The world's largest retailer has found a new growth engine in the holy city of Amritsar
Before we begin to tell this story, allow us a moment to put a few things into perspective. Walmart is the world’s second largest company after ExxonMobil. Last year, it was number one. Now, pause for a moment and ask yourself how large is large really? Large is when your revenues are in the region of $406 billion and you are six times larger than Proctor & Gamble, the largest consumer products company in the world. Large is when those revenues are more than the GDP of at least 144 nations.
There were hiccups in Brazil as well where they had to deal with tough competitors like Ahold and Carrefour. Eventually, Walmart bought out Ahold. In Argentina, it operates on the fringes with barely 4 percent market share. Its push into Central America — Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua — came through an acquisition in 2007. But these markets are too small to matter in the larger perspective. In Germany, Walmart couldn’t match up to entrenched players like Metro and Aldi. It finally took a billion-dollar hit, sold to Metro and got out.
When Wimsatt and Mediratta rolled their sleeves and got down to business, they first tried to understand why their German rival Metro didn’t do well. It didn’t take them long to figure out why the business wasn’t working.
(This story appears in the 23 October, 2009 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)