THE UNITED STATES OF WAL-MART

1. THEUNITEDSTATESOFWAL-MART ‘America… One Nation Under Wal-Mart’

2. THESIS The wages of sin is ‘death’, but for Wal-Mart it’s a new ‘strategy’.

3. Wal-Mart’s highest record of revenue was approximately $288 billion, which represented about 2% of the United States GDP, higher than other any company in its corporate era. • Wal-Mart as a nation and if it were true in actual reality it would be one of the world’s top twenty economies, and ranked below would be countries such as Ireland, Sweden and Israel. (Dicker)

4. Wal-Mart has strategically positioned itself in the American way of life. • The company has maintained dominance over its consumers and the economy. • It now plays a key role in the corporate management of the retail industry.

5. Wal-Mart in America

6. Wal-Mart employs 1 of every 115 workers in America and has 1.3 million workers worldwide. Of these 303,000 are outside the United States. (Union-Network) • The company has 3400 stores all over the United States only and locations also in Puerto-Rico, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, South Korea, Mexico, United Kingdom.

8. “Americans Held Hostage” • The company has a distinctive strategy that caters to its ability to keep prices low that depends not just on its productivity, but also on its ability to stabilize above all others, the company’s labor costs. (Featherstone 282) • A graphical representation of the sales of their operating segments signifies how physically powerful the total company has grown to present day.

10. ‘Believe it OR not.. Santa never had Elves, he shopped at Wal-Mart’ • They have maintained a higher sum in workers of the total employment supply of labor, and yet however they are highly discriminated in their employment practices. • 600,000 new employees are hired each year. The company's turnover rate is 44 percent -- close to the retail industry average. (PBS-Frontline)

11. TheConsumerLoyaltyRemains • Wal-Mart as a firm has maintained a particular type of control of its consumers that guarantees them sales and development. • This is due to several factors such as product variety, price, and convenience. • As a majority of workers at Wal-Mart are women claiming to be oppressed in the work environment, where evidence is given from the law suit the company faces, still a total of 70 % of Wal-Mart’s consumers are women.

12. The Consumer Loyalty Remains contd. • Wal-Mart’s employment structure results in most times, women being underpaid or over-worked for the tasks they were performing. • Many of these workers are paid so little that they cannot even afford the health benefits and premiums, and at most times don’t work at Wal-Mart long enough to qualify. (Greenhouse)

13. ‘SECRET’ To Low Prices • The company purposely limits the total number of employees of any particular fiscal period, resulting in having less to pay overall as a part of wage expenses. • In doing so the company ensures the growth of the labor budget to lag behind the growth equivalent in sales. This method of productivity ensures higher revenues over expenses at all times. (Ellen Rosen)

14. ‘SECRET’ To Low Prices contd. • As an obsessively anti-union company at home and abroad, Wal-Mart builds its competitive advantage on low wages, poor benefits and a squeeze on producers. • Through predatory pricing, it can force both large and small competitors out of business. • World-wide, Wal-Mart is the most serious danger for employment, wages and working conditions in commerce. (Union-Network)

15. Overview & CONCLUSION*In Wal-Mart We “obviously” Trust* • If Wal-Mart’s inconspicuous practices are continued, they could possibly risk a dramatic downfall in their overall productivity through labor strikes and more lawsuits. • The company thrives on its customer’s loyalty, disobeying their trust can be of detriment to their market especially with a rise in merchandising competition.