Analysis of Walmart: Structure, Leadership, Sustainability, and Future

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Walmart, covering its organizational structure, leadership, and sustainability initiatives. The report begins by describing Walmart's hierarchical functional organizational structure, highlighting its focus on retail and e-commerce. It then details significant changes in the past 20 years, such as the restructuring to adapt to e-commerce competition. The report profiles top leaders like Doug McMillon and Judith McKenna, including their leadership styles. It explores Walmart's commitment to sustainability, including initiatives like waste reduction and renewable energy sourcing. The analysis identifies future opportunities, such as international expansion and digital marketing, and threats like competition from other retailers. Strategic recommendations are provided to mitigate threats and exploit opportunities. The report concludes with an assessment of the author's interest in working for Walmart, citing the company's dedication to sustainability and customer experience.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1MANAGEMENT
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.

2MANAGEMENT
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.

3MANAGEMENT
Response to Question 2: Sustainability
The retail giant Walmart aims at reshaping the scenario of the retail industry in terms
of sustainability and environmental impact. The strategies of sustainability and environmental
management aims at the aspects of optimum utilization of resources, extract zero waste,
selling products that are environmental friendly and improving the environmental impact of
the operational activities of the business. The aim of minimizing the negative sustainable
impact can be accomplished by constructing a sustainable value chain network. The retail
giant, Walmart and Sam’s Club United States suppliers worked towards improving
sustainability Index values by 28 percent in comparison with 2016. Walmart have succeeded
in diverting around 78 percent of the waste extracts from landfills and incineration. The
company succeeded in accomplishing a high rate of sustainability index, which comprises of
80 percent of products selling in the Walmart of U.S. Walmart sources 28 percent of
electricity from the renewable sources. The first retailer for announcing science based goal
for reducing level of greenhouse gases. It reflected a reduction of 6.1 percent in annual
greenhouse gas emission. Walmart possess electric automobile chargers in 110 retail
locations in 29 states.
Response to Question 3: The Future
Opportunities-
Expanding the international business in the regions of Middle East, Latin America
and China.
Incorporating online advertising strategies.
Enhancing the perception of the quality of Walmart products by implementing
engaging promotional content
Threats-

4MANAGEMENT
Walmart is experiencing competition from the retailers such as Amazon, Target,
TESCO and Costco.
Social threat for harming local businesses
The threat of balancing the aspect of low price and low cost with the increasing price
and quality maintenance cost of commodities.
Recommendations:
Walmart can utilize the available financial backing and international business
functions for expanding in regions of Asia for responding to the requirements of
increasing population.
Walmart can start incorporating digital marketing activities like engaging media
campaigns for communicating the process of sourcing quality product offerings
Walmart should adopt online promotion technique for the purpose of improving
the online shopping experience
The competition can be responded by creating competitive advantages from
effective organizational structure, transforming from centralized approach to
decentralized form for ensuring flexibility in accordance with different
preferences.
Practicing acquisition of local small businesses for developing the business
capacity of the businesses and for sourcing fresh flow of commodities.
Yes I will be interested in working in Walmart due to its continuous efforts in
eliminating the negative environmental impact. The organization is dedicated towards
improving the customer experience by integrating the organizational structure and positive
organizational culture. The company continue to offer sustainable products (sustainable
process) in lower price range.

5MANAGEMENT
References:
Corporate.walmart.com (2019). Leadership. [Online] Retrieved from
https://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/leadership
Walmart.com (2019). Walmart.com | Save Money. Live Better. [Online] Retrieved from
https://www.walmart.com/