Few people know that many prestigious, well-known corporations of today were built around Christian principles and based on faith. One such corporation is Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer and once the most expensive company in the world. Guided by the Scripture from the Old Testament (Joshua 1:9), Wal-Mart’s founder, Sam Walton, was strong and courageous when he started his company against all odds and adopted marketing management decisions that had never been made before.
Being a passionate Christian believer, Sam Walton firmly upheld Christian principles and built his business on their basis. Thus, he decided to sell goods for possible minimal prices so that even people from poor families could afford his merchandise. Another marketing management decision was to open shops in small towns where no retailer chains had operated previously (Catană et al., 2020). Just as God is close to every person, the decision to open shops in small towns was dictated by his desire to be closer to people and be able to meet their needs. Wal-Mart’s executive, Don Soderquist, claims that “the starting point for decisions were scriptural values” (Bianco, p. 7). Moreover, “the principles […] such as hard work, thriftiness, self-control, devotion, and a drive to be better do reflect positive values that could be understood as scriptural in origin” (Bianco, p. 7). Thus, the company instituted tough controls to monitor the quality of products and, at the same time, worked to keep the prices low to make merchandise affordable to everyone.
In those times, the very decision to start a business was a challenge since Sam Walton had neither influential friends nor relatives who could help him succeed. All he had was deep honesty and a desire to build a business with a human face for people. Judging by the success of the company, it can be said that God was really with Sam whenever he went. Wal-Mart chain grew quickly from a small business into one of the largest companies in the world. Despite this fact, Sam Walton, as well as his successors on the post of director, have never abandoned the Christian marketing principles the company was built around.
Sam’s policy was not to sell goods with offensive content, and to this day this principle is observed. The company could have sold millions of goods that could spark discontent and anger of religious or antiracial groups; instead, Walton chose to sell Christian literature and goods, the division that successfully operates nowadays. Adopting scriptural values as the basis for his work, he managed to make many people share his values through marketing and company operations aimed at upholding Christian traditions. Thus, when some stores “banned Salvation Army bell collections, Wal-Mart not only encouraged the volunteers to use their storefronts but pledged to provide the equivalent to the amount collected” (Bianco, p. 7). With this initiative, the company supported Christian traditions across the country.
In my personal life, Sam Walton was a good Christian as well. He never remarried, drove an old Ford pickup and lived in an ordinary house despite the fact that in 1985, Forbes magazine named him the richest man in America. The principles of humility in business and personal life allowed Walton to become one of the most successful businessmen without compromising his values. Nowadays, the Walton family is among the 50 largest philanthropists in America, donating millions of dollars to charity.
References
Bianco, A. The Walmart Effect: A Theological Analysis. [PDF document]. Web.
Catană, Ș., Grădinaru, C., & Toma, S. G. (2020). Sam Walton, a visionary entrepreneur. Network Intelligence Studies, 16, 113-117. Web.