9. Reading: Wal-Mart

  

  

 

Wal-Mart is probably the most successful US-based general goods retailer in the world. Yet, after nearly a decade of trying, it pulled out of Germany. It realized that its formula for success- low prices and a wide choice of goods – did not work in markets with their own discount chains and shoppers with different habits.

 

“It is a good, important lesson”, says Beth Keck, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart. Among other things, Wal-Mart has learned to deal with different corporate cultures with more sensitivity.
In Germany, it stopped requiring sales clerks to smile at customers, because some male shoppers interrupted this as flirting. It also stopped requiring staff members to sin the Wal-Mart chant every morning.

 

“People found these things strange. Germans just don’t behave that way,” says Hans-Martin Porshmanm, the secretary of the Verdi union, which represents 5,000 Wal-Mart employees. In addition, Wal-Mart “didn’t want to have anything to do with unions”, he says. “They didn’t understand that in Germany, companies and unions are closely connected.”

 

Wal-Mart ‘s German experience also taught it to use local management. The company initially installed American executives. Who had little feel for what German consumers wanted. “They tried to sell packaged meat from the butcher”, says Mr Porschmann. A customer, Roland Kogel, 54, says he never bought groceries at Wal-Mart because food is cheaper at German discount chains. He also did no visit the store often because it was on the edge of town and he does not own a car.

 

Finally, Wal-Mart also learned to care less whether its foreign stores carry the name derived from its founder, Sam Walton, as the German Wal-Marts did. Seventy per cent of Wal-Mart’s international sales come from outlets with names like Asda in Britain, Seiyu in Japan or Bompreco in Brazil.

 

 

1. Wal-Mart has learned to deal with different corporate cultures with more sensitivity.

   

• true
• false

 

2. Wal-Mart managers knew the fact that in Germany, companies and unions are closely connected.

   

• false
• true

   

3. The company initially installed European executives.

   

• true
• false