Free Essay with Walmart's Vision and Mission Statement Evaluation

The mission statement of Walmart Inc. states "to save people money so they can live better." This mission statement reflects the company's slogan "Save money. Live better". Walmart Inc. is one of the largest chains of retail stores in the world. Sam Walton founded the company in Arkansas in 1962 and developed under sound financial strategies that have driven it to take up the position it has secured in the global market. The corporate vision and mission statements of Walmart Inc. have over the years defined the fundamental steering principles to position them in the industry. Therefore, the success of the company is attributed to effective fulfillment and implementation of its mission and vision using the Porter model and Ansoff's matrix strategies (Kirkpatrick, 2017). The generic (porter's Model) strategy and intensive strategies (Ansoff Matrix) has over the years ensured Walmart Inc. remains with a secure competitive advantage to achieve its specific goals as stipulated in the corporate Vision and Mission statements (Walmart, 2011). This paper will evaluate and analyze the vision and mission statements of Walmart Inc. to assess on its effectiveness in helping the company realize its objectives as well as the relevance and appropriateness of the mission and vision statement to the company's success and future direction.

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Based on Walmart's mission statement "to save people money so they can live better" it is clear that the business strategy applied by Walmart involve capitalization of a selling point as the vocal reference to attract its potential customers. The significance of this selling point exhibited in multiple strategies executed by the company to increase its competitive market advantage by offering lower prices. The mission statement first segment on "save people money" is fulfilled through offering low prices on their commodities making buyers spend less money to buy the goods as compared to the high prices offered by their competitors (Walmart, 2011). It is not clear how the company can offer the second half of the mission statement "live better," but the company advocates speculate that when consumers buy goods at lower prices, they can get more value for their money and increase their comfort in life as stipulated by the entire mission statement of Walmart Inc. Again Walmart Inc. has offered employment to an immense scale of people raising the chances to improve the livelihood of the people directly and indirectly affected by the company's global operations.

On the other hand Walmart's Vision statement "Be the destination for customers to save money, no matter how they want to shop" as articulated in the company's investment community meeting of 2017 was revised from the previous vision statement "to be the best retailer in the hearts and minds of consumers and employees" (Pace, 2017). The new shift in the vision statement shows the direction the company gears to capitalize its mandate by expanding the competitive landscape and retailing conditions. Over the years the vision was geared to ensuring that Walmart remains as the leading retail chain in the world as the top player emphasizing on business flexibility in customer accommodation (Walmart, 2011). For instance, when the vision slogan states no matter how they want to shop, shows that the company's strategic objective is leading to customer satisfaction and accessibility in whichever platform the customers are conveniently available. In the 2017 revised vision statement removes the employees from the front line picture shifting their representation as significant stakeholders in the company's success.

Evaluating the mission and vision statement of Walmart Inc., it is worthwhile noting that these statements are poorly structured. Both comments sound more like slogans that reality presentation of the aspirations and inspirations of the company's mission and vision. In the statements, the company's core business does not feature where the essential components like the products or services, philosophy, market, employees, image, and technology not covered (David, David, & David, 2014). Therefore the vision and mission statement of Walmart Inc. is shallow in presenting the information on the core purpose of the business and leaves out most of the stakeholders. The statement also fails to capture the values that have held and maintained Walmart's success over the years (Pace, 2017). Although in the strategic plan and policy documentation Walmart presents its operation values like integrity, service to customers, respect for individuals and striving for excellence none of the benefits featured in either the vision or the mission statements of the company. This omission has created a deliberate error in building on the company's image to the consumer and community target. Including the company's values in the vision and mission statements would otherwise help Walmart make on its public image in customer-oriented focus by solving their problems and needs as well as enhance product orientation by mentioning their goods or services as an advertisement element and as a communication tool.

Recommendations for improvement and collaborative mission and vision statements for Walmart Inc. need general improvement of the ideal qualities in the development of the statements. The current mission statement capitalizes on saving the financial advantage of the consumer lacking essential details on the products or services to show the target customer base, to improve on Walmarts mission it is necessary to integrate information on products and services among other essential details that get deliberately omitted in the original mission statement (Pace, 2017). Consequently, the vision statement shows concise and clear elaboration of the values and target of the company but it also needs to incorporate crucial information on the stakeholder's focus to incorporate their representation in the company's vision and aspirations. The incorporation of significant stakeholders and future-oriented goals will form holistic elements on the vision of the company.

References

David, M. E., David, F. R., & David, F. R. (2014). Mission statement theory and practice: A content analysis and new direction. International Journal of Business, Marketing, & Decision Science, 7(1), 95-110.

Kirkpatrick, S. A. (2017). Toward a grounded theory: A qualitative study of vision statement development. Journal of Management Policy and Practice, 18(1), 87-101.

Pace, S. (2017). Shaping corporate brands: From product features to the corporate mission. International Studies of Management & Organization, 47(2), 197-205.

Walmart, (2011). Walmart Annual Report 2011. Available at: http://www.walmartstores.com/sites/annualreport/2011/mission.aspx