Wal-Mart is one of the largest retailers in the US Essay
Wal-Mart is one of the largest retailers in the US. Today, the company attempts to expand its business and take a better position in the market. However, the company faces a problem of the split of interests of shareholders and top executives of the company, on the one hand, and employees of the company, on the other. To put it more precisely, the company’s shareholders want to maximize their profits and improve the organizational performance, whereas employees of the company want to receive higher wages. In such a way, shareholders and executives attempt to maximize profits often at cost of employees, whereas employees want to increase their wages that increases costs spent by the company on its labor force. In such a situation, it is possible to define superordinate goals of Wal-Mart, which emerge from conflicting interests of shareholders and employees and which still meet needs and interests of both shareholders and employees. To put it more precisely, one of the major superordinate goal of Wal-Mart is the improvement of its performance and expansion of its operations. Shareholders benefit from meeting this goal because the company expands its market share and, therefore, can gain more profits, whereas employees benefit from meeting this goal because they get more jobs and better career opportunities along with certainty in their future in the company. In terms of the aforementioned goal, the company develops other goals that maintain the aforementioned one, such as the international market expansion, the improvement of internal business operations and others.
At the same time, it is important to place emphasis on the fact that the superordinate goals of Wal-Mart influence consistently its staff, skills, structure, strategy, style and system. To put it more precisely, the staff of the company is interested in the market expansion but employees are interested in the reception of better job opportunities, whereas managers and top executives are interested in the increase of their revenues and improvement of their position in the company. Meeting the superordinate goals mentioned above needs the development and improvement of professional skills of the staff because professionals should be able to meet new requirements and to improve their performance to meet new goals. In addition, the structure of the company changes too because, as the company expands, it has to develop new affiliates, recruit new employees, train available employees, develop infrastructure and so on. In such a situation, the company has to adapt its strategy respectively to superordinate goals because Wal-Mart will be unable to reach its superordinate goals, if its marketing strategy focuses on the achievement of other goals. Moreover, the company may need to change the management style to meet needs of employees and to increase the effectiveness of their performance. Finally, the company needs to develop effective system, which helps to coordinates the communication and interaction between its units and staff to conduct the market expansion effectively.
In such a context, it is possible to recommend Wal-Mart to pay more attention to the personnel of the company and its training because this will help to improve employees’ performance consistently and facilitate the market expansion. As employees receive more training, they can improve their skills and adapt to changing structure and organizational culture that is essential for meeting Wal-Mart’s superordinate goals. At the same time, it is important to place emphasis on the fact that the development of the contemporary business environment stimulates Wal-Mart to develop flexible policies in relation to its employees and customers. The company needs to improve its public image and, therefore, the company has to respect needs and wants of its employees. Otherwise, conflicts within the organization are almost inevitable because employees will not work effectively, if they are dissatisfied with their position in the organization. Consequently, shareholders and the company at large will not benefit from the poor human resource management, even if the goal is saving costs of the company. In such a situation, the development of effective marketing strategy should focus on the elaboration of effective approaches to human resource management to meet needs and wants of employees and to develop effective policies that contribute to the internal balance and prevents conflicts within the company.
Thus, it is obvious that, today, Wal-Mart should focus on meeting its superordinate goals, which include the satisfaction of wants and needs of both shareholders and employees. In the contemporary business environment, the company should pay a particular attention to needs and wants of employees because the effectiveness of their performance defines, to a significant extent, the effectiveness of the overall organizational performance and company-customer relationships, which are crucial for the marketing success of the company.
