The Vision Mission Values Management Essay

The Vision Mission Values Management Essay From the very beginning Sam Walton used the strategy still used by the corporation he founded; a wide variety of low priced goods, more availability by later store hours, buying goods in large quantities from the lowest priced wholesaler and passing on the savings to his customers. With low prices came large sales volume and that allowed him to purchase even cheaper goods from his suppliers. Sam Walton had great distribution methods as well. He built his stores near distribution centers so that items could be delivered quickly, usually within 24 hours. Sam Walton was more than Everyday Low Prices and distribution that catapulted the company to the top. Show More Show Less Walmarts mission today is still, save money, live better this sums up their primary goal, and gives a clue as to who the target market could be. Walmarts intention is to provide the lowest prices. Their customer base is the low income, and lower middle class that seek low prices. Walmart is found in almost every city in the United States, and more specifically in rural and suburban areas. Walmart uses alot of research to locate areas to open new stores, and even more to know what to stock them with. Its difficult to discuss, Vision, Mission and Values without understanding with clarity what the 3 stand for. Vision: The difference that the business wants to make. What will make it better than the rest of the other companies. Mission: How do we plan on carrying this work out; this is the way we plan to do things. Values: This is the nitty gritty; the walk to the talk. The Wal-Mart Vision statement states that The vision of the Global Ethics Office is to support ownership of Wal-Marts ethical culture to all stakeholders globally. Since the first store opened 50 years ago, the store has worked toward making a difference in people lives. The Founder of the company, Sam Walton believed that the service his customers received was very important. Sam Walton shared his vision with his employees and made them accountable for the way his first stores were operated; and later his other stores as well. Mr. Walton assigned greeters at the store entrances, and had them learn customers names. He lowered prices, and was committed to his customers even when his competitors thought that was a sure way to fail. Walmarts Mission is to improve the life of the community they serve through opportunities in employment, volunteer opportunities of its employees, cash or grants, its mission is to improve and help the people of the communities they are in. Globally, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation gave more than $958 million in cash and in-kind contributions during fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2012.( Walmart Foundation). Three basic Values guide Wal-Mart employees: Respect for the Individual, is about valuing workplace diversity, everyone is a valued employee, and co-worker. Customers are greeted, and treated with respect. Sam Walton believed in creating an environment that is open and inclusive of all personnel and customers; and treating all people respectfully. In 2012 WalMart operates stores in 27 countries and under 69 different names. Service to Customers. Customer service comes before and after a sale; that includes prices that are affordable, and lower than competitors, and finally, Strive for Excellence; excellence doesnt mean being perfect. Striving for Excellence does mean doing the best job in all that you do, and to do it over and over again, as many times as it takes to get it right. Organization Business: Products and Services Traded on the New York Stock Exchange, Walmart is a corporation. The official name of the company is Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (http://www.walmart.com/catalog/catalog.) Wal-Mart sells everything! Walmart Supercenters are warehouse size buildings, with sizes varying from 98,000 to 261,000 square feet, with an average of about 197,000 square feet (Walmart Annual Report, 2012) These stores stock everything: its a full-service supermarket with a meat dept., bakery, delicatessen, frozen foods, dairy products, produce, seafood and pharmacy; electronics, automotive, houseware, cosmetics, toys, garden centers, one hour photo processing lab; additionally some have fuel pumps in the parking lot. Some Walmarts are equipped with automotive service departments, garden centers, optical center, portrait studio, and numerous alcove shops, such as cellular phone stores, hair and nail salons, local bank branches, and fast food outlets, in the El Paso stores it is Mc Donalds (Longo, 2007) Products, Services and Initiatives requiring HR support. When Sam Walton opened the door in 1962 to the first Walmart, it was operated under a 3 basic belief code: respect for the individual, service to the customer and striving for excellence. Things havent changed much, the Walmart corporation still uses these vvalues; and continues to improve on them; always looking to improve the service to their customers and each other on a daily basis (http://careers.walmart.com/company-beliefs-and-values/). Walmarts open door policy, and open communication is what is credited with the success that Walmart has experienced when dealing with its 2.2 million associates and customer needs (http://careers.walmart.com/hr-benefits ) Walmart employees know they can openly discuss concerns with the management team. Wal-Mart Stores, with 2.2 million employees, tops the first published list of the worlds 500 largest corporate employers (http://www.myglobalcareer.com/). The Human Resource department at Walmart uses the strategy of fitting the employee to the best suitable job to fit the associates cognitive ability, and interests. (Chuck Russell, 2003). Its very important that they hire the best suited person for the job as mistakes can cost large sums of money! According to Dr. Pierre Mornell, if you make a mistake in hiring, and recognize and fix the mistake within six months, the cost of replacing that employee is two and one-half times the persons annual salary. ( Mornell, 2003). Training and development doesnt stop when the associate is hired, it isnt a one time thing, it continues on during the career of the associate, its meant to improve and empower the employee during his service at Walmart. Employees are told the history about the making of Walmart, and shows the roles and responsibilities of the employee, and those of support staff. After the initial orientation every department has its own training to strengthen the individual strengths, and chart career paths. All these initiatives are aimed at making employees stay within the organization more favorable. This empowers the employees and gives them the incentive to remain within the company. (Sullivan and Zaino, 2005). Walmart offers many training and development opportunities.It isnt unusual for a company to train an employee upon hiring, and nevr retrain, or continue to train an employee; but that isnt the case at Walmart. Walmart considers training as part of their regular work environment, this company invests a lot of time in maintaing a ongoing training program for employees. The purpose of the continuous training is to assist associates in maintaining, and or obtaining the needed skills to prepare for climbing the corporate ladder. Walmart likes to hire from within the company, as they like people already educated in their corporate culture. Leaders Out in Front is what Walmart calls the program that places the associate in charge of their own portfolio. This program also places the training in the first line of contact with the associates, the Assistant managers, Market manager, Store managers, and Co-managers, it is believed in the Walmart culture that associates having training with the first line of contact they are continuously training, and strengthening their skills. In 2007, Walmart started a program called Stores of Learning. In this program they use virtual classrooms to show chosen employees about the most effective methods of service delivery. Training and development isnt a only new employee training, its an ongoing event at Walmart. Its a very important part of an associates life (Career Development, 2010). Walmart uses skill assessments to determine, and improve their employee labor, and knowledge of their job skills. The company has instituted a program known as the Associate Investment model where supervisors evaluate employee competencies. This methods of employee assessment is particularly accurate owing to the fact that it allows the assessment of the evaluation process. This means that in case evaluation was done poorly, the company can detect it and makes their employees more prepared for future eventualities. (King, 2006) The company vigorously trains the employees, this helps Walmart to know that the employee is well trained in his job function and knows all the components of his job. Part one of the process is called on boarding. Since the employee must know his job, and all job functions, this can also be called the information phase. The next step is called the fundamental track phase. During this phase the employee is expected to know and understand the responsibilities associated within the scope of his job. Walmart hopes that this information helps the employee to better understand the function of his job and well as build a foundation from which to grow. The third phase of the program is called advanced track phase. In this area employees are taught how to plan their careers. For Walmart this is the portion of the training that guarantees that employees are aware, and knowledgeable in all the steps needed to prepare them for them to get to become promotable, and, or transferable to different positions within the company. Associates are urged to assess their own skills, and opportunities within Walmart,and to guage if they are tracking with the needed job criteria. The above program instructs employees on resume writing, interviewing skills, career planning, and being pro-active in seeking job opportunities within the company. Sam Walton liked to promote people within the Walmart family before seeking outside candidate, and today the same idea still functions within the Walmart culture, promote from within! The training, available through the Human Resource Department is meant to have a readily available pool of talent from the employees. Walmarts executives believe that while other retailers outsource a large part of their production process, Walmart wants to keep talent from within their company to fill vacancies as they arise. The fact that the company has leadership programs for their managers, supervisors, and line staff is proof that they are commited to assisting the employee develop, grow, and remain productive within the Walmart family. The companys Vice presidents feel that the people who have paid their dues, done the job, and prepared should be the ones getting the promotions within the company (Marquez, 2005). It is estimated that the human resource department at Walmart spends a large amount of time in the training, and maintaining, as well as preparing employees to embrace the best opportunity that comes their way. Since Walmart is worldwide they also believe that they are successful because of the consistent manner in which the associates are trained worldwide. Walmarts Human Resource Department has been working on preparing employees to work worldwide, in any environment by preparing them with the correct language, customs, and corporate requirements need to be a success in that area. Because Walmart wants to keep its competitive edge always sharp they also spend thousands of dollars in training their Human Resource Department in the latest hiring, and training practices in any country where they operate. The Walmart corporation does not consider training for any employee to be just an internal issue. They educate themselves in what other companies are doing to make them successful.(Walmart, 2008) Organization Markets Save Money. Live Better. This is the core of what Walmarts Marketing department uses to communicate to its customers every day. The yellow, happy smiling face is what Walmart uses to tell people about its lower prices. Marketing communication is a very important function of marketing. The product and services offered at Walmart would mean nothing if it werent communicating it through various media: collateral, advertisements, internet, packaging, printed media, displays, and logos to name a few. The ultimate goal of marketing communications is to make sure that the shopping population thinks of Walmart as the best place to shop, the place where they will save money, and have a better life because of it. ( more here)..> Organizational Core Competancies A core competency simply stated is what a company does best. For Wal-Mart that means lowering its operating costs, selling at a low price and still making a profit. Wal-Mart is a company that has taken what it does best, which is to deliver products at the lowest possible price, and incorporates it into their vision Low prices. Live better, and made it its competitive edge. Walmarts culture of hiring hardworking, and diligent, customer service oriented employees has paid off for the company. The founder, Sam Walton called his employees associates, and treated them like partners; thus making them feel like they were valued and wanted. Walton belied in his associates input, and valued what they had to say about improvements, and how to make the store better: additionally, he wanted his customers to know that no matter where his store was the customer would always receive the lowest prices and top notch customer service. . Low Cost Operations. Wal-Mart focus has always been on small rural towns. In 1962, the first store was in Rogers, Arkansas, and even then it cut prices so low, and drew customers away from its competitors; the trend to do the same has continued throughout the last 50 years; and in fact this is their mission statement in practice. As the US economy goes into slumps people look for lower, better prices, and Walmart has always been there to rescue the bargain shopper. Â   Distribution. Walmart has a total of 42 regional distribution centers, and 1 transportation office in every one. Each distribution center is over one million square feet. The distribution centers handle a total of about 6,500 tractors with 55,000 trailers. These vehicles moved more than 5.5 billion cases of merchandise last year. There are also specific distribution centers for Sams clubs as well for groceries, jewelry, pharmaceuticals. The Walmart online also have their own distribution centers. They are all located within a 250 mile radius of the stores they service, and most are open 24/7. The trucks deliver their loads, and most return within the same day, to start the process again the next day.( http://careers.walmart.com/distribution-and-transportation-opportunities) Strategic Planning for Organization and H.R. involvement. Charles Holley, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. executive vice president and CFO stated at the shareholders meeting in November, 2011. Our business model is built on our promise that Walmart customers can count on us to deliver low prices every day across a broad assortment, Holley explained. This in turn leads to customer loyalty and higher sales. These growth and leverage initiatives will contribute to our strong earnings growth. (Edgell Communications, 2011) In May, 2011, Wal-Mart President and CEO Mike Duke told its share holders that the next step for Walmart was to expand globally and market to the next generation customer. He also outlined a five-point program at the shareholders annual meeting that would help sell more products online and abroad, but keep cost down. Hoping to tap into those that carry smart phones and spend time on social media , his 5 point priority plan includes: Growth by adding customers, opening new stores and acquiring other retailers. Keeping costs low and passing the savings to customers. Building a global Internet business. Developing talent, including a greater focus on women and minorities. Expanding the company sustainability effort Organizational Development and Change Initiatives Organizational Assesment Processes Human Capital Assesment Processes Training, Development and education Management and Leadership Supervisory Team Building Sales and Marketing Customer Service Safety, Quality and Technical Career Management and Development Programs Succession Planning Performance Management Restructuring of the Organization Job Enlargement, Job Enrichment Personnel Services Payroll HRIS/ HRIM Compensation and Benefits and Pay for Performance Evidence Legal Services : How Provided Other Services by Function: Financial Budgets and Contro;, Bonus systems, etc.