Walmart Stores announced Friday its intention to build a new headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. The present headquarters is an old warehouse converted to offices. This announcement comes on the heels of competitor Amazon’s announcement of a second headquarters building to be constructed in North America. Amazon’s present headquarters are in Seattle, Washington.
While I was Vice President of Manufacturing at General Tire I had the opportunity to visit Walmart’s headquarters in 1984 or 1985. Walmart was growing exponentially in all categories. The number of stores was exploding, sales were growing rapidly, and the number of employees was increasing on an unprecedented scale. General Tire had been invited to enter in a contract with Walmart to sell them product from General Tire.
The vice presidents of sales, marketing, manufacturing, and finance of General Tire took one of the General Tire corporate jets to Bentonville to meet with their procurement personnel. We walked in a huge building with a central nervous system, many representatives of Walmart in a central area, who took your name and what company you represented. You were told to take a seat in this auditorium-like setting and wait for your company’s name to be called.
When your company’s name was called you were given the number of an office located in long appendages emanating from the center of the building. There must have been 100 buyer’s offices situated in the five long hallways. You were directed to the assigned office and told to wait for the buyer, in our case the buyer of tires. I had expected to participate in negotiations regarding what Walmart would pay for tires manufactured by General Tire. Was I fooled.
The negotiations went something like this. Walmart is prepared to pay this price for certain tires and now that negotiations are over “would you like a cup of coffee?” The buyers were cordial but knew the leverage of the volume of tires represented by Walmart’s projected sales. The negotiations took just a short amount of time and lunchtime was close. We invited the buyers out for lunch but they declined. However, the Walmart buyers told us they would take us out to lunch for it was a Walmart policy to never take favors, not even a cup of coffee, from vendors.
While we were there Walmart founder, Sam Walton, came buy and introduced himself. I got the idea he did this singular introduction with new vendors to Walmart. He was dressed in a $1,000 suit and brogans. For those of you who don’t know what brogans are, they were a popular shoe of the old South in the late 1930s and 1940s and are still made today. Mr. Walton even took us to see his old pick-up truck that he drove everywhere.
The introduction of General Tire products to Walmart stores was an instant success. Walmart was selling tires so fast the automotive bays could not handle the volume created. The Walmart tire technicians were changing tires on vehicles in the parking lot because of the un-availability of service bays. The contract with Walmart was advantageous for both parties.
Because of General Tire’s relationship with Walmart we were invited to a grand opening of a Walmart store in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The grand opening was an extraordinary happening. First, Sam Walton had a meeting with all the vendors for the company. It was surreal with Sam being the master of ceremonies for all the vendors sitting in a circle. He told us of his vision for Walmart and what he expected from his vendors, price and quality.
Sam Walton then told us of his commitment to Walmart customers. He would supply them with the best price and the best quality without the usual travails of shopping. He also told us of his commitment to Walmart associates, his employees.
Sam finished his obligations for the opening by talking to the associates and he allowed the visitors to listen. He talked from the heart. I will never forget meeting a giant of a man, Samuel Moore Walton.
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