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Olsson’s article “Up Against Walt-Mart” is an investigative reporting. Wal-Mart say “We Sell for Less” and “Everyday Low Prices”. Wal-Mart managers push the employees to the limit; they just want to see how much they can get away with without having to hire someone else. The company is the world’s largest retailer, with 4220 billion in sales, and nation’s largest private employer, with 3,372 stores and more than 1 billion hourly workers. Its annual revenues account for 2 percent of America’s entire domestic products.
Walmart’s customer service is quite awful; Walmart’s shopping experience has become chaotic and unpleasant for consumers. The employees appear as if they don’t want to be there. The lack of joy and delight in the store is felt in the atmosphere. The employees have attitude towards the customers and little patience for them. When in need of help finding an item or having trouble about anything; none of the employees seem to be there.
Some people may wonder how, with such low prices, Wal-Mart can sustain such a large profit margin. Well according to Jim Hightower, that answer lies within Wal-Mart’s workforce. Hightower believes that Wal-Mart is tricking its workers into thinking they are, “one big, happy family,” when in reality those workers are being exploited. According to Jim, Wal-Mart is diverting their workers from the actual issues such as, “fair wages, hiring discrimination, or unionization.” This is backed up in the 2004 documentary aired by PBS called, “Is Wal-Mart Good for America?”
Case Analysis: J. C. Penney Company, Inc. Founded by James Cash Penney in 1902, J. C. Penney Company, Inc. has grown into a major mid-tier retailer. Focusing on providing goods and services for middle-income families, Penney’s competes in several segments. Although men’s and women’s apparel accounts for nearly half of all sales, Penney’s has a diverse portfolio including cosmetics, hair salons, home furnishings and appliances (J. C. Penney Company, Inc., 2015). As one of the oldest retailers in America, Penney’s has recently struggled to maintain the loyalty of existing customers while attempting to attract new ones. Historical Background Penney’s faced a hyper-competitive environment following the recession of 2008.
Union Policy A lot of controversy has been raised around Wal-Mart because of the anti-union policy they have in practice throughout their corporation. The anti-union policy that Wal-Mart has in place, does not support the formation of unions, defined as groups created to help people voice their problem that have developed in the workforce, concerning wage, labor and safety laws. Wal-Mart is against the formation of unions and what the unions “fight” for. Some corporations are against unions, and some support them in belief that they workers can constructively change the way they are treated. Sometimes unions turn violent and protest the work force, this may be one reason that Wal-Mart has an anti-union policy.
Because firms in perfect competition produce where price is equal to the minimum average total cost, firms in perfect competition produce at their efficient scale. In the office supply industry, or specifically, office depot, specialize in electronic devices and office products, such as printers, computers, copy paper, and supplies. Office furniture can also be purchased, such as chairs, computer desks, and bookcases. The company is one that offers a variety of services, along with the products that are sold. For example, printing of documents, such as, invitations, brochures, pamphlets, and programs can be ordered through office depot
Buyers have been shopping more online then in the stores, fewer people were in and out of stores during the holiday season, but more were shopping online. Shoppers that shop online have more time to browse around and look for different things in different store than to have to drive to the store and wait in line. Companies are being affected by this like Wal-Mart, they are struggling as Americans spend more cautiously in the uncertain economy. But Amazon.com has improved as shoppers increasingly by online rather than head to stores. The issue is that people are spending more time and money online than in stores, and it is impacting the big stores like Wal-Mart.
The discount department store industry has, over the past decade, undergone several unique changes due to macro-environmental forces. Particularly, the industry has been strongly affected by demographic, economic, socio-cultural, and technological factors. During an interview with Bryan Owens, the owner of the Unclaimed Baggage Center, a destination location that sells the lost contents of baggage from airlines at a discount, one interesting factor that emerged was the change in demographic due to socio-cultural forces. Owens stated, “Because the idea that thrift stores among young people are becoming more and more popular, the demographic has drastically changed”(Owens).
I think Best Buy really needs a new strategy by innovating to cope the competitive threat. The competitive environment is becoming more and more threatening given the increasing number of new players who come in the industry with new strategy to gain significant market shares. The industry has changed and is becoming more innovative with technologies that have nothing to do with the strategy put in place by BestBuy even though the company manages to adapt over time to the market changes and new strategies used by competitors to gain existing as new market share. A competitor like WalMart is not something to neglect in the electronics industry because of its "Everyday low price" slogan that consist to offer products at low cost. Electronic is
Exercise 1:Selection of Organization Prasanthi Parvathaneni Organization Name: Best buy Description: Best buy is an American Multinational Consumer Electronics company, headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota, Unites States. Best Buy was founded by Richard M, Schulze in 1966.The company has operations in the United States, Mexico, Canada, where it has both Online and Physical presence. Best Buy was named "Company of the Year" in 2004 by Forbes magazine. Best buy, relates to distinct business units as follows: • Best Buy retail products:
Economic conditions have always had a large impact on consumer electronics retail sales, namely due to consumer demand. Many of the items that Best Buy sells are considered luxury items; home audio/video, car audio, computers, home theater, video gaming systems, etc. As the economy goes up, or improves, consumers are bringing home more in wages or are feeling more freedom to indulge themselves, thusly the demand for ‘luxuries’ go up. Although luxury item sales are Best Buy’s bread and butter, they can also be their downfall.
1. ROWE appears to have been effective at Best Buy. It worked at Best Buy because the goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours. Besides that, Best Buy did not invent the post-geographic office. The official policy for this post-face-time, location-agnostic way of working is that people are free to work wherever they want, whenever they want, as long as they get their work done. And the company plans to take its clockless campaign to its stores--a high-stakes challenge that no company has tried before in a retail environment.
The article “Labouring the Walmart Way,” author Deenu Parmar talks about how Walmart is able to achieve selling goods at a lower price then any average superstore. The author goes on to explain that Walmart’s antiunion efforts, employee selection, low prices and high retention rate all contribute to their major success. Walmart’s stance on ant unionism allows them to keep wage cost down and keep all their profits up. Not allowing a union keeps Walmart with the power to keep low wages and force unpaid overtime.
‘Is Wal-Mart Good for America?’ On PBS Frontline, May 11, 2015 ‘Is Wal-Mart Good for America?’ is a documentary that examines the relationship between Wal-Mart’s rapid growth and its impact on the US economy ever since it blossomed in trade productivity in the mid 20th century. The documentary, published on February 2014 by PBS Frontline, conveys a deep understanding of how Wal-Mart changed the living standards of many Americans and took consumerism and retail logistics in the U.S. to another level; by cutting costs through offshore outsourcing to China and employing cheap Chinese labor. The documentary focuses on the changing relationship between big retailers and manufacturers and the transition in pricing and decision-making.
In this report, it was indicated that the employees were rude, they shouted at customers, accused customers of thievery, managers avoided customers and the employees went to the extent of scratching customer vehicles. This was retrieved from the online forums where people voice out their experiences and opinions. Websites such as ComplaintsBoard.com, Consumersaffairs.com and Report Your complaint.com also highlight lots of issues involving customer service at Walmart. Slow customer service has also been a challenge to Walmart as per Reuters Report 2011.
