random ramblings

Few more from Wal-Mart story. As before, I compare continuously with Infosys from the perspective of organizations which continue to perform even when they are big. It’s almost embarrassing to admit this, but it’s true: there hasn’t been a day in my adult life when I haven’t spent some time thinking about merchandising. I suspect I have emphasized item merchandising and the importance of promoting items to a greater degree than most any other retail management person in this country. It has been an absolute passion of mine. It is what I enjoy doing as much as anything in the business. I really love to pick an item – may be the most basic merchandise – and then call attention to it. Many of our best opportunities were created out of necessity. The things that we were forced to learn and do, because we started out underfinanced and undercapitalied in these remote, small communities, contributed mightily to the way we’ve grown as a company. Had we been capitalized, or had we been th...

Just completed Sam Walton’s auto biography . The contrast of Walmart and Kmart (then and now) and story of the growth of Walton from one franchisee store to an empire made it very interesting. In case you are not familiar with Kmart, this statement from the book puts in perspective. Compare Kmart and Wal-mart after they had both been on the street for ten years. Our fifty-plus wal-marts and elevent variety stores were doing about $80 million a year in sales compared to kmart’s five hundred stores doing more than $3 billion a year. but kmart had interested me ever since the first store went up in 1962. I was in their stores constantly because they were the laboratory, and they were better than we were. I spent a heck of lot of my time wandering through their stores talking to their people and trying to figure out how they did things. Now the situation has reversed. I had a Kmart near where I lived – parking lot used to be empty, whereas nearest Walmart used to be full – enough sai...