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Perspectives of a balanced scorecard in relation to Wal-Mart Inc According to Fortune 500, Wal-Mart Inc. is the leading retail store in the world. Due to its large regional coverage, the corporation conducts its business operations in nine different retail formats: food and drugs, membership warehouse clubs, bodegas (small markets), supercenters, restaurants, cash and carry stores, general merchandise stores, apparel store, and soft discount store (Annual report, 2015). Wal-Mart has 11,000 stores under 72 banners in 27 countries serving an average number of 245 million customers per week. The company is estimated to have around 2.2 million employees serving in all its retail stores all over the globe with an entry level associate being paid a wage of $9.0 per hour while current associates earn $10.0 per hour ("WMT FORM10-K, 2016).. To promote its business operations and market its products as well as service, Wal-Mart has different objectives which have a close relation with each four perspectives of the balanced scorecard implying that the perspective are relevant to the company. The first objective is “Saving people money so that they can live better” is related to the customer perspective. The center of focus under customer perspective is how customers see or views the organization. Regardless of the type of business, product or services being provided, customers must be given an upper hand priority because they are the reasons as to why an organization exists. The aim of Wal-Mart is to attract a large number of customers by lowering price. The second objective of Wal-Mart is personalized shopping experience big data, social and mobile. This objective focuses on the learning and innovation or growth perspective. The perspective tries to answer the question, can we continue to improve and create value? Company’s ability to innovate, improve and learn is directly tied to its value (Kaplan & Norton,

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1992). Therefore, Wal-Mart has to do more in terms of technological and online shopping mechanism such as using drones to deliver purchases customers. The business process perspective, defines exactly what should be done internally to meet the expectations of the customers. Excellent customer performance is derived from processes, decisions, and actions taking place throughout the organization. By the fact, that the Wal-Mart management has decisions to make, and its operations involve various processes, this perspective is very vital. Financial

performance

measures

indicate

whether

the

company’s

strategy,

implementation, and execution are contributing to the bottom-line improvement. Since Wal-Mart has objectives and goals to meet, the financial perspective is of great importance to the firm (Kaplan & Norton, 1992). Some of the Wall-Marts objective include; faster is better; customer shop anytime; “one-size fits all” merchandising strategy. To ensure that all these strategies and objective are fully attained, there must good financial budgeting and allocation. Given today’s dynamic business environment, financial managers should pay more attention on long-term financial concerns. An action that should be implemented by the Wall-Mart corporation to ensure its survival in future because it is currently facing stiff competition from one firms such as Amazon.com and Apple Inc. Indeed I can connect this overview to hoe I analyze and improve my Capsim simulation rounds. There is direct relation between the rounds and the overview of organization in relation to the balanced score card perspectives. While analyzing and improving Capsim simulation rounds, the focus is on the product or service; the market demand, taste, preference, and views; and the environment or the level of competition. Similarly, the overview focuses on the market, how the company operates as well as how it improves its services to fit the customer demands and needs. The firm undergoes changes often, with the customer demand in mind.

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References Annual Report (2015). Wal-Mart Inc. Retrieved 16 May 2017 From http://s2.q4cdn.com/056532643/files/doc_financials/2015/annual/2015-annualreport.pdf Kaplan, Robert S; Norton, D. P. (1992). "The Balanced Scorecard – Measures That Drive Performance". Harvard Business: 71–79.Available at https://hbr.org/1992/01/thebalanced-scorecard-measures-that-drive-performance-2 WMT FORM10-K - 1/31/15. (2016). Sec.gov. Retrieved 16 May 2017, from http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/104169/000010416915000011/wmtform10kx13115.htm...