Wal-Mart is the biggest name in the retail market. Delhi Business School invited Mr. SHAWN. D. SEDERHOLM Vice president (Marketing) WALMART for an interaction with the students. He has been associated with Walmart since 1986 and has a vast experience with Wal-Mart.

Few excerpts from his talk:

The success of retailing is to deliver the goods to customer as per as their requirements. India is the next place to be established on Walmart Success story map in the year 2009. The new concepts of retail formats like Hyper Chains, Super Stores, Chain Stores, Electronics Store have increased the competition a lot. The concepts of retailing depends upon the supply chain management, if you have the proper supply chain management, then the goods provided to the customer at right place , right time and right price creates an impact on the consumers minds and that is what is needed for Walmart to stay firm into the market. The success of the business also depends upon that how a business balance between its Profit Motive and Social Motive, apart from this your Interpersonal Relationship with the employees and suppliers also lays the foundation for the growth of any business. Earlier, the retail was not treated as a separate industry but now with the upcoming deal of Wal-Mart and Bharti the new avenues in the form of Cash and Carry Business Model is going to be introduced in India. Definitely this will create new opportunities in the Indian retail market in terms of GDP, FDI and employment growth and India will emerge as a new retail economy.

The Wal-Mart and Bharti deal has given a new definition of retail format and this deal brings the new implementation of proper supply chain management and some new developments in the retail arena. The philosophy that Wal-Mart believes is that Every one can save so that every one can live better. Wal-Mart was established in the year 1962 in America in a downtown of- Rogers (Which is a suburban city in Benton County, Arkansas, United States) in a one room ground floor shop floor and since its inception it has created a new benchmark in retail market.

It operates in Mexico as Walmex, in the UK as ASDA, and in Japan as Seiyu. It has wholly-owned operations in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the UK.

The strategy that Wal-Mart believes is that employees are the asset of an organization. They believe in employee retention or 360° appraisal policy they also have a policy of internal recruitment wherein a store keeper can reach the level of a manager if he works efficiently and diligently. Wal-Mart has already established its brand equity in the market. It does not believe in changing the brand names of earlier existing entities and that’s why we see lot many existing brands though been taken up by Wal-Mart have not changed their names.

Wal-Mart also has the largest fleet of trucks in the world and that is what comprises of the largest Supply Chain Management system ad helps it run efficiently and at the slightest pretext of emergency it is able to cope up with any transportation problem occurring therein.

The SCM is such that Wal-Mart uses state of the art machinery for its operation into its premises so that the goods being transported remain untouched by hands till the time of delivery. Most modern machines and the Conveyor belts use have further made the work very simple for the workers also.

FDI has not been able to rise to a great extent in the retail sector even then Wal-Mart is still going all along and has developed expertise in this area which is poised to stay there for long and set standards in its own field.

EDLP (Every Day Low Pricing) is the mool mantra of Wal-Mart that has helped it to rise the echelons of success within a short span of less than half a century and to be more precise this is hardly 46 years since its inception that it has made foray in about 14 countries.

This in itself is a landmark for a company to reach where Wal-Mart has reached today.

Wal-Mart directly procures its products from the producers (even farmers) after considerable Market Research for cost cutting and hence bargains for the lowest Cost(and hence the best cost) to make it available at the Least Price (best price for consumers) thus paving way for providing the cost benefit to its consumers.

It makes no compromise on its Quality and Quantity and in its own words Wal-Mart states if you find something better and at a lower price than us take it free from us.

This itself is a challenge that it poses to its competitors in open and that is the USP of Wal-Mart

For Wal-Mart customer is the Emperor.