Final Project Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 2

Final Project - Research Paper Example By 1969, Wal-Mart had moved from a small business enterprise to an incorporated company Wal-Mart Stores Inc (Clemers, 1993). This paper will analyze Wal-Mart Stores and make recommendations to better align Human Resource practices to the vital business initiatives of the organization. First, I will examine Wal-Mart’s history and market position then describe and analyze the recent and targeted work procedures, as well as the respective skills, knowledge and abilities needed for Wal-Mart to achieve its objectives. I will also show the technology used by Wal-Mart to achieve work output in line with the company’s goals and provide a set of HRM recommendations suitable for Wal-Mart. The 1970s saw Wal-Mart emerge as one of the leading companies with a significant economic growth (Andersen & Narus, 1999). It acquired the Hutcheson Shoe Company and started a section of pharmaceuticals called Wal-Mart pharmacy. There was an increase in both the workforce and turnover. Wal-Mart rose to become a huge retail company with 276 stores, 21,000 employees and a turnover of over US$ 1.248 billion after a decade. The 1980s and the 1990s saw it rise from a huge national retail chain of stores into an international business. Within this period, Sam’s club was opened and a super center was launched becoming a conventional shop in several regions and countries worldwide (Dreher & Dougherty, 2001). By this time, it had one thousand four hundred and two stores, one hundred and twenty three Sam’s clubs, and it sales were over US$ 26 billion. From humble beginnings, Walton’s brain child has become one of the organizations that have contributed immensely to the world (Weinswig & Tang, 2010). The retail shops, discount stores and super centers have had a great impact on shops and consumers in the world today. To date, the organization has a workforce of over 2.2 million (Dreher & Dougherty, 2001). The company also gives its services to 176 million consume rs all over the world. Credit goes to Sam Walton and Wal-Mart for setting precedence to the world by upholding principles and running an immeasurable successful organization. In this paper’s analysis, I saw the need for the company to be more responsive to customers by improving their current and target work processes so as to ensure urgent and precise actions are taken in responding to their customers’ needs. The three key objectives they should focus on in order to achieve this are fulfilling specific customer requirements, achieving high levels of customer satisfaction and trying to adapt to the needs of business and market environments that change every day. Wal-Mart is capable of achieving these objectives while still maintaining and improving profitability and market share. This work processes can be met by linking workgroups and their processes in the internal customer and supplier chains. Once this is achieved, this linked functional work processes will become the major cross functional processes by which Wal-Mart’s externally focused business objectives will be met (Weinswig & Tang, 2010). These key cross functional business processes will be highly dependent on the way in which the management at Wal-Mart will structure their work processes (Dreher & Dougherty, 2001). They can do it in two ways; through the delivery work processes, which refers to the customer facing processes, and the support work processes, which are those that are required to sustain the delivery functions.