Organizational Structure and Leadership at Walmart

Running head: MANAGEMENT
MANAGEMENT
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Author Note

MANAGEMENT1
Response to Question 1: Organizational Structure and Leadership
The organizational structure of Walmart helps in reflecting the business activities of
the company. The activities of Walmart is concentrated on retail and e-commerce distribution
network. The formal organizational structure of Walmart indicates methods of facilitating
responses for identified concerns in the operational process. Walmart is well established and
growing company, with revenue of 500.34 billion dollars (U.S.) in the year 2018. In 2019, the
e-commerce segment of the company grew up to 43 percent for the retail giant, Walmart
(Walmart.com, 2019). The reason for the success of Walmart Inc. is the effective integration
of organizational culture and organizational structure of the company.
The organizational structure of Walmart Inc. is the depiction of hierarchical functional
organizational structure. The formal structure is an effective combination of function and
hierarchy. The organizational structure of the company depicts the presence of authority and
command in the organizational system. In Walmart, every staff member has an appointed
supervisor except for the CEO, who guides and directs the focus of her/his subordinate in the
direction of efficient operational plan. The policies and directives of the company is executed
or incorporated by the assigned middle level managers for the staff members in Walmart.
Another element of the formal organizational structure of Walmart, function-based feature
reflects the functional role of the employees towards the set objectives of creating profit by
lowering costs and creating effective customer experience. The functional departments of
Walmart includes, Human Resource Management, Information Technology and operational
department. The main applicability of hierarchical functional organizational structure of
Walmart is the capability of implementing an effective policy for the entire system and for
efficiently influencing the staff members and middle and lower level management in the
company. The flow of strategy and policy implementation becomes easier for the company, a
decision or policy structured in headquarter can be easily implemented through the regional
managers to store managers.

MANAGEMENT2
Walmart was known for its positive and efficient physical retail store environment.
However, over 20 years with the changing demographics of business environment and
customer preferences, the company implemented few structural changes for responding to the
growing need for convenience. The restructuring process of Walmart led to the practice of
decreasing regional managers and reducing the staff members in the physical retail stores for
implementing the strategy of e-commerce. Threat from e-commerce giants like Amazon have
implemented the decision of restructuring the organizational hierarchy and functional units
for the purpose of responding to the implication and preference of online shopping
experience.
Top leadership positions and styles of Walmart are as follows:
Doug McMillon- The CEO and President of the retail giant, Walmart Inc., Doug
McMillon is a leader of an efficient and strong team of management, which aims at
lowering the operational cost and improving the lifestyle of customers. His leadership
helped in establishing both physical and online retail stores. The company is
experiencing the inflow of more than 275 million consumers by visiting in both online
retail stores (27 countries), ecommerce selling application (Corporate.walmart.com,
2019). The leadership style adopted by Doug McMillon is transformational
leadership, where the leaders directs and motivate efforts of the employees in the
process of recognizing changes in the organization for constructing mission and
vision for the response of the changes. Doug McMillon states that, “As a leader
during transformation, you have to be out in front -show that you want to learn, be
curious, introduce new ideas and ask questions”.
Judith McKenna- She is the president and CEO of the Walmart International, which is
a growing segment, spread across 26 countries. Judith McKenna was a chief operating
officer and executive vice president of Walmart United States before becoming the
CEO of Walmart International.