Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

With the somewhat surprising slowdown in Wal-Mart (WMT) stores, people are throwing out all sorts of ideas of why it's happening. But if you understand the importance of the purpose a company exists, and staying faithful to that purpose, it's really not that difficult to understand.

Wal-Mart has always had a specific, simple identity of being the low-price leader. It's as simple as that. Nothing hard to understand there. Not until you see them trying to become something else than what they are.

We've already talked about their disaster at trying to offer the types of clothes that their competition Target (TGT)offers, and their failure to get it right. You just can't become something you've never been. If they continue in that direction, they won't be who they were, and then they'll have a real problem on their hands.

While their CEO acknowledges that they made a mistake in overemphasizing the clothes part of it, I'm still not sure they are ready to abandon it. For example they've talked about how their newer, urban stores were more successful than their other stores in selling the clothes. What does that mean? Are they going to micro-target every neighborhood in the U.S.? Are they different in one part of the country versus another? That type of schizophrenic approach can never work.

The problem is they are moving away from who they are and what their purpose is. All the other things happening are simply symptoms of that basic problem.

Other Sources:

Wal-Mart: Hungry for New Shoppers

Gas prices still big concern for Walmart shoppers

Wal-Mart's woes

Wal-Mart foresees sluggish holiday

Wal-Mart warning shakes industry