Identify the public company you have selected and include the publicly traded stock symbol
The company selected for the analysis is the Wal-Mart Stores organization, which is famous for its unbelievably low prices and at the same time provides the products of consistently good quality. WMT is the publicly traded stock symbol of the company (Investor Guide, 2015).
According to the 2015 statistics, the company’s share price has grown extensively over the past few months, reaching $78.56 per share (Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) –NYSE, 2015). Seeing that the forward P/E of WMT is 15.24 (Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) –NYSE, 2015), it can be assumed that the organization is experiencing a major increase in profitability.
Give a brief synopsis of the company, summarizing its purpose and goals
According to the official vision and mission statements issued by Wal-Mart, the company aims at providing the customers with an opportunity to save money, at the same time buying good products, which are clearly overpriced by other organizations. As a result, the company defines its purpose as improving the quality of people’s lives, as the official vision statement says (Mission, vision and values, 2011).
The goals of Wal-Mart, in their turn, are more complex. Attempting at addressing the recent environmental concern, the company has announced lately that the promotion of sustainability and the reduction of waste to minimum are its key objectives (Goulding, Goldman & Winslow, 2012).
State your rationale and reason for selecting this company
The unique pricing strategy, which Wal-Mart adopts, is the key rationale for choosing the company in question. While a range of companies reduce prices for a variety of reasons, in most cases, the low-price strategies boil down to providing discounts. Wal-Mart, in its turn, sets unbelievably low prices for its products, at the same time retaining its profitability, which is worth studying deeper.
Describe your role as a stakeholder in this company
My role as a stakeholder in the Wal-Mart Company is rather humble, seeing that I am only one of its customers. Specifically, I contribute to the company’s progress by purchasing the goods that the company supplies to the city warehouses and that are later on delivered to the local stores. It can be assumed, though, that I also promote service and product quality improvement within the organization, as I have addressed the staff of the local Wal-Mart call center and commented on the quality of some of the products that I had bought (Kärnä, 2004). Therefore, it can be assumed that my role in the company’s development is twofold.
Conclusion: what you hope to gain/understand as you research about this company
In the process of the company research, I hope to figure out whether the approach, which the Wal-Mart organization adopts to its pricing policy, requires a special strategy towards the marketing of the services produced by the organization. In addition, the tools for reducing costs, which the organization in question adopts in order to level the outstandingly low prices.
In addition, it is quite peculiar whether the company adopts specific approaches towards attaining high levels of customer and staff satisfaction, which it displays at present. To be more exact, the actors, which the company uses to achieve the aforementioned satisfaction rates, need to be studied. The experience of Wal-Mart must be extensive, and the information, which it has to offer in terms of both marketing and leadership must be very important for entrepreneurs.
Reference List
Goulding, C., Goldman, J. & Winslow, J. (2012). The energy tax aspects of drug stores. Corporate Business Taxation Monthly, 1(1), 13–42. Web.
Investor Guide. (2015). Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT). InvestorGuide.com. Web.
Kärnä, S. (2004). Analysing customer satisfaction and quality in construction – the case of public and private customers. Nordic Journal of Surveying and Real Estate Research – Special Series, 2(1), 67–80. Web.
Mission, vision and values. (2011). Wal-Mart. Web.
The Downtowner. (2014). Wal-Mart logo. The Downtowner. Web.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) –NYSE. (2015). Yahoo! Finance. Web.