Michael Clark: What would you attribute Wal-Mart's past success to?
Mike Maher: It boils down to three main points: Respect for the individual, service to the customers, and striving for excellence. Within all that, the bottom line is: You must provide value for the customer's money and better prices and better selection of merchandise. We also provide merchandise that is appropriate to the area the store is in. For instance, we aren't going to stock a lot of winter apparel in Florida. Instead, we like to send things that are more appropriate, such as fishing gear.
The company was founded with smaller markets in mind. Sam [Walton] targetes smaller towns with about 5 to 15 thousand people because these towns were too small to be noticed by the big chains such as K-Mart, Woolco, and others. This gave Wal-Mart a strong customer base and allowed it to grow quite large without the larger companies taking notice. By the time they did notice, Wal-Mart had grown to be a formidable opponent.
M.C.: What is in Wal-Mart's future?
M.M.: There are two growth vehicles we are looking at now. One is the Supercenter concept. We are going to build more Supercenters and convert more of the old Discount City-type Wal-Marts into Supercenters. The concept of having food and regular merchandise, like clothes, fishing reels, toys, whatever, in one store has really paid off. The customers seem to like it. The other current vehicle is international expansion. We are going to continue to expand into other countries.
M.C.: How does Wal-Mart maintain an edge over the competition? I'm pretty sure you already answered part of that earilier, when you were talking about providing better selections of merchandise at better prices and offering merchandise that corresponds with the area.
M.M.: Yes, but let me add one point to that. Our technological systems are a definite edge over the competition. One of the main points about discounting is moving merchandise, that is, being able to re-stock shelves of merchandise after they are sold out. This way, we are able to keep our customers happy and increase sales. We have a proprietary system that keeps track of merchandise called Retail-Link. It's very useful.
M.C.: What are the biggest problems now?
M.M.: Maintaining the culture. It's been very hard to keep intact the culture Sam [Walton] set in place when he started the company, but it has stayed so far. That, and being able to hire and keep the right people that can effectively work with customers have been the largest problems.
M.C.: What is currently the biggest opportunity for Wal-Mart?
M.M.: Right now, we are focusing on the two vehicles I mentioned earlier, the Supercenter expansion and international growth.
M.C.: How many people does Wal-Mart employ?
M.M.: We employ 815,000 people in the domestic division and 135,000 people in the international division, making Wal-Mart the largest private employer in the world.
M.C.: How much did Wal-Mart pay in local, state, and federal taxes last year?
M.M.: We paid $897 billion for state, local, and federal taxes. Also, we paid $5.5 billion in sales taxes, which the customers pay us, and we pay to the government.
M.C.: Okay, that's all, and thank you for your time.
M.M.: No problem.