Wal-Mart: Runs Our Society

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Wal-Mart: runs our society |

Case 1 |

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Adam A Diaz |

2/27/2012 |

University of Houston Downtown

Everyone wants to save money, live better, who wouldn’t? Wal-Mart’s slogan is one of the shortest and catchy statements out there; it is simple and to the point. Yet, not everything in the Arkansas’s biggest company is that simple and clear. Wal-Mart claims that they have low prices every day. Nonetheless, are they really saving their customers money? In the past Wal-Mart has been highly criticized by almost every stakeholder possible: suppliers, customers, employees, communities, environmentalists and even society in general. Due to these scandals, Walt Mart has tried to regain stakeholders’ trust and keep being the giant of retailing.

“Wal-Mart claims that it is committed to improving the standard of living for their customers throughout the world” (Drever, 2009, p.293) .Wal-Mart’s first stakeholder priority has to be customers; their new campaigns are targeted at middle class and lower class. “People living in households with incomes of less than $30,000 a year give Wal-Mart most need low prices the most” (Drever, 2009, p. 294). According to Professor Gil their strategic corporate advantage is low prices due to their excellent inventory management that saves time to managers and employees, they always have full stockroom and their suppliers know when to deliver (Drever, 2009, p.294-95 ). During the major recession occurred in 2008, they changed their logo to a fresher design and changed their slogan to save money, live better, at that time people wanted to save money as much as possible. Many people that criticized in the past put their opinions aside and went to the store or had to go to store due to the major unemployment and layoffs around the country. Their second’s stakeholder priority is not clear but I would say its environmental stakeholders. They have also greatly emphasized in going green. For instance: the stores use better lights...