ABOUT WAL MART

WAL MART

Wal Mart is the US-based largest retail company in the world. It was establish in 1962 by a businessman from Arkansas, Sam Walton. Wal Mart headquarter is located in Bentonville, Arkansas and now it has 4,263 stores internationally operate and 660,000 workers in 15 countries outside the United States, with 55 different names. There are wholly owned operations in Argentina, Brazil, Canada,and the UK. With 2.1 million employees worldwide, the company is the largest private employer in the US and Mexico, and one of the largest in Canada. In the financial year 2010, Wal-Mart's international division sales were $100 billion, or 24.7% of total sales. Through its online retail (www.walmart.com), we can go through their 12 divisions, encompasses;

· Electronics and Offices

· Movies, Music & Books

· Home, Furniture & Outdoor

· Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry

· Baby & Kids

· Toys & Video Games

· Sports & Fitness

· Auto & Home Improvement

· Photo

· Crafts & Party Supplies

· Pharmacy, Health & Beauty

· Grocery & Pets

Wal Mart has three different retail formats, that consists of Discount stores, Super centers, and Neighborhood Markets. They also open "Supermercado de Wal-Mart" locations to appeal to Hispanic communities in the United States.

Wal-Mart and more than 100 of its suppliers are engaged in a great experiment. They use RFID to manage the supply chain more efficiently, reducing out-of-stock occurrences, combating counterfeit products and keeping point-of-sale prices low.

WAL MART LOGO

Supply chain of Wal Mart consists of customer, planning, purchasing, inventory and distribution. The customer starts the chain when they decide to purchase a product that has been offered for sale by a Wal Mart. The customer contacts the sales department of the company, which enters the sales order for a specific quantity to be delivered on a specific date. In their store, Wal Mart also use information system like barcode, to know how many and what products are demanding. The requirement triggered by the customer’s sales order will be combined with other orders. The planning department will create an order plan to have enough supply the products to fulfill the customer’s demand or orders. The purchasing department receives a list of goods required by the planning department to complete the customer’s orders. The purchasing department sends purchase orders to selected suppliers to deliver the necessary supply of goods on the required date. The orders are received from the suppliers, checked for quality and accuracy and moved into the warehouse. The supplier will then send an invoice to the company for the items they delivered. The goods are stored until they are required by the distribution department. the shipping department determines the most efficient method to ship the products so that they are delivered on or before the date specified by the customer. When the goods are received by the customer, the company will send an invoice for the delivered products.

Those elements are important in managing Wal Mart’s business system. As the largest retail company, Wal Mart should have had an excellent management system to manage their forecasting, inventory level and the lean system. Here we go through each one of them.