What I Learned from Sam Walton: How to Compete and Thrive in a Wal-Mart World

by Michael Bergdahl

Book Overview

Praise for WHAT I LEARNED FROM SAM WALTON "Michael Bergdahl's book presents unique insights into the staggering international success of Wal-Mart. Throughout the pages of this book, you can almost hear Sam Walton himself coaching and inspiring his legion of employees to greatness." -Tracy Mullin, President and CEO, National Retail Federation "Retailers, non-retailers, manufacturers, and suppliers will enjoy Bergdahl's insights into Wal-Mart's service...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471679984
• ISBN13: 9780471679981
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Length: 237 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The lazy deserve to go out of business. That's capitalism.

I've lived in small towns in fear of a new Walmart with business owners trying to bully the city council to block Walmart. I've never been sympathetic. The small-town stores were often places you visited because there was no choice but they were unfriendly, unhelpful, untidy, and the stock was stagnant. This is a riveting book about Walmart's management strategies but also a comprehensive to do list of how to compete with Walmart... what they cannot do and how you can carve out a niche and complement the store. The chapters are well organized and end with a 2-page checklist summary. Very helpful. I prefer my nearby smaller grocery store (quiet, plays classical music), but next time I visit a Walmart, I'll have a fresh appreciation for what they do differently.

A Great Branding Book

The key to Wal-Mart's success may be a 7:00 a.m. meeting each Saturday. While competitors are rubbing the sleep from their eyes, 500 top managers gather at headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. They discuss current performance and future goals in free-wheeling discussions that may even feature visits by GE or Disney executives or even country music stars like Garth Brooks. Michael Bergdahl, author of What I Learned From Sam Walton: How to Compete and Thrive in a Wal-Mart World, points out the benefits of such meetings, where everyone has to pay for their own coffee and donuts at an honor bar. Every manager hears the same message in the same way. Ideas, successes and failures are shared. Strategic execution can begin while competitors are playing golf. "I believe competitors who are losing the competitive battle against Wal-Mart (or who have already lost) probably don't even understand the significance of the Saturday morning meetings to Wal-Mart's competitive advantage. It's as if the company leadership has a management retreat every Saturday of the year," writes Bergdahl. "Unless competitors are willing to go to a six-day workweek and hold meetings with all their top executives each week to plot counter strategies, I don't know how they can even think about competing directly." It's hard to compete against Wal-Mart. Just ask Kmart as well as the myriad mom-and-pops who have gone under whenever a Wal-Mart opened nearby. How did Wal-Mart become the force of nature it is today? Bergdahl uses his experience as a director at the retail giant and at other retail chains to explain how Wal-Mart conquered common retailing and business issues through a relentless emphasis on cost-control and execution. Based on this experience, he outlines how companies can compete against Wal-Mart if it invades their town or competitive space. Each chapter concludes with a checklist of questions and actions that reflect either Wal-Mart's best practices or a weakness ripe for potential exploitation. One example: "Run the pay week from Thursday to Wednesday so necessary labor cuts are made on the slowest retail days." The advice is enlivened with anecdotes about Sam Walton, the firm's founder and exceptional retailer, businessman and manager, who brought his beloved bird dogs to run around each Saturday morning's meeting. The book has no stunning strategic or other insights. But that is not the point. As Bergdahl explains at the beginning of his book, "Wal-Mart's success strategies and tactics are easy to understand yet hard to duplicate." In other words, Wal-Mart owes its success to in-the-trenches execution, based on the total-quality principles of continuous learning and continuous improvement. "By focusing constantly on trying to become more operationally efficient, Wal-Mart sets itself apart from its competitors," writes Bergdahl. "Wal-Mart isn't successful because of its strategies so much as because of its lockstep tactical execution of thos

Finally, enough complaining about "Big Bad Wal-Mart"!

Mike Bergdhal has declared `the pity party is over' and has provided a clear and comprehensive outline for operating a successful business - even in the shadow of the giant. It is not for the timid - "What I Learned from Sam Walton: How to Compete & Thrive in a Wal-Mart World", will demand you take a cold, hard look in the mirror and honestly assess your business and your commitment to it. Success lies ahead only for those willing to roll up their sleeves and `get after it!' Accurate and insightful, this book is a must read for anyone who is in the business of providing goods or services as well as anyone who ever wondered, "How does Wal-Mart do it?" Bergdhal has let the "secret" out of the bag, as only an insider could. Time and again the words leapt off the pages at me, a steady reminder of how often I heard those same phrases directly from Mr. Sam's lips. It was so unusual, yet very refreshing, to read a book from someone who truly understand the inner workings of Wal-Mart.

Easy read

The book told a lot of stories, when reading this type of book I imagine I am at a conference or a lecture on the topic of the book. A lot of the ideas used by WalMart I already use in my retail store however, the creative thinking of Michael Bergdahl has spawned new ideas that I am implementing in my store right now! Let's just say that it helped the creative side of my brain start thinking a little more. Great Book

Unique and Enlightening Perspectives

In this volume, Bergdahl shares a wealth of personal as well as professional experience during his association with Walton and the Wal*Mart organization. Some of the statistics he shares about that organization are truly impressive: * In 2004, it plans to open a new store each and every day of the year. * Wal*Mart employs more people in the U.S. than any organization other than the federal government. * 1.3 million associates worldwide make Wal*Mart the largest employer on earth * Over two million associates will work for Wal*Mart worldwide by 2005. * Over 100 million customers per week cross Wal*Mart thresholds in the U.S. * The company operates distribution centers in 120 communities across the country. * In the near future the company plans to increase its annual sales to close to $500 billion. In his Introduction, Bergdahl explains that one of his purposes in this book is to "discuss the realities associated with direct competition with Wal*Mart." He selected the acronym P.O.C.K.E.T.S as a means by which to organize his material: Price, Operations, Culture, Key Item Promotion (KIP), Product, Expenses, Talent, and Service. It is important to keep mind as you read this book, that the global retailing organization which Wal*Mart has obviously become began as a small single store franchise of of the Butler Brothers' Ben Franklin chain (Walton's 5 & 10) in Bentonville (AR) in 1950. Walton soon added a second store in Newport (AR) which was not a Ben Franklin franchise. By 1962, Walton and his brother Bud owned 16 variety stores in Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas. The first Wal*Mart store opened that year. My point is, as with JCPenney with which Wal*Mart shares much in common, over time Sam Walton planted a series of "acorns" in carefully selected and rigorously nourished "soil" within which progressively more profitable "harvests" were produced. In my opinion, it is possible but unlikely that there are other Sam Waltons and James Cash Penneys out there who can duplicate such success. Bergdahl seems to agree, explaining that he initially intended to write a book which shares his "perceptions of what it takes to be successful in the Wal*Mart world...uncovering the secrets of Wal*Mart strategies and demonstrating HOW competitors can compete with Wal*Mart and survive." He then realized that, instead, it would be easier to write a book about WHY it would be difficult to do so. That is the book which he wrote. One of this book's most important value-added benefits is derived from the "Checklist" of key points with which Bergdahl concludes each of the seven chapters in which he examines Wal*Mart's expertise in Price, Operations, Culture, Key Item Promotion (KIP), Product, Expenses, Talent, and Service. For whom will this book be most valuable? Another opinion: Decision-makers in those those companies which are deficient in one or more of the seven core competencies, and, decision-makers those companies which do now or plan to do business