Walmart's Secret Weapon - The Best Ops Directors in the World

2017-2016-2015 Forbes Toughest Jobs to fill list has Operations Managers on the list…. Guess what these folks do… They run Wal-Mart Stores.

It seems almost every day there is a new article posted about the "war" between Walmart and Amazon. The discussion about which chess move is going to provide Checkmate goes on and on. There is a simple truth to the Walmart model, Walmart employs about 4,000 of the worlds best General Managers or Operations Directors in the form of Supercenter Store Managers. (NHM Managers are awesome too!)

The vast misdirection that the title "Retail Store Manager" is given to a Wal-Mart Store Manager is almost a silly misrepresentation. The average store manager has the following list of responsibilities:

-Full responsibility for a 3-4.5 acre facility (150,000 to 240,000 sqft. Properties) from HVAC to Snow Removal

-Oversight of a team of 4-15 Middle Managers overseeing a team of 100-400+ Hourly Associates

-Full P&L accountability for $40-$200 Million a year in sales with Aggressive Sales Targets and repeated achievement of those targets. (There are Nasdaq companies that wished they had the sales of one store)

-Full accountability for ALL customer satisfaction in the Omni channel marketplace that we have moved to; many stores see or serve 5,000 customers a day regularly.

-Full accountability for Associate Engagement and the overall moral of a the entire team

-Full accountability for Customer and Associate Safety, to that point Full accountability for all Risk mitigation.

-Full accountability for all HR functions for the entire team.

-Constant Process Improvements across multiple lines of business - Logistics, Purchasing, Pharmacy, Prepared Foods, Fresh Produce, Imported Merchandise. We constantly look for Lean in all we do, and form cross-functional teams as a way of life.

-Responsibility as first point of contact for real estate leasing and rentals, grounds care, interior maintenance, exterior maintenance, new project rollout, in many cases stores operate as pilots for new technology.

        The war for talent is on-going with our national unemployment rate at a 10 year low, but Walmart has locked up solid Operators, and without Operators new businesses do not become efficient, they do not grow/scale their model in a consistent and influential manner, they cannot maintain the progress that their innovations bring to the table.

        Walmart on the other hand is going to continue to defeat all of the naysayers again and again and again. The Operators are getting it done.

-44 consecutive years of increased dividends to shareholders. $14.4 Billion returned this year.

-Walmart crested $500B in total Revenue in FY17

-Walmart US delivered the highest comp sales in 9 years FY2017

-Q1 FY18 Same store growth was 2.2% on a 2.0% forecast.

-Walmart eCommerce including on-line grocery grew at a rate of 44% this past year with the advent of Online Grocery and Home delivery services.

Thanks for reading my opinion piece.