Since the death of Sam Walton in 1992, Wal-Mart has moved from being the most prominent retailer across the globe to hold the highest position on the Fortune 500 list as the most prominent firm internationally. Don Soderquist, who was high-ranking vice chairman by then, played an essential part in the company’s achievement. Sam Walton asserted that the company had tried to employ Don Soderquist for almost two decades. However, he finally joined Wal-Mart later on and made a significant CEO (chief operating officer). In control of overseeing most of the essential divisions of the company, such as loss prevention, corporate affairs, legal, logistics, information systems, human resources, and real estate, Don Soderquist maintained his Christian values and distinct management style of Wal-Mart. Perhaps there is no other executive of the company since the renowned Sam Walton has come to stand for the ideologies of the philosophy of Wal-Mart – as Don Soderquist did. In The Wal-Mart Way, Don Soderquist narrates the story to his readers of how he helped lead a multinational corporation from being a $43 billion firm to an organization that would ultimately go beyond $200 billion. A number of writers have written about the success of Wal-Mart, but none of them apart from Don was a critical player as far as the success of the company is concerned. The essential values based on Christian values and maintained by the likes of Don Soderquist are the reasons behind the success of Wal-Mart.
Don Soderquist worked at the firm from 1980 to 2002 when he retired as the CEO and Vice-Chairman. He grew his career with Wal-Mart. He shares his story of how the dream of Sam Walton, the patriarch, was actualized through the tireless effort and determination of the owner of the invention. He observed the methods employed by its founder, Sam Walton, and learned his viewpoint directly until the demise of Walton in 1992. The vision and dedication of Sam Walton made the company grow from a single store to not just the biggest retailer but also the most significant organization across the globe by then. Wal-Mart reported 44 million dollar annual sales in 1961. A decade later, its sales went beyond two billion dollars. Its sales approached $200 billion four decades later. In 2016, five and half decades later, the company had yearly sales of $482 billion from approximately 5,000 discount clubs, neighborhood markets, supercenters, and discount stores across the globe. The giant company has been kept moving by an army of 2.3 associates. As it proliferated and turned out to be the largest firm globally, Wal-Mart also learned that success and fame come with a price (Malloch, 2017). In its case, the price mentioned above was increased external pressure and visibility, from competitors to union leaders from lawsuits and even criticism from the public. Wal-Mart has remained an essential staple for many clients across the globe, but the firm has also developed and became a much more outspoken and an engaged corporate citizen.
Don Soderquist provides his entire outlook on the twelve principles handed down by the late Sam Walton headman, leading to his hobbyhorse’s overwhelming growth. Using examples that were directly taken from his time when he worked alongside Sam Walton, Soderquist aims to inspire leaders of retailers across the globe, from top managers at multinational corporations to managers of local grocery stores. Bringing together some of the more exceptional features of the business model of Wal-Mart with more accurate and tried principles of corporate management, The Wal-Mart Way serves as a guideline that will turn out to be an instant principle for creating a successful, strong company while at the same time maintaining high ethical principles (Flamholtz & Randle, 2020). Without just becoming history as far as the success of Wal-Mart is concerned, Soderquist talks about the success of the organization by breaking corporate development into twelve parts: growing dreams, vision the power to see what others don’t, the power of culture, people make the difference, the customer is the boss, a passion for excellence, the execution imperative, technology the ultimate change agent, reinventing the supply chain, creating supplier relationships, never stop growing, and good neighbors (Soderquist, 2005). All the principles mentioned above contributed significantly to the success of Wal-Mart, making it increase into turning out to be not just the most prominent company across the globe but also to establish branches in all corners of the world.
On top of that, in his The Wal-Mart Way, Soderquist looks at all corporate growth and management features, bringing on board often entertaining and immensely readable prose from a person who, just as himself enthusiastically acknowledges, is not a writer. Don Soderquist had two main objectives in mind when he started the book. First, he wanted to share what he thought were the fundamental principles of Wal-Mart’s success to his readers, who can gain insight and inspiration to fuel the development of all their accomplishments. Second, Soderquist aimed at creating an avenue of helping all Wal-Mart’s 1.5 million companions past, present, and future pick up, have a good time, preserve, and build up the distinctive culture of their organization.
Wal-Mart has been good to its clients in terms of low prices. On top of that, it has been suitable to promote Christian values as part of its management style. It has also placed joints where consumers can access the required products without facing unnecessary difficulties (Dees, 2021). On the other hand, the company went wrong by exerting constant pressure on its supplier, which forced many jobs abroad. Additionally, it made many competing retailers close their stores since they could not compete with Wal-Mart due to its low prices strategy.
In summing up, Wal-Mart has moved from being the most prominent retailer across the globe to hold the highest spot on the Fortune 500 list as the most prominent firm internationally since the death of Sam Walton. Don Soderquist played an essential role in the success of the company. He was responsible for overseeing most of the crucial divisions of the company, such as loss prevention, corporate affairs, legal, logistics, information systems, human resources, and real estate. Additionally, he maintained his Christian values and distinct management style of Wal-Mart. Don Soderquist provides his entire outlook on the twelve main beliefs handed down by the late Sam Walton headman that led to his hobbyhorse’s overwhelming growth. Soderquist aims to inspire leaders of retailers across the globe, from top managers at multinational corporations to managers of local grocery stores.
References
Dees, E. (2021). Espoused Versus Operationalized Organizational Values: A Case Study of Values Integration.
Flamholtz, E., & Randle, Y. (2020). 8. Managing the Company Process Orientation Dimension of Culture. In Corporate Culture (pp. 152-173). Stanford University Press.
Malloch, T. R. (2017). Practical wisdom in management: Business across spiritual traditions. Routledge.
Seymen, A. F. An evaluation of corporate management & strategical planning of global companies. Journal of Business, 29(1), 27-28.
Soderquist, D. (2005). The Wal-Mart Way: the inside story of the success of the world’s largest company. Pearson Education India.
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