$25.95
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Posted Feb. 2006 7:52 a.m. by kate
In General Business - 800 CEO Read Blog
Wal-Mart keeps getting larger and Charles Fishman's The Wal-Mart Effect keeps getting more press coverage.
Earlier this week, Todd posted an interview with Charles.
Here are a few other tidbits on the book and the company:
In a nutshell, here's what they say:
The Good: An insightful look at the effect, for good and bad, of Wal-Mart's focus on price-cutting.The Bad: Did author Fishman get Wal-Mart's side? Not personally. Company quotes are all from outside sources.
The Bottom Line: A successful look at how Wal-Mart works and how it is transforming the U.S. economy.
Charles has been writing for the FC from day one. Here his colleague covered his book saying that,
Wal-Mart is now so large, it has created its own business ecosystem, where Wal-Mart alone sets the tempo, the rules, the economic climate. That ecosystem, Fishman explains, literally allows Wal-Mart to stand outside the very market forces which we rely on to modulate and regulate all companies. Wal-Mart is so dominant, it can reshape even the rules of market capitalism.
So if Wal-Mart can reshape the rules, are they a good or bad force? Also, check out the 37 comments (as of posting time) on the entry.
3. Wired magazine said:
Backed by balanced reporting, Fishman asserts that Wal-Mart's "always low prices" have a far-reaching effect on every world citizen--even those who have never set foot inside a store. Economic globalization is a loaded topic but thankfully this isn't another creed against free markets.
What are your thoughts on Wal-Mart -- its policies, structure and commitment to low prices?
Charles Fishman/The Wal-Mart Effect Interview
Posted Jan. 30, 2006 10:59 a.m. by todd-sattersten
In Audio - 800 CEO Read Blog
In this interview, we talk with Charles Fishman, author of The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works--and How It's Transforming the American Economy.
Charles has been writing for Fast Company since issue number one. If you have read the magazine, you have undoubtedly read Charles Fishman.
This book started with a story in the December 2003 issue called The Wal-Mart You Don't Know. You can't have read it without remembering the story of Vlasic pickles. Charles decided to write the book after he found that there was so little available on Wal-Mart. With the effect this company now has on the American economy, he felt it important to find out more about this secretive giant.
You can read The Man Who Said No to Wal-Mart in the January 2006 issue of Fast Company. It is a story adapted from the book about how Jim Weir, CEO of Simplicity, walked away from Wal-Mart.
This one runs almost an hour, but I promise you it is worth it.
mp3, 53:43, 49.2MB
Books To Watch For - Spring '06
Posted Jan. 30, 2006 8:58 a.m. by todd-sattersten
In Lists - 800 CEO Read Blog
We did this last fall and thought you might enjoy another look at the season ahead.
So, here are the books we think you should be watching for in the first part of 2006.
- The Number by Lee Eisenberg (1/06, Free Press) - If you have walked into any Barnes & Noble since New Year's it would have been impossible to miss this book. We think it is a great book. Eisenberg takes Gladwell-like look at the complexities of retirement. As I said in my prior post, this one had me on an emotional rollercoaster. It is a great book and one everyone should read.
- The Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fishman - The long-time Fast Company editor writes an amazing book on what drives Wal-Mart and how that drives our economy. He has firsthand accounts from employees who started some of the company's biggest businesses. He also talks with suppliers about what it is like to work with the retail giant. What Fishman does best is shed some light a company that the public really doesn't know much about.
- Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars by Pat Lencioni (2/06, Jossey-Bass) - We have just started reading this one, but it is hard to bet against this author after the classics of Death by Meeting and Five Dysfunctions of A Team.
- The Ultimate Question by Fred Reichheld (3/06, Harvard Business School Press) - Reichheld has been writing books on customer loyalty for a number of years. He has done the research to show that you can ditch all the 47 question satisfaction surveys and ask your customers one simple question - "Would you recommend us to someone else?"
- The Radical Edge by Steve Farber (4/06, Kaplan) - Jack just got done reading the manuscript and he says he may like it more than Radical Leap. Many of the familiar characters are back. This time, it is about taking personal responsibility and living life on your terms.
- Questions of Character by Joseph Badaracco (4/06, Harvard Business School Press) - The subtitle says it all -- "Illuminating the Heart of Leadership Through Literature". The book is based on a class taught by the author at Harvard Business School. He says that fiction offers a unique way to teach leadership. It is possible to truly know what the characters are thinking, versus learning tools such as interviews and case studies. I think it is brilliant.
Jack Covert Selects: The Wal-Mart Effect
Posted Jan. 6, 2006 3:30 a.m. by jack
The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Worksand How It's Transforming the American Economy by Charles Fishman, The Penguin Press, January 2006, 270 Pages, $25.95 Hardcover, ISBN 1594200769
When I read a book that I plan to consider for a JCS, I mark interesting pages with Post-It notes. Doing this allows me to put the book down and easily pick up the points of the book later. This is a book that is bristling with Post-Its.
I have always been fascinated by Wal-Mart. They seem to be everywhere. I watch shows--mostly negative--on PBS about them and read business articles--mostly positive--about them. Finding a neutral source--one that doesn't have an axe to grind or a publicity spin to present--for Wal-Mart information is difficult. This book is that neutral source.
I knew Wal-Mart was big and influential; this book made me realize that they are ridiculously huge. For example, Target is their closest competitor, and Wal-Mart sells by St. Patrick's Day what Target sells in a year. As the author states, "More than half of all Americans live within five miles of a Wal-Mart store, less than a ten-minute drive away. Ninety percent of Americans live within fifteen miles of a Wal-Mart. On the nation's interstates, it is rare to go a quarter of an hour without seeing a Wal-Mart truck."
As an aside, did you know that Wal-Mart started the same year as Target and Kmart in 1962? The company is built on saving money--they'll do anything to save money. For example, in the early 1990s all deodorant came packaged in a paperboard box. Wal-Mart and other retailers decided the box was a waste. Eliminating the box saved a nickel. When you multiple that by the 200 million deodorant users, that equals a savings of $10 million.
The book talks about Sam, his philosophy and how the current management team has carried forward the idea of being the cheapest place in town. It explains employee hours. The buyers and senior executives often arrive around 6:00 a.m. and quit between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m.; all white collar employees work from 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The employees also attend the legendary Saturday-morning meeting.
At the end of the book is a chapter called Wal-Mart and the Decent Society. In that chapter Fishman states,
So even within ourselves, we struggle unsuccessfully to answer the question we started with: Is Wal-Mart good or bad? The answer is surprising for its simplicity, its obviousness, and also its power.
Wal-Mart is something utterly new.
Wal-Mart is carefully disguised as something ordinary, familiar, and even prosaic. The business model is built on the shopping cart. But, in fact, Wal-Mart is a completely new kind of institution: modern, advanced, potent in ways we've never seen before. Yes, Wal-Mart plays by the rules, but perhaps the most important part of the Wal-Mart effect is that the rules are antiquated; they are from a different era that didn't anticipate anything like Wal-Mart.
That is the source of the company's sweeping ability to suffocate inflation across the entire U.S. economy. And it is the source of the company's ability single-handedly to drive manufacturing jobs overseas.
Wal-Mart has outgrown the rules--but no one noticed.
The book ends with the story of the demise of US manufacturing for a sprinkler company in Peoria, IL. When Wal-Mart, who had been the sprinkler company's largest customer, said that prices were too high, management laid off 400 people and sent the manufacturing offshore.
This JCS is longer than most, but it's hard to summarize such a gigantic company into a few hundred words. Plus, I wanted to emphasize how important I think this book is--a must read for anyone interested in business.
Holiday Shopping and Wal-Mart
Posted Dec. 27, 2005 8:32 a.m. by kate
In General Business - 800 CEO Read Blog
As your holiday shopping comes to a close, following the December 26 bargains, here are a few interesting factoids from a soon-to-be published book, The Wal-Mart Effect. The book is due out in January and you can expect a Jack Covert Selects on it.
Here are the facts:
Wal-Mart sells $178,125 worth of stuff per employee.Target sells $156,506 worth of stuff per employee.
Whole Foods sells $121,875 worth of stuff per employee.
From another chapter of the book:
A typical Wal-Mart has 60,000 different items for sale. You could fill a shopping cart with 50 items every day for three years without buying the same thing twice.
That's a LOT of stuff.
