Strategic Audit of Wal-Mart and Kmart Case Study

Strategic Audit of Wal-Mart and Kmart - Case Study Example It was started in the year 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas, by Sam Walton. It took a long way to reach an annual sales turnover of $1 billion. By the year 2002, Wal-Mart became the world's largest retail giant with sales of $218 billions. In the initial days of starting the business, Wal-Mart designed a strategy to build large discount stores in rural areas. Wal-Mart employed the strategy of selling branded products at a very low price. Initially, the management of the firm decided to develop the firm as a one-stop discounted departmental chain store with a vast variety of general merchandise goods to be offered to the customers that too at a low price. The management's initial focus was on its purchase decisions. The firm focused on exploring each and every opportunity that helped in general merchandise goods. The two important products of the entire Wal-Mart product line on which the firm laid a strong emphasis were health products and beauty products. The stores used to maintain a high stock of these products. When the firma became successful in opening more than 279 stores by the end of the year 1979, the next focus was on designing strategies for expanding the firm aggressively. In contrast, to the other retail stores who built ware houses in order to serve the already existing outlets, Wal-Mart used to first build distribution centers and later started stores around the distribution centers. This strategy of Wal-Mart helped the firm in pooling the advertising and distribution overheads. The firm also focused on the transportation time needed for a customer to reach the outlet. The strategy of aggressive expansion turned out to be a big success because Wal-Mart became the largest retailer and discount stores in United States by the end of the year 1991 which had almost 1,573 Wal-Mart outlets in 35 states. Once the firm attained the position of national discount department store chain, it designed its outlets in such a way that they provided a one-stop-shopping to its customers. The outlets were designed to have 40 different departments like apparel, health products, beauty products, toys etc. Wal-Mart was strict on not spending huge amount on special promotions and advertising strategies etc. It rather operated its outlets on a concept of "everyday low prices." It was a belief in every customer that the Wal-Mart stores would provide them with a friendly, clean and a very pleasant experience every time they shop.The year 2001 was a real challenging era not only to the retail industry but also for many other industries. The reason for this being like a year that ended with a worst holiday season i.e end of 2000, energy crisis, the rise in the unemployment factor, the spending of the consumers became sluggish and last but not least - terrorist blasts of the WTO on September11, 2001. Tho ugh the firm became successful in almost every strategy designed, it did not neglect to focus on the external market environment at the same time. The firm strongly believed that their business in the forthcoming year would definitely be affected by the external market environment. The external factors would also influence the financial figures in the firms' balance

Operations management Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Operations management - Coursework Example The culinary department encompasses kitchen affairs while the rest of the departments are self explanatory given the line of duty. The supply department is one of the key departments that carry a lot of significance in having the hotel and restaurant facilities running. A hotel usually has many amenities that keep it going and these include food and drinks, toiletry amenities, bedding, furniture and kitchen cutlery. Depletion of these supplies fluctuates depending on the high and low seasons of customer inflow to the facilities. However, the Olympic Games are a unique scenario that makes a long calling for hotel facilities. Attendance to this colossal sporting event is recorded as one of the largest in the sporting history that closely competes with FIFA World Cup. In such contexts, hotel organizations are keen to ensure quality services to the expected large number of customers. Quality services entail customer satisfaction, employee etiquette and above all reliable delivery of hote l goods and amenities from various supplies that keep the running of the hotel facility alive. Supply is an aspect in the hotel industry that concerns operational management. A relationship between operations management and supply will be discussed in this paper, in addition to the factors considered in reliable hotel supply. These details will be encapsulated with various analyses of the way hotels and restaurants could ensure reliable supply to their respective requirements, and a further analysis of some operational techniques that could be employed to ensure both quality and reliability in supplies broken under various subsections in this paper. Operations Management and Supply: Techniques to be employed by Operations Management Operations management is a management area that deals with planning and product management, procedures, various business services and most importantly, supply chains. This management level, though at the management level on the management hierarchy betwe en strategic and operational levels, is considered to be the epicenter that holds most businesses. Every efficiency and profit realized in most business franchises should be attributed to this management section and especially the personnel in charge. This might be despite the attribution always being to the strategic level of most organizations. In the hotel industries, among other tasks, operations management is also tasked in ensuring reliable hotel amenities supply for the smooth flow of activities in the facility. To do this, several personality traits for the operation manager are vital to ensure efficiency and effectiveness given the delicate environment of hotel activities that revolve on service delivery and employee etiquette. These traits will ensure efficiency in service delivery that would include reliable supply delivery that has the standard quality characters. They could also describe the various techniques that hotels need to undertake in order to ensure quality in supply from suppliers (Stevenson, 2008). The first trait that the operation manager should contain is leadership. This trait might seem a little bit general, but in the real sense, it has more than is defined by the first impression. Leadership entails the authority to spread influence among a team of subordinates and peers in a given context of society, either in work or other general scenarios. Qualities that may be exhibited by prominent leaders include trustworthy,