Functional Areas of Walmart, Research Paper Example

Introduction

Whether a business is large or small they have key functions in order to operate on a regular basis. This includes handling customers, buying inventory or stock, paying bills by keeping up to date account ledgers, or other critical components that forms the functional areas of business. The importance of understanding the functional areas is consistent with the role of the organizational leaders that continually study the functional areas and seek ways in which to communicate these components to their managers for their leadership to be effective. This paper focuses on understanding how functional areas represent organizational structure, as well as explores the functional areas within an organization. Walmart is a multibillion international corporation that serves as the market leader in retail, while employing over two million people across the world. For Walmart to continue to be the market leader and continually grow their corporation throughout the world, they must structure their organization in a manner that permits for effective and efficient achievement of their organizational goals.

Human Resources

In the past 20 years, the role and function of Human Resources within an organization has evolved exponentially, and continues to grow from the value it brings to an organization, and the roles and functions delivered, the ways that practitioners enter the profession, to the collective demographics of human resource professionals. According to Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), “HR is increasingly mobilized to offer much more to organizations that record-keeping, payroll and employee benefits administration” (SHRM, 2008, pg. 2). Human resources incorporates a myriad of functional areas that integrates responsibilities from recruiting and staffing to compensating, supplying benefits, development, and training. In relation to understanding the significance of human resource as a functional area in businesses, we recognize that Walmart sees its’ employees as each representatives of the company’s human resource department.

As outlined, human resource is an effective implementation of Walmart’s strategy in order to build relationships with their millions of customers. “…human resource management was an essential support activity that, when integrated with other value chain activities, is necessary for a firm to achieve and sustain competitive advantage” (Buller and McEvoy, 2011, pg. 44). Walmart’s creator, Sam Walton saw employees, or associates, as business partners, as well as leaders in which they should set an example of treating people by “The Golden Rule”. Sam Walton believed that his employees were his greatest assets and have always credited them as why Wal-Mart was able to achieve many of their goals. “He placed so much value on his employees that he called Wal-Mart’s HR Department, “The People Division” rather than the Human Resources Department” (Bergdahl, 2010, pg.2). For Wal-Mart, their organizational structure provides for managers and supervisors to play the role as HR specialists, as their strategy empowers their leaders to make the job satisfactory and performance of their associates and each store their responsibility. For Walmart and numerous organizations, human resources, and organizational structure are intertwined in order to provide accountability and strategy for recruiting and hiring the best employees, providing adequate compensation and benefits, that is incorporated into encouraging each member to be a team player in achieving the organization’s overall goals.

Accounting and Finance

For an organization, the functional areas of the accounting and finance departments carries numerous accountability and responsibility, as well as help in projecting the organization’s success, and how well the organization is performing. Accounting and finance are closely integrated within an organization. Accounting incorporates the process of collecting, categorizing, reporting, and analyzing the organization’s funds. Accounting involves capturing and recording all the activities, operations, and transaction that have financial consequences for the organization. While finance involves the how the organization strategizes to make investment and financing decisions that impact the way the organization operates. Finance and accounting have a reciprocal relationship in which must work cohesively to achieve the goals of the organization. The primary purpose of accounting and finance is for facilitating operations, providing measurement of actual performance, making decisions by analyzing their cash position; providing external financial reports; and keeping to the standards, expectations, and requirements of the government in reporting all accurate financial information. (Anadarajan, Srinivasan, Anandarajan, 2012)

For Wal-Mart, this involves having a Global Internal Audit team that ensures that each store operates in the most cost-efficient manner. Walmart actively streamlines and aggregates their payroll and financial services through their audit team, while their Financial Division is able to provide solutions, products, and money services to their mobile channels, websites, and customers in their stores around the world. (Walmart, 2015) In order to maintain their goals, Walmart determine each merger and acquisition’s impact on their business, as well as keep to their mission of helping their customers to save money. Through their organizational structure, they are able to facilitate a system of accountability that makes their goals simple and achievable.

IT Systems

Information Technology (IT) is a critical functional area in modern companies. When the world has been transformed through the advances in technology, it is imperative for growing and established companies to implement an effective and efficient IT division within their organizational structure. Globalization has rapidly progressed due to technology, and has brought many people from around the world together. This provides an obtainable and optimum opportunity for corporations such as Walmart to provide IT applications and systems that will permit access to their products and services. The organizational strategy has in recent years have guided the IT strategy in helping to shape the business strategy, in which has transformed the business process, and the scope and goals of the organization. For Walmart this IT system includes their implementation of SAP, ERP, SCM, and EMP systems that assist in acquiring payroll information, charging, creating deals, monitoring inventor, as well as the acceleration of their e-commerce. (Walmart, 2015) According to research, “These digital technologies are fundamentally reshaping traditional business strategy as modular, distributed, cross functional, and global business processes that enable work to be carried out across boundaries of time, distance, and function” (Bharadwaj, Sawy, Pavlou, and Venkatraman, 2013, pg. 472). In integrating IT functional area of the organization, it has greatly attributed to overall success and operation of Walmart’s goals and financial performance.

Marketing

Marketing is an additional functional area that has greatly contributed to Walmart being able achieve the organizational goals, as well as their continually being able to maintain a competitive advantage over their external environment. Marketing is a significant department within an organization as it can deeply impact the organization, as it concerns identifying customers’ wants and needs that drives the organization. Marketing takes into account the internal and external environments, in regards to research, analysis, supervision, and other functions. “Moreover, marketing also has to cope with other departments of the organization with the aim to get them realized the objectives of an entire organization” (Jiang, 2009, pg. 153). For Walmart, marketing is instrumental in connecting with customers in helping to identify the needs and wants, as well as providing customers with upcoming deals, prices, and other information that drives sales. According to Walmart, “we develop unique creative strategies to reach thousands of target markets around the world, delving deep into comprehensive research and collaborating with the best of the best in our industry to reach more people, more inventively and more effectively” (Walmart, 2015). For the organizational structure within Walmart, the marketing division serves as a key component in directing the other functional areas of the organization, as it dictates what strategy to employ, as well as setting goals, and influencing the direction of the organization.

Conclusion

An organization is considered to be a collective environment where individuals work together to achieve common business goals. Organization structures are ideally the way in which an organization is able to focus on achieving their business goals, while efficiently using their limited resources. Organizations must develop their organizational structures in which leaders must be able to delegate responsibilities where necessary. Organizational structures helps to shape and define the behaviors within an organization, as well as outlines the lines of responsibility and authority, while determining the nature of the relationship of the organization in regards to the external environment. For Walmart the functional areas of Human Resources, Accounting and Finance, IT, and Marketing, are key areas in which help play a role in Walmart’s organizational structure, that drives growth, innovation, sales, and customers to their stores. Organizational structures plays a critical role in outlining the grouping of the jobs within the organization, and provides a transparent look at how the company is able to meet their goals.

References

Accounting & Finance. (2015). WalMart. Retrieved from http://careers.walmart.com/career-areas/corporate/accounting-finance/

Anandarajan, M., Anandarajan, A., & Srinivasan, C. A. (Eds.). (2012). Business intelligence techniques: a perspective from accounting and finance. Springer Science & Business Media.

Benedict, Amanda. (2008). HR’s Evolving Role in Organizations and Its Impact on Business Strategy A Survey Report by the Society for Human Resource Management. SHRM. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/Research/SurveyFindings/Documents/HR%27s%20Evolving%20Role%20In%20Organizations.pdf

Bergdahl, Michael. (2010). How Wal-Mart Minimizes risk by aligning business Strategies with HR Practices. Slorai.Retrieved from  http://www.michaelbergdahl.net/pdf/How%20Wal-Mart%20Minimizes%20Risk%20by%20Aligning%20Business%20Strategies%20with%20HR%20Practices.pdf

Bharadwaj, A., El Sawy, O. A., Pavlou, P. A., & Venkatraman, N. (2013). Digital business strategy: toward a next generation of insights. Mis Quarterly, 37(2), 471-482.

Buller, P. F., & McEvoy, G. M. (2012). Strategy, human resource management and performance: Sharpening line of sight. Human resource management review, 22(1), 43-56.

Human Resources. (2015). Walmart. Retrieved from http://careers.walmart.com/career-areas/corporate/human-resources/

Jiang, Xin. (2009). Strategic Management for Main Functional Areas in an Organization. International Journal of Business and Management. Vol. 4, No. 2. Retrieved from  http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijbm/article/viewFile/532/513

Marketing.  (2015). Walmart. Retrieved from http://careers.walmart.com/career-areas/corporate/marketing/