Walmart is an American multinational retail corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, with headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. Walmart is the largest grocery retailer in the World, the world's second largest public corporation, according to the Fortune Global 500 list in 2013, and the biggest private employer in the world with over two million employees.
The company has 8,500 stores in 15 countries, offering job positions to 2.2 million people. The company's revenue is $469 billion, with a net income of $ 16.999 billion. The owners are still the Walton family, with more than half of the company's shares (Walmart).
Company's Philosophy- Type of Orientation.
Walmart is in the business of selling everything customer need in their everyday life; and the success that they have is due to their mix of their orientation. Walmart mix a sales orientation and market orientation (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel).
Sales oriented companies base their ideas that people will buy more goods and services if aggressive sales techniques are used and that high sales result in high profits. On the other hand market oriented companies assume that a sale does not depend on an aggressive sales force but rather on a customer's decision to purchase a product. They try to focus on customer wants and needs so that the organization can distinguish its products from competitors' offerings, to integrate all the organization's activities to satisfy customer wants.
Walmart sells varieties of goods, such as food, TV's, sheets, furniture, and everything that the customer may need. They are continually trying to find different goods to sell to their costumer in order to avoid them to go to their competitors. In addition, Walmart tried a new strategy in Buffalo, New York, by selling used cars, and this is a completely different kind of industry than selling customers goods (Adel).