeconomic dissimilarity is to note that Wal-Mart’s monetary services business works something like check cashing, money orders, and money transfers. On the other hand, the intended customers are focused on credit cards. Concluding the above discussion we can say the Wal-Mart and target are not direct competitors for the reason that they are following undoubtedly diverse customer bases (Wealth, 2008). Wal-Mart and Target are selling dissimilar items to different customers; as a result the accomplishment of one retailer does not inevitably rush at the expenditure of the other (Wealth, 2008). As discussed above the Wal-Mart is principally a Grocery Store and pharmacy with a well-built entertainment business, on the other hand, its targets are mainly household goods and clothing retailer. Their present, performance is a sign of how the present monetary slowdown is affecting consumers to regulate their expenditure matters. Wal-Mart’s key to victory is in enduring to develop its powerful businesses and discovering means to hold its fresh customers. Target’s attention should be on pointing itself to flourish when the financial system gets better and discovering ways to diminish the force of the present financial slowdown on earnings (Wealth, 2008). Wal-Mart has obscurity developing as well as applying a procedure that develops the product objects excellence as there are a number of sellers, international manufacturers and corporations concerned. They require applying a set of values that each business wants to hold to using suitable principles that have to be convened throughout the board whether the corporation is a confined business or an overseas business. The majority of the objects flawed products arrive from abroad. The procedure that is able to pay for the occasion to secure this impasse is the process recognized as Six Sigma. This technique is intended to direct procedure dissimilarities that which reason imperfections. The idea of this procedure is to obtain a previously recognized imperfection distinction as well as utilize a step-by-step sequence of proceedings that will effort towards running distinction so as to get rid of the recognized satisfactory defects. The principle behind choosing this process is as Six Sigma has the capability to offer reliability; high-performance as well as worth to the goods Wal-Mart obtained which proffers an enhanced excellence manufactured goods to the customer. The process was initiated by Bill Smith as operational at Motorola in 1986. The procedure was at first outlined like a metric for computing imperfections as well as humanizing excellence which would position priority as well as normalize imperfect procedures for the entire sellers as well as dealers intended for Wal-Mart (Murdock, 2006). Six-Sigma has been consequently booming in developed industry that it has stimulated interested in other businesses similar to banking, insurance, healthcare, telecommunications, marketing, software as well as construction. Luckily, designed for Wal-Mart, this process has not prepared its entrance in the trade commerce. This chance will offer Wal-Mart a enormous chief establishment over their contestants. The obtainable metric procedure that charges a satisfactory altitude of imperfect developed is underneath satisfactory standards (Murdock, 2006).WalMart implemented various well-designed strategies by means of what come into view to be accuracy implementation. Initially they concentrated their record that supplied to the objective of dropping expenses through 6 percent. Next, they acknowledged that their clienteles are facing profound profits cuts of their own as well as recognized that manufactured goods reductions would be apparent as the majority accommodating. They augmented their world class supply data to be familiar with exact goods as well as low-priced values significantly. The consequence was an arrival of novel clients who remunerated for small deals for each client thus creating earnings that surpasses everyone’s potentials (SherTrack , 2009). B- Stakeholders This section is about the assessment of the at least four stakeholders of the Wal-Mart business and analyzing how they influence the business procedures. A stakeholder can be defined as, anyone who has a definite attention, more than possibly acknowledged however perhaps not, in the result or achievement of a project or business. Mainly, stakeholders are people for instance shareholders and creditors, who have money invested in the making an effort. On the other hand, a stakeholder can also be workers or staff of the organization and even family of employees (Black, 2009). In decisive the community associations’ policies of Wal-Mart, there are numerous people as well as groups who have an association in what WalMart performs. These stakeholders can be divided into 2 factions: The market stakeholders Non-market stakeholders The marketplace stakeholders are those collections as well as persons who have a financial association in what the WalMart Corporation performs.  The nonmarket stakeholders are those individuals and groups who contain a non financial association or political link in what way the business takes (Hayden, Lee, McMahon, & Pereira, 2002). Below I will discuss two market stakeholders and two non-market stakeholders. Market stakeholders In this section I will discuss two most important stakeholders of Wal-Mart that are Employees and Market Stockholders. The Employees The employees play an important role in making or breaking an organization. The employees are the main stakeholders in the business of Wal-Mart. As the biggest stores chain of the world, Wal-Mart also has a huge collection of employees. The handling, management and operation management of such huge number of workers is a great job. Wal-Mart employees are biggest stakeholders of the business and have a great influence in the business. The main influence of them on business is regarding the effective handling, management, and controlling the bushiness activities. In case of any problem these employees can crate a huge difficulty for the Wal-Mart business. For handling this Wal-Mart established a better management and handling process for the employees of the Wal-Mart. As a number of the workers can have supply in the business a lot of them have a financial association/stake in the business, immediately for the reason that their work is their main resource of income.  They desired WalMart to perform fine for the reason that then they will remain their employment as well as their supply of earnings.  Their economic returns from WalMart maintain them.  WalMart holds more than 885,000 employees nationally (Hayden, Lee, McMahon, & Pereira, 2002). The Stockholders For the huge chain of stores of the Wal-Mart the Stockholders are also strong stakeholders of the business. The availably of on time stock is done through the better satisfaction of the Stockholders. The Stockholders need to have a strong association with the stores so that they can provide and serve the public effectively. In case of any problem the Stockholders can stop the supply of the products and this can damage the business of the WalMart. The initial group that has a financial association stake in what WalMart performs is its shareholders for the Stock.  These are the individual who really own and contributes to Wal-Mart as well as consequently are motivating in considering a revisit on their outlays.  They expect the worth of their supply will increase as well as they will observe payments.  It is mentioned in the Annual Report of the 2001 that Wal-Mart paid out .24 USD for each share in payment (Hayden, Lee, McMahon, & Pereira, 2002). Non-Market Stakeholders Below I will identify the two most important Non-Market stakeholders, that are labor unions and politicians. Labor Unions In this section I will investigate the Wal-Mart’s policies and actions regarding its associated Labor unions. Wal-Mart stores experienced unionization movement; the corporation sometime ruined the rule by, for instance, eavesdropping on employees, training observations cameras on them and even sometime firing those people who favored labor unions (Heller, 2008). Wal-Mart Stores have approximately more than 1.3 million employees at its almost 4,000 stores in the US, and not any of its employees belongs to a union (Wal-Mart, 2008). Labor-unions also have a strong stake in Wal-Mart that is mostly taken as political stake has a firm strategy concerning not having their employees unionized.  Wal-Mart obtains the place that they are enhanced capable to receive care of their workers as well as offer them by means of the most excellent remuneration and recompense strategies. Wal-Mart does not want the interruption of unions in its business.  In recent times, Wal-Mart was charged through the NLRB or National Labor Relations Board through breaching federal rule through keeping workers from grasping elections as well as combination the Commercial Workers International Union and United Food (Hayden, Lee, McMahon, & Pereira, 2002). Politicians There are several issues that can be raised due to the politicians. Politicians can be against the opening of Wal-Mart store in their regions.  On one hand, it can be excellent for the society.  Although, it is the one side of the picture, on the other side, politicians can depend on Wal-Mart for raising funds.  Final cycle, Wal-Marts political acts group, Wal-Mart supplies business PAC intended for Responsible Government contributed $752,500 to a variety of groups as well as contenders throughout the year 2001 cycle (Hayden, Lee, McMahon, & Pereira, 2002). C- Performance measurements This section will present a deep insight into the four performance measurements for the Wal-Mart. The reason behind these performance measurements is to assess the way in which business can obtain good performance for the Wal-Mart organizations success. Performance measurements comprise numerous procedures and stages for corporate development by the Wal-Mart business policy; they assess the performance measurements for the business of Wal-Mart. The performance assessment for the Wal-Mart business is done through development of a financial report each year. This report is intended to analyze the entire business activities of the year. By using this business report they can analyze the business ups and downs (Wal-Mart, 2008). They have also performance based reviews for the months. There is also a monthly assessment for the Wal-Mart business working and operations (Wal-Mart, 2008). The regular audits are also most important tool for the assessment of the business performance and working at Wal-Mart. Through these reviews they assess the performance of the business for the effective working and performance (Wal-Mart, 2008). Conclusion In this research I have presented a detailed analysis of the determining the processes performance in Wal-Mart daily business. I have discussed the stakeholders of the organization, their impacts on Wal-Mart business processes. I have also outlined the performance measurements that are used by Wal-Mart business and also discussed why these are important to the Wal-Mart business’s success. This research will provide a better insight into the business of the Wal-Mart. References Anderson, J. (2003). Running the gamut at Wal-Mart, Inc..November, pp.92-102. Bianco, A., & Zellner, W. (2003). Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful? . Retrieved August 25, 2009, from BusinessWeek.com: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_40/b3852001_mz001.htm Black, K. (2009). What is a Stakeholder? Retrieved August 27, 2009, from WiseGeek.com: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-stakeholder.htm Hayden, P., Lee, S., McMahon, K., & Pereira, M. (2002, September). Wal-Mart: Staying on Top of the Fortune 500. Retrieved 08 27, 2009, from A Case Study on Wal-Mart Stores Inc.: http://mike-pereira.com/subpage/docs/walmartcs.htm#ivsteakholder Heller, Z. (2008). Wal-Marts Desperate War Against Unionization. Retrieved 08 27, 2009, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zp-heller/wal-marts-desperate-war-a_b_116504.html Murdock, J. (2006, Agust 20). Wal-MartS Performance Improvement Project. Retrieved 08 26, 2009, from Wal-Marts Performance Improvement Project: http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Wal-Marts-Performance-Improvement-Project/102100 SherTrack . (2009). Operational Excellence: Know Thyself with Predictive Modeling. Retrieved 08 27, 2009, from http://www.ngpharma.com/article/Operational-Excellence-Know-Thyself-with-Predictive-Modeling/ Wal-Mart. (2008, August). Wal Mart, citing unionization concerns, warns employees not to vote Democrat. Retrieved 08 27, 2009, from http://weiwentg.blogspot.com/2008/08/wal-mart-citing-unionization-concerns.html Wal-Mart. (2008). Wal-Mart Annual reports. Retrieved 08 27, 2009, from www.walmart.com Wealth, A. (2008). Performance of Wal-Mart vs. Target. 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