RUNNING HEAD: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report Sarah Honeycutt December 11, 2016 Southern New Hampshire University OL 690 Responsible Corporate Leadership Dr. Theresa Turner 1 Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 2 Executive Summary Introduction When one is asked to come up with the name of one of the most profitable, largest companies in the world, Wal-Mart is certain to be one of the top companies to be named. The mega chain didn't start as such. In fact, it started as a 5&10 store named Walton's (WalMart, 2016). As Sam Walton began to see success in Walton's he decided to grow his business by opening a larger retail location. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. opened the first location in 1962 in Bentonville, Arkansas. Sam Walton was determined to run a business based on excellent customer service and a servitude ideal of leadership in business. The company has currently opened approximately 11,573 locations globally and employees over 2 million employees in these locations in multiple capacities from corporate level executives, retail cashiers, and distribution center workers (Walmart, 2016). With the large footprint and exponential success, Wal-Mart is an extremely profitable company grossing profit over $121 billion in 2016 (Walmart, 2015). With this large of a global success Wal-Mart has been under scrutiny several times for the philanthropy of the organization as well as the rate at which they pay their employees being sufficient. As of 2016, there will be two phases of employee raises instituted to over 1 million of the employees. This will raise the hourly full-time rate to $13.38 for employees (Kanani, 2014). This decision will allow the company to take their extremely high profits and invest them back into their employees and hence help to build an even more successful organization from within. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 3 As Wal-Mart continues to try to improve internally while maintaining high profits, they are in an uphill battle to become known as an environmentally friendly company. As the company continues to make sustainability a corporate initiative year over year, they are under almost constant scrutiny for the negative environmental impact they have (Jordan, n.d.). Their massive size has proven to make being a \"green\" organization more than challenging. It has been questioned whether a mecca of a company, such as Wal-Mart, is capable of truly reducing their carbon footprint. The reputation damage as well as the environmental damage the company does with its massive operational CO2 emissions, extremely large energy usage and a culture of waste by selling cheap products meant to be disposed of (Makower, 2015). Not only does this cause long term negative effects on the environment but it has an immediate negative impact to the reputation of the mega-corporation (Kurtzben, 2012). As an organization of such immense size and success, the scrutiny of the behaviors of the leadership is higher than most. It is imperative to the long term success of Wal-Mart to institute a sustainability plan and execute effectively. Personnel Walmart has four major categories of stakeholders; investors, customers, employees and suppliers. Of these four there have been several instances in which Walmart has made decisions that have been deemed questionable or less than desirable by the stakeholders. While the company has always been able to show to investors their commitment to profitability, they have done so by making compromises in regard to the other stakeholders and it has negatively impacted the company as a whole (Kanani, 2014). Employees, a major stakeholder group for such a large corporation, have been the most negatively impacted due to profit based decisions made by management at Walmart. Recently, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 4 the company was put under quite a bit of scrutiny for their low employee wages and lack of employee benefits in their retail environment (Kanani, 2014). While the company has made strides to correct the subpar wages and to increase job satisfaction through benefits packages more in line with the rest of the industry, they have a lot of ground to make up for. In comparison to Wegman's Grocery Stores, Walmart is ranked drastically lower in employee satisfaction (Chew, 2014). Not only does Wegman's pay more for their respective roles, but they offer better bonuses' as well as more paid time off (Chew, 2014). While they are a smaller and more specialty grocery store, in contrast to Walmart's mega store design, there is certainly room for Walmart to close the gap. The negative light surrounding Walmart for their high priority on profitability and less on their focus on the quality of the employee environment has a spillover effect to another major stakeholder category - consumers. With the negative light being shed on Walmart it is a deterrent for consumers to support the business practices. While a consumer is going to be price conscious, they also weigh what kind of empire they are supporting when they make their purchases. Within recent years, there has been a campaign to support small and local businesses sweeping the nation. This movement is to help the local businesses that have been able to survive in competition against corporate giants such as Walmart, in business. Consumers are focused in some fashion or another on ensuring that they are able to still have an impact on the success or failure of the local economy (Kanani, 2014). Walmart having not provided their employees with adequate compensation thus rolled to the consumers choosing to take their business elsewhere. Lastly, the relationship that Walmart has with their suppliers has changed due to the nature of their business practices of attempting to gain profit for investors. Suppliers are an Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 5 essential part of Walmart's success and must be treated as such. Should Walmart not make these relationships a priority, they will be forced to utilize second rate suppliers which either have higher costs, or lower quality products. In either situation the consumer is negatively impacted (Jordan, n.d.). Walmart has maintained a lowest cost model and in doing so has started to be viewed as a lower quality chain as well (Walmart, 2015). For Walmart to remain successful they will need to ensure the suppliers they partner with are giving them the quality they need or Walmart will need to find higher quality products and find a way to offset the costs. While Walmart has been criticized for their lack of employee emphasis, as of recent they have made drastic adjustments to improve upon this (Jordan, n.d.). Walmart has increased the pay ranges for retail employees as well as increased the vacation or time off package as well. In contrast to companies such as Wegman's they are still lagging behind in employee compensation packages which may have something to do with the variances in the design of the organizations (Upadhye, 2014). That being said, Walmart is almost identical to the structure that Target offers their retail employees (Target vs. Walmart, 2016). Walmart has made attempts to correct their poor quality employee compensation packages, but the damage to their reputation is not easily undone and it will take extensive work and effort to improve on their employee relations moving forward to offset the negative connotation. In addition to the lack of proper compensation in the past Walmart was also known to have discriminatory hiring practices (Jordan, n.d.). While the company has made vast improvements to be much more careful in who they allow to make these decisions, and setting forth criteria to prevent such practices in the future, it will take quite a bit of proactive work to help to remedy the problems that these poor hiring decisions have created. The census of the Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 6 company currently indicates a skew in the balance of gender, age and race and thus the company must focus on equality when growing their team from here forward (Kanani, 2014). Walgreens, a major drugstore chain in the US, has set a new level of expectation for diversification in the workplace. The company has started a program in which they ambitiously set a goal to hire 30 percent of their open 800 spots in a new distribution center with people with disabilities (Walgreens, 2016). This kind of standard allows Walgreens to set the benchmark for companies. Inclusion is imperative in today's society and Walgreens helps to set that precedent for the retail industry. Walmart, with such a massive footprint, has the ability to execute programs similar to this on a massive scale and help to grow the awareness. While these are all important measures to improve upon Walmart's personnel relations in theory, the most important way of doing so is to take the feedback from their own employees. Walmart needs to develop and utilize a job satisfaction survey issued to their employees on a regular basis that is then evaluated and utilized for improvements. While there are generic and simple surveys in place today at Walmart, an enhanced and specific one to gain traction in the employee satisfaction realm will be an imperative step to the success of Walmart gaining employee buy in (Walmart, 2015). Listening to the desires of their employees and making an effort to execute on them is something Walmart could do to enhance the relationship with their personnel tenfold. While Walmart has made massive efforts to improve the personnel relations within their organization, they recently made a move that was contradictive to these new policies. Recently, in Quebec, employees successfully unionized and Walmart shut the doors to the store shortly thereafter (Marin, 2014). The SCC ruled that Walmart must compensate the employees that they terminated. While Walmart felt justified in the closure of the store, it clearly highlights that the Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 7 company was unwilling to work with unionized employees and thus still continues to have challenges when considering the employees in their organization (Marin, 2014). Environmental A company as substantial in size as Walmart has to make a significant effort to be recognized for a positive environmental impact, as they are sure to be fighting an uphill battle. Walmart has been able to set themselves apart as a company that has not only devised but successfully implemented a sustainability plan for their organization. Walmart set out a rather aggressive program when they were regarded as such as an environmentally unfriendly company in the early 2000's. Since, Walmart has doubled their fuel efficiency in only 10 years as well as eliminated over 28 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from their operations (Walmart, 2015). The drastic improvements are fantastic and highlight the commitment of the company to becoming an environmentally conscious organization. A major challenge for Walmart is their sheer massive size. A company of this size is challenged with being able to truly be a green organization and still operate effectively on their scale (Kurtzben, 2012). It has been questioned whether or not it is even possible for a company of this magnitude to be able to truly be a green company (Kurtzben, 2012). The size of the growing company has also caused challenges surrounding their goal to eventually exist on 100 percent renewable energy. While this is an ambitious goal, and one pointing in the right direction, Walmart has made little progress at ever achieving this goal. After 10 years of efforts to become a completely renewable energy supported company, they have only managed to get to 13 percent (Gunther, 2015). In contrast, other retail giants have been able to accomplish the goal of 100 percent and now set that as their minimum expectation. Two Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 8 examples of which are Kohls and Whole Foods, who both use all renewable energy to run their companies (Davidson, 2011). This is a major accomplishment for any organization and clearly highlights that it is possible. Thus, Walmart has clearly not taken this goal seriously as they should've been able to make much larger strides in the usage of renewable energy. An area in which Walmart has made no effort to become involved in is that of clean energy policies. When questioned about the lack of opinion from the corporation about the stance on carbon policies, they stated they simply were not an expert on the topic and could not contribute (Gunther, 2015). Sadly, this was thought to be a solid rebuttal to a question of committing to environmental improvements and it simply was an excuse. Walmart being the Mega Corporation that they are, should take a stance towards this and make an effort to help to guide the retail industry to focus on clean energy. There are several moving pieces to the sustainability program that Walmart has developed and continues to work to improve. These changes and enhancements have short- and long-term effects for the stakeholders. Some of which are extremely positive and some still have room for improvement. These are all results that Walmart must consider as they continue to enhance their policies. One of the most impactful short-term effects that will be beneficial for the stakeholders is the drastic reduction of the negative environmental footprint Walmart had for decades. The company making the drastic improvements within the organization has cast a new light on to the company in regard to sustainability. Thus, the consumer perspective of the company has improved as well. This enhanced perspective will have a positive impact on sales as consumers now feel as though the company is making strides to be more environmentally aware and make sustainable adjustments to their practices (Walmart, 2015). Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 9 Another company that was able to enhance their reputation as a company by becoming more environmentally conscious is AMGEN, Inc. This biotechnology company went from being ranked as one of the worst companies for sustainability to one of the highest in just over a year. They jumped 919 spots on CR's Most Improved Corporate Citizens List from 2013 to 2014 (Corporate Responsibility Magazine, 2015). This kind of commitment to improving environmental practices has helped to regain the successful perspective around the company and allowed for the company to begin to repair a less than desirable reputation. In addition to the generalized concepts being employed by Walmart they have also developed targeted and specific programs to help to increase their sustainability. Walmart has quite the influence over their suppliers, as they are such a large distributor of the products. That being said, when Walmart developed the laundry detergent water reduction program it spanned beyond the reach of simply the store itself. This project asked all of the manufacturers to reduce the water used in their detergents. Walmart set the precedent by doing so with their in house brand as well (Kurtzben, 2012). Ultimately, the corporate giant was able to influence several manufacturers to adjust the way that their laundry detergent is made and reduce millions of gallons of water used in a product not requiring nearly as much water (Walmart, 2015). Stakeholders affected were the consumers, investors and suppliers. All of these parties experienced a positive impact due to the innovative way to save water on a global level with little to no change to the process of manufacturing or use of the product. While these are excellent achievements for Walmart's sustainability project, they are much more short-term and thus the company must also focus on longer term initiatives as well. One of which being the goals set forth in the sustainability program that was launched several Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 10 years ago. The desire to be a zero waste company is ambitious but would be highly impactful due to the size of the company and the amount of waste reduction that there would be (Zero Manufacturing Waste to Landfill, n.d.). Proctor and Gamble have been able to become a waste free organization and the long term benefits of such are clearly quite positive for the environment, the company, the consumers and all stakeholders involved (Zero Manufacturing Waste to Landfill, n.d.). Increasing awareness of the positive impacts of recycling and environmental awareness by educating consumers and employees is a program that Walmart has put into place as well (Gunther, 2015). While this will be a long-term success it will take a while to see results from the plan. The commitment to encouraging employees to recycle by educating them on how to do so, will also organically spread to consumers by the employees spreading the information they have learned. Setting up classes and tutorials to show consumers the benefits of recycling and supplying resources to help them to do so will also help to grow the awareness. The social responsibility Walmart has shown with this initiative will be beneficial for generations to come as the best practices are passed down and utilized as common practice (Gunther, 2015). Sound Business Practices There is no question of the importance of a company becoming as corporately responsible as they are capable of being. The importance of being conscious of their social and environmental impact can determine the longevity of a company and the ability for the company to be successful. With that being said, ultimately a company must be profitable to be able to exist. If they are not profitable they also will not be able to fund sustainability programs or be able to offer employee benefits. While profit is only a portion of the focus of successful companies, it is an important piece. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 11 A company that is able to maintain significant profits, such as Walmart, is able to benefit several stakeholders. Walmart is able to maintain their low prices offered to consumers if these prices are able to drive profits. Should they begin to lose money, the company would be forced to increase prices to offset, which would hurt the relationship with the consumers. Profits also help to drive a relationship with the suppliers. As Walmart is able to generate profits they are able to pass this to the suppliers by purchasing more and more goods for distribution. The reach that Walmart has to the consumer market is staggering and by far much more than that of the suppliers through other channels. In addition to the external stakeholders that Walmart is able to benefit by maintaining profitability, they are also able to benefit employees by maintaining or increasing wages and bonuses. The revenue must come into the corporation for it to be distributed to the employees. Similar to wages, dividends paid to investors is based off of profits as well. Thus, the investors are looking for Walmart to remain profitable as well. With the clear focus on being a profitable company it will be essential that the company remain focused on their corporate responsibility. This is a situation in which one cannot successfully exist without the other. While profits have hit an all-time high in the economy, we are as an economy, struggling to make sure that our companies are corporate responsible. Wages have fallen to an all-time low in comparison to profits (Blodget, 2012). This is where giant companies, such as Walmart and Starbucks, have been scrutinized (Blodget, 2012). This is the opportunity for these companies to make the necessary adjustments and be able to demonstrate that improving the employee and consumer perspective can enhance profits, not hinder them. While it sounds as though it is a rather simplistic position to take, it has proven to be challenging for most large corporations to place their corporate responsibility initiatives at the Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 12 top of the list and allow the profits to stem from these practices. Organizations have been groomed to believe that profit driven is the only way to be successful, vs allowing corporate responsibility to drive profits organically. This will be a challenging practice to overcome and to see change from will take years of dedication. Walmart has started this process and continues to show profit and success. As a retail mecca this will hopefully allow trends to be seen and improvements to continue to be made for decades to come. Recommendations People The largest expenditure as well as the biggest component of any major corporation are the employees (Joseph, n.d.). With an organization as large as Walmart, the need for the employees to be happy with their jobs and to work to continue to keep the company as successful as it has been is essential. Walmart has received harsh criticism for the employee compensation they have issued to their retail staff in particular. Additionally, they have publically been against the unionization of their Canadian employees (Marin, 2014). Walmart has taken measures to improve upon the treatment of their employees by raising pay and increasing benefits to be more in line with industry averages (Jordan, n.d.). While making strides to improve compensation is helpful and necessary for the organization to be successful, there is still substantial room for improvement in regard to the job fulfillment of the employees. Developing a program that allows employees to be cross-trained on different positions within the stores or to engage in management development training would give these employees career training as well as a path for success. Such programs help the employees to feel as though they are more appreciated and thus will be more committed to the Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 13 success of the company. Enhancing the skillset of the employees also allows the company to have a more informed and capable staff as well. Having a more knowledgable and skillful staff will then enhance the experience for the customers as well. The customer service experience has proven to be as valuable to consumers as price (Upadhye, 2014). Thus, it is imperative that Walmart ensures the customers utilizing the retail locations as well as the website are able to receive top notch customer service from the employees. Working to construct a comprehensive customer service program as a corporation will be an initiative Walmart should focus on. There are currently a couple different surveys offered to shoppers via logging on to the website and completing several questions. It would be advantageous to shoppers to be able to have an easier and faster survey available to them as well as incentive to participate. Currently there is an entry into a drawing for a store gift card (Walmart, 2015). Walmart should find a more convenient and rewarding system for their customers, such as a text message followed by a coupon for the next visit to the store. This would be more accessible for the shopper, as well as offering an incentive for the consumer to soon shop at Walmart again. Following up on customer concerns or complaints should be done by a manager within 24 hours should be a standard for the company as well. Showing the customer how their experience is highly valued will help to bring customers back even if they had a less than ideal shopping experience. Walmart managing this feedback and adjusting in store operations to cater to the customer and their experience will begin to grow revenue as more repeat business will be had. While ensuring that the customers have an ideal experience when purchasing products Walmart must also continue to offer value. A way to do this is to continue to maintain the low Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 14 prices that Walmart has become known for (Jordan, n.d.). Maintaining the low costs while offering higher pay to employees as well as enhanced customer service to customers can be a challenge. One way to do this is for Walmart to leverage the relationships they have with manufacturers and suppliers to reduce their costs. With the amount of product sold through Walmart online and in the retail stores, the relationships they have with suppliers is a large one. Leadership at Walmart should devise a plan to work with the suppliers to increase the quality of goods provided to Walmart for the same or close pricing to allow the consumers to receive a better value. Overall, Walmart focusing on the enhanced experience of the customer as a stakeholder will increase the satisfaction of several other stakeholders. The increased investment in the employees, working with suppliers to offer higher quality goods and drive more sales will all ultimately be profitable for Walmart in addition to enhancing the experience for the employees, customers, and suppliers. Planet Walmart has made extreme progress in their corporate social responsibility plan that was set into motion in 2005 (Walmart, 2016). However, they still have a long way to go as an organization as well. While the amount of carbon footprint they have been leaving has been reduced by utilizing clean fuel and reducing the greenhouse gas emissions, Walmart needs to think larger on the long term impact (Walmart, 2016). An initiative of the sustainability plan from Walmart was to become a company that uses 100% renewable energy. As of current, they have been unsuccessful in achieving this goal. With the lackluster acheivment being only around the 24% mark at this point it is something Walmart Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 15 does not seem to be successful with as of yet (Gunther, 2015). Leadership needs to reassess the plan in place to achieve this goal and determine what adjustments should be made to help to increase their renewable energy usage. With the amount of energy used by such a massive organization, this would be monumental to be able to achieve. Walmart continues to grow and open more locations. In doing so, Walmart should make sure to be selective and informed on the construction of these buildings. Being convenient and accessible are major drivers for Walmart's value proposition, but that being said Walmart needs to be cognizant of the amount of land utilized for one of their locations and if it is the best use for the property. To flatten wooded areas, or to use areas that could be utilized for farming to add an additional location would be something Walmart should take time to analyze the benefits of. While this may sound as though it is simplistic in nature to leave the land untouched, there are certainly reasons to build a location but with caution to the local ecosystem (Gunther, 2015). In addition to focusing on land preservation, Walmart should attempt to offer more organic and locally sourced products in their stores. Helping local suppliers while offering healthier alternatives not only benefits the environment, but also the local economy as well as the consumers (Kanani, 2014). As Walmart continues to make efforts to be a more sustainable company, ensuring that they are sourcing their products from sustainable suppliers is imperative to the success of this plan. Profit Offering a higher quality product or local product will not only help the environment and stakeholders but also help to grow the profit for Walmart by generating more revenue from the purchases as well as drive in premium level clientele instead of just the bargain shopper. The Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 16 variety to the product selection will allow the bargain shopper to add in a few items that may be higher priced as well as entice clientele more likely to shop at more boutique style groceries to frequent the Walmart locations. Today everyone is extremely busy and looks for the most efficient and expedient option available. This is an area Walmart could improve drastically as they are currently renowned for having so few lanes open and taking so long to check out (Jordan, 2014). Having a faster process for checking out and exiting retail locations would increase the shoppers hoping to get \"in and out\" of a store in a hurry. Adding more self-checkout lanes or potentially having more cashiers in operation at all times could help to decrease checkout time. A step even beyond the store efficiency is the ease of shopping online for pick up or delivery of products. While Walmart does currently offer this service, it is lacking in comparison to competitors such as Amazon (Petro, 2016). The speed in which items should be prepared and available or delivered could be drastically reduced. Additionally, being able to do the shopping from an app on your phone and track delivery is an avenue for opportunity. Giving the busy shoppers an option to be able to skip the trip all together would allow Walmart to gain the business of these individuals. Implementation People Working with the training division, leadership from Walmart should develop new hire trainings as well as on going employee development trainings to help the employees to feel more educated in their position as well as be able to develop and enhance skillsets. This will also organically produce candidates for management positions and allow Walmart to promote from Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 17 within. Employees being able to feel as though their company values them by giving them the opportunity to grow and progress in their careers is something that has been shown to highly increase job satisfaction as well as improve employee retention (Jordan, n.d.). Being able to reduce turnover will be beneficial for the company and having to staff. Another way to do so is to enhance the benefit package offered to employees in addition to the pay. Ensuring employees have adequate time off and are able to obtain performance bonuses throughout the year would be of a major advantage for perspective employees. Giving employees more reason to work with Walmart as a company will allow the company to attract higher level employees as well (Blodget, 2012). With a higher caliber staff the customers will also have more positive feedback surrounding the customer experience. The customer experience being enhanced by more pleasant and knowledgeable staff will increase the amount of customers shopping in the locations. With the increased customer base, Walmart should enhance the selection of products offered to include higher level products from suppliers (Blodget, 2012). This will drive a higher profit for the suppliers and thus will improve the relationship with the suppliers for Walmart. To offer these products when the organization is notoriously a bargain priced store will prove to be a bit challenging to implement. Leadership at Walmart will need to work with suppliers and potentially even offer these higher end products at extremely steep margins to initially drive the new item sales and entice a more boutique clientele into locations. Utilizing customer surveys to better understand what other improvements customers would like is something Walmart currently does, but should offer in a more convenient and rewarding fashion to encourage participation from all customers (Walmart, 2015). This will also Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 18 help to drive future initiatives more specifically to the customer wants than to attempt to design new plans without the necessary feedback. Planet Working to reduce the carbon footprint has so far been successful for Walmart, but it needs to be a stronger initiative to make the impact necessary from such a large corporation (Jordan, n.d.). While becoming a company using 100% renewable energy has been a goal for Walmart it hasn't been executed to the level necessary (Walmart, 2015). Walmart leadership needs to develop a plan with specific benchmarks outlined to obtain this goal in a more timely fashion and be able to have a sense of accountability attached to the levels that are reached. Walmart should begin to utilize strictly organic companies as well as local producers in lieu of simply providing organic product manufactured by larger non-organic based companies. This will not only provide a higher quality product to the consumer, but will help to encourage a support the growth of the more environmentally friendly companies as a whole (Jordan, n.d.). While these companies will have sustainability initiatives themselves, Walmart should make sure to promote environmentally friendly initiatives to be used in all the suppliers that they utilize. With the massive influence such a large organization has on these smaller companies, they are sure to be able to drive better practices such as using clean fuels for shipment and transportation of goods. Profit Through the multitude of changes that the major corporation is making to enhance the organization's corporate social responsibility, these enhancements will not be possible should the company not be able to continue to generate profit. Leadership at Walmart must ensure that the Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 19 company remain profitable to keep the stockholders content. Ultimately, Walmart must ensure that the efficiency of the shopping process is enhanced through more automated processes of checking out of the stores as well as purchasing remotely. This will require more funding to the ecommerce department to develop a better online shopping experience to be competitive with companies such as Amazon. Working with suppliers to ensure that pricing is in line with customer expectations while being able to deliver a high quality product in an expedient fashion by understanding logistics and distribution strategies for the companies to utilize. This will also work to enhance the turnaround time for the products to be distributed not only to stores but to individual purchasers also. While the economic and stakeholder focused initiatives appear to create more expenses, they in turn will be of a major asset to Walmart in reducing turnover, becoming a more sustainable organization, as well as retaining and gaining customers through better corporate practices. Opportunities Community Stakeholders The impact that a company has on the community they reside in is an important factor for any organization to consider. With a corporation the size of Walmart, which impacts so many communities across the world it is exceptionally important that they do their best to leave the community with a positive impression. There are several ways in which Walmart can continue to work to improve the relationship they have with the communities they operate within. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 20 The primary opportunity that Walmart has to enhance the community they affect, would be to utilize local suppliers for their products, such as produce. This has multiple positive impacts on the local population. Not only does it put money back into the community by way of the local suppliers, but it also reduces waste from packaging and shipping from distant locations, provides a more wholly sourced and potentially organic product to consumers, as well as will give Walmart the ability to be viewed in a positive light as a company that helps the local markets in which they work vs taking away from the small businesses (SOURCE). In addition to sourcing from local areas, Walmart has to ability to increase the job satisfaction of the employees through strategies stated, such as increased benefits and job fulfilment. This will encourage the local community to seek jobs that may not have before through this enhanced process. Additionally, as Walmart works to improve the process of their minority inclusion, this will broaden the reach of demographics in which Walmart will be hoping to hire and will, hopefully, decrease local unemployment in small communities (SOURCE). Industry With the expansive size of Walmart's mega corporation, not only do they have a strong impact on each community they reside in, but also on the big box retail industry as a whole. The largest impact the company can make is with the employees. Increased training and benefits will allow not only for a more satisified employee, but also an enhanced shopping experience for consumers. This will help to improve the view of big box discount retailers as a whole as far as shopping experience is concerned. Setting a standard of providing an educated, professional, helpful employee for each shopping experience will encourage consumers to frequent locations more often (SOURCE). Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 21 In addition to the customer experience through interaction with the Walmart team, the products themselves can be improved upon by sourcing from local and organic suppliers. There has long been a stigma around the large retailers being detrimental to local small businesses and thus the industry is viewed in a negative light from entrepreneurs and small business owners (Source). If companies as large as Walmart are able to utilize the goods of the local companies, they will be putting the money back into the communities and helping to support the communities again. This will be a trend that will be contagious throughout the industry to stay competitive and again help to improve the goods offered to the consumer (SOURCE). The in-store experience being enhanced is certainly a top level opportunity for a retailer such as Walmart. That being said, the way that shopping has evolved, a major opportunity for the retail industry, and Walmart to be able to improve is through improving their online presence and delivery options. This will allow these corporations to be more flexible, keep up with ecommerce giants like Amazon, and reach customers they may never have been able to target previously (SOURCE). Growing the products that can be delivered same day or next day as well as offering different pick up options will allow more flexibility and competition against companies already offering these solutions. Setting this standard will help to keep Walmart the front runner in their industry, as well as to be able to compete in the online presence as well. Company Profitability While improving the shopping experience for the consumer and insuring that Walmart takes care of the economy are important goals, if the company does not remain profitable they will not be able to execute on these plans. There are several ways in which the company can continue to enhance their profits while implementing these changes that will continue to contribute to the financial success of the organization. Among these ways there are short and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 22 long term focuses that have to be executed differently as well as balanced. While long term goals tend to be more intricate and impactful overall, it is necessary to have short term goals that allow for immediate results and growth to be able to show stakeholders as well as to execute on a more simplistic level (SOURCE). One short term goal for Walmart's profitability will be to begin to source higher quality products from their suppliers. This will initially prove to be a cost, however it is easily executable by leveraging existing relationships and will provide a higher quality product to consumers to gain a higher level clientele as well as gain the business from the existing customer base for this level product (SOURCE). Another short term focus for Walmart will be to focus on increase in foot traffic through publishing the goals and improvements of Walmart publically. Drawing attention to the enhancements that are to be made and that are underway will draw clientele into stores to observe the improvements the stores are making and thus generate business (SOURCE). Walmart building relationships with the local suppliers will help to bring local and organic products into all the locations and eventually help to encourage buy local shoppers to purchase from Walmart. This will help to bridge the gap between the local communities and the major corporation. Consumers that would want local products, before would not have considered Walmart an option, but now will be able to consider and hopefully chose them for their purchases. While this is a long term goal and will involve undergoing several adaptations as a company it will ultimately benefit Walmart to be more involved in utilizing local markets (SOURCE). Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 23 Finally, probably the largest focus Walmart should have long term is enhancement of the shopping experience for the consumer through improvements internally. This is to include a stronger online presence, a more robust selection of goods available, and most importantly a more skilled, diverse, and satisfied staff. Walmart focusing on employee training, development and satisfaction will help to grow the profits of the company dramatically. Reduced turnover as well as internal promoting will allow for the company to focus on the other areas such as ecommerce development by utilizing the funds previously allocated for new hires to be focused on internal growth. It has been demonstrated that maintaining a well paid staff is significantly cheaper for an organization than having to hire new employees (SOURCE). Utilizing the skillsets of existing employees to improve the experience of the shopper will have the largest long term impact on the profits for the organization as whole. Conclusion Summarize how the company can expand the number of its commendable accomplishments and how these changes in corporate policy improve on these accomplishments. Think about the connections to key stakeholders and its profitability. While Walmart has been known as a massive corporate organization that has made some, but not enough adjustments to their environmental policies, the company is focused on the correct mission and path. Working towards becoming a waste free company at the size that they currently are, would set a standard for the industry as well as for all large corporations. Additionally, focusing on the use of 100% renewable energy will allow the company to have a staggeringly smaller impact on our energy resources and will be set a precedent of importance on being mindful of our environment and future. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 24 Continued enhancement of employee hiring, training and treatment will allow Walmart to be recognized as a people conscious company. This will improve profitability due to the simple business logic reason that people buy from people they like (SOURCE). If consumers feel that Walmart is a company that not only cares about success but about the team they employee as well as the patrons, they will be more likely to purchase from them. Growing the team from within will allow the company to reduce turnover costs and be able to use those funds for other employee development programs as well. If Walmart is able to focus and successfully execute on setting themselves apart from the stigma of a mega-retailer, they will be able to collect several accolades and inevitably be able to win the approval of the consumers who ultimately determine the success of the organization as a whole as well as their future. Walmart's mission statement is short and direct, \"Saving people money so they can live better\" (Walmart, 2016). That being said, Walmart focuses on the quality of life of their consumers. Making the adaptations to their environmental impact to allow for a more sustainable organization that utilizes organic locally sourced products, renewable energy, and produces less waste will have a long term effect on the people in which Walmart impacts (SOURCE). In addition to the environmental impact Walmart looks to correct, ensuring that the employees and consumers are treated as valued assets by the company will allow the people associated with Walmart to live better as well. A better benefit package for employees, as well as higher quality products and more easily accessible goods will all benefit the lifestyles of those associated with Walmart. Increasing the employee satisfaction will have a domino effect throughout the hierarchy as well as into the consumers and communities that the employees live in. This is a powerful way to impact positive profitability within the organization, by ensuring Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Consulting Report 25 that the employees, consumers and community are valued by a major organization such as Walmart. Walmart making the effort to ensure that their company is enhancing the lives of the employees, suppliers, and consumers will organically have a positive impact on their profits as a company as well. 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