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This article talks about how Walmart hasn’t updated their management style to keep up with today’s customers. \u00a0I would suggest that it’s not just Walmart, but the majority of retailers who don’t get it either. \u00a0As the writer says, customers are focused on convenience and good service, and cutting hours (both store hours and labor hours) push things in the absolute opposite direction.<\/p>\n
I’ll give Walmart credit for improving employee wages, although in many cases the employees who were given raises had their hours cut so they really didn’t come out ahead. \u00a0 My company does the hours cut thing without even giving the raise, so it could be worse. \u00a0Unless these big companies wake up and realize that their most important asset is their employees who actually work with the customers, they are doomed to fail to online sales and companies that do.<\/p>\n
\u00a0 For decades, Walmart (NYSE:WMT) enjoyed a reputation for many things. Large stores. Everyday low prices. Superb logistics. And hard bargaining tactics with small manufacturers.<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s how Walmart turned into the world\u2019s largest retailer, with sales that account for close to 3 percent of the US economy \u2013 and made many early investors rich, including founder Sam Walton and his heirs.<\/em><\/p>\n But in recent years, Walmart\u2019s business model has been challenged on several fronts. Its large stores, which worked nicely in rural areas, do not fit well in big cities. Especially overseas, where regulations limit retail store size.<\/em><\/p>\n And its everyday low price pledge has been challenged by online retailers like Amazon.<\/em><\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the poor quality of customer service, some commentators brought up in a vibrant dialogue about Walmart\u2019s business model that started a couple weeks ago here.<\/em> But there appears to be another challenge, more fundamental, for Walmart \u2014 management\u2019s failure to connect with customer:<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201c \u2018Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely\u2019,\u201d writes one commentator. \u201cThere are many managers, in addition to the Manager. Problem perhaps is the management at middle level, who wield their absolute power, and cannot see the importance of simple matters such as customer service.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cMost workers learn by guessing,\u201d writes another commentator. \u201cIn case none of you noticed try to get a manager paged in a Walmart. You could be there all day. This leaves the workers holding the bag and yes they are held accountable. So what you say is lack of intelligence is actually a worker trying to make an effort to assist you in something that they know nothing about. But they know no one else will show up to answer your question. It is ungrateful people like you that they should have just ignored, Moron.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s why closing the stores for a number of hours won\u2019t fix Walmart\u2019s problem.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cNo, closing for 24 hours and trying to fix shop wouldn\u2019t do much for this shell of a corporation,\u201d writes a third commentator. \u201cThey should probably fire the entire board and CEO, close till they can come up with a realistic business strategy, completely change their name and logo, and hire someone that knows about aesthetics and decor to clean up their disgusting stores, and move every location. That would take some time, but who forget the damage brought on by this nasty, rotting company? \u201c<\/em><\/p>\n I wouldn\u2019t go that far. But I will agree with another commentator, who argues that Walmart failed to keep up with changes in the retail environment. \u201c I think the core of what killed Wal-Mart was their slow reaction to change. They forgot that buyers\u2019 behavior has changed. The business landscape has also changed rapidly. What worked this year may not work next year. We now have zero tolerance for inconvenience of any sort. Competition is high everywhere you turn. Lately, organizational change, management and transformation have become permanent features of the business landscape. Vast new markets and labor pools have opened up, they are lean, mean and ever ready to swallow the big players. Innovative technologies have put once-powerful business models on the public chopping block, and capital flows and investor demand have become less predictable. To meet these challenges, big organizations need to become more sophisticated in the best practices for organizational change management.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Apparently, the managerial revolution that has swept the American enterprise world missed Walmart.<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s why someone must talk to Walmart about modern management.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: \u00a0Forbes.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This article talks about how Walmart hasn’t updated their management style to keep up with today’s customers. \u00a0I would suggest that it’s not just Walmart, but the majority of retailers who don’t get it either. \u00a0As the writer says, customers are focused on convenience and good service, and cutting hours (both store hours and labor Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-retail-companies","category-retail-trends"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1644"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1647,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644\/revisions\/1647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nOne source of Walmart\u2019s service problem appears to be lack of employee training. That\u2019s why we suggested that Walmart shut down for 24 hours to hold training sessions for its employees.<\/em><\/p>\n