Friday, August 11, 2006

Walmartstores.com

Ever visit walmartstores.com? It's an experience! Here is one of their 'community commitments':
We will adopt a store siting and construction policy that addresses environmental, social, cultural and historical considerations.
Well, I guess that would just be opened to interpretation, right?

How about this one:

"We believe that one of the keys to our success is our people and how we treat them. Simply put, we treat our associates and suppliers with respect."

Does that statement make you want to laugh or cry?

Or the Wal-Mart cheer! Do you know how it originated?
The cheer originated after our founder, Sam Walton, visited a tennis ball factory in Korea where the workers did a company cheer and calisthenics together every morning. He liked the idea and couldn't wait to get back home to try it with his associates.
I'm kinda surprised ole Sam didn't force the calisthenics on his 'associates' too.

How about the 'Sundown Rule'? Basically, ole Sam believed you shouldn't put off til tomorrow what you can do today. I bet that is the basis for Wal-Mart's policy of unpaid work and lock-ins.

Want to know how Wal-Mart gets everyday low prices? It's right there.
The key to our ability to maintain Every Day Low Prices (EDLP) has been our commitment to forge common ground among the hundreds of thousands of people in our company. Our dedication to provide the best possible service to our customers helps drive the Every Day Low Price philosophy. Going beyond the buyers who negotiate lower prices with our suppliers, we all can affect EDLP by controlling our expenses and being cost-conscious in our day-to-day business.
Does this include the company Directors and executives? I wonder how much the Directors are compensated? Oh wait, it's public knowledge, right there on page 9.

$60,000 compensation, 2957 shares of stock worth about $133,000 and 'other compensation'. Not too bad for someone that is already filthy wealthy huh? But they probably have to attend one or two meetings a year.

But that's chump change compared with what the Directors give the 'execs'. Salaries of anywhere from $642,056 to $1,292,308 (click on public knowledge above and see page 23). Of course that doesn't include millions in stock, other annual compensation, other compensation and LTIP payouts. Oh yeah, Wal-Mart is definitely 'cost conscious' where it counts.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Bully Of Bentonville has this to say on page 266 and 267. "Make no mistake, though, Wal-Mart today is a company in crisis. For the first time since Wal-mart's founding in 1962, it can be argued that rhe vaunted business model that Walton created and that first Glass and then Scott applied on a garguantuan scale has broken down and is in need not of repair but of replacement. Judged by return to shareholders-Today's ultimate measure of CEO performance -Scott has been a D+ student at best. From the day he moved up to CEO in January 2000 to the morning of the 2005 annual meeting, the price of a share of Wal-Mart common stock fell from $64.50 to $47.35. This decline of 27 percrent lumped Wal-Mart in with the worst-performing U.S. retail chains over this period and reduced the company's total stock market value (its market capitalization) by $99 billion. While Wal-Mart's stock fell by almost 25 percent over the two-year period ending October 31, Costco's rose by 35 percent and Target's by 40 percent."
Those of you who think Wal-Mart is this strong company-think again.
And for those who think they will be here forever-think again. Yesterday I met someone from Horsheads, N.Y. Wal-Mart went there a few years ago. They lost ALL THEIR BUSINESSES DOWNTOWN. Fifteen businesses went out, and now they have only 5 bar rooms left. And now Wal-Mart is leaving to build a supercenter down the road. They are a crummy company that only cares about their stockholders. And with Scott's poor performance, stockholders can't be very happy.

Anonymous said...

Hey check out todays ADK enterprise...
click on the link:

http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/news/articles.asp?articleID=3667