Management Mistakes and Successes, Tenth Edition

Chapter 2. Walmart—A Winner

In March 1992, Sam Walton passed away after a two-year battle with bone cancer. Perhaps the most admired businessman of his era, he had founded Walmart Stores with the concept of discount stores in small towns. He brought the concept to the lofty stature of the biggest retailer in the United States, and then the world—ahead of the decades-long leaders, Sears and JCPenney—and in 1990, pushed ahead of an earlier great discount-store success, Kmart.

Walton's successors continued his legacy well. By the end of fiscal 1998, Walmart's sales of $137.6 billion made it one of the largest corporations in the world; by 2002 sales were $217.8 billion, and it had knocked ExxonMobil out of first place.

Yet a growing number of people were questioning how Walmart was using its gargantuan power—some seeing it becoming the antithesis of fair competition through questionable practices toward suppliers, competitors, employees, and communities themselves. Was Walmart becoming too big? Would its growth rate ever slow?

INTO THE NEW MILLENNIUM

In 2001 Walmart knocked off ExxonMobil to become the world's biggest firm in revenues, with sales of $217.8 billion to ExxonMobil's $187.5 billion. General Motors's sales were $177.3 billion, and Ford, in fourth place, had sales of $162.4 billion.^[1] Table 2.1 shows selected statistics of operating performance at the beginning and end of the decade 1992–2002. Walmart's former closest retail rivals had been left in the dust by 2002, as can ...