Wal-Mart’s Organizational Structure
Kristy Moore (Mattoon)
Cory Greer
Theresa Evans
Paul Chambers
John Peterson
December 6, 2010
Carolyn Harrison
In 1962, Sam Walton and his wife Helen opened the first Wal-Mart in Rogers, Arkansas. Since then “the number of weekly customers grew to more than 176 million around the world, with 6,779 locations. Wal-Mart had record net sales of $345 billion.”(Wal-Mart,2010). In the following we will discuss the following topics that will help you as the reader understand the organizational structure of Wal-Mart. These topics include what and who is involved in the organizational structure of Wal-Mart, a comparison between Wal-Mart, Toyota and McDonalds, how certain organizational functions such as marketing and finance influence and determine the organizational structure of Wal-Mart and lastly how organizational design such as customer-based products and marketing channels determine what structure best suits the organizations needs.
Wal-Mart Inc. is a chain of large stores, with the majority of them being discount department stores. As said before founded in 1962 by Sam Walton, Wal-Mart is one of the most successful companies with highest revenues. Wal-Mart operates about 20% of all grocery market and consumables in the United States (Hitt & Ireland & Hoskisson, 2009). Wal-Mart productivity is conditioned by the systematic approach to its operations. The four basic areas in Wal-Mart’s organization are Operations, Human Resources, Finance, and Marketing. These areas represent organizational functions and strongly determine organizational structure.
Decisions taking part in each of the functional areas influence the other spheres. Generally, the financial year at Wal-Mart starts from planning sales and production, thus obtaining a result of an annual estimated input for finance. To maintain these planned production and sale levels, the human resource department needs to maintain the necessary productive...