Wal Mart World Though some may not like to admit it, Wal Mart is part of contemporary American culture because it represents middle America’s desire for value in an environment that is nonthreatening and easy to navigate. Its strategies remain entrenched in the simple-it’s all about giving customers what they want to buy for the best prices possible and creating a shopping experience that keeps them coming back- but what it takes to execute that strategy continues to intensify. As Wal Mart fights for the lowest prices possible for consumers, its relationships with vendors become even more important. Wal Mart is now the biggest customer for many leading companies, including Kraft, Gillette, and Procter & Gamble. For these and 450 other suppliers, the relationship to Wal Mart is so vital that they have offices in or near Bentonville, with another 800 such branch offices planned to open in the next five years.

Wal Mart’s reach is still expanding. Even though it has already captured 8 percent of all U.S. retail sales (excluding auto dealers and restaurants), it has set its sights on banking, used car sales, travel, and Internet access, and there is no reason to believe its effect in these industries will be any less staggering than in those in which it already operates. In order to support its expected growth, Wal Mart plans to hire an additional 800,000 workers over the next five years, which in any economy, especially a stalled one, is a positive brand attribute in and of itself.

The Value of KISSing The successes of Wal Mart and KISS demonstrate that the most effective strategies are often simple, but involve brilliant approaches for relating to consumers. When implemented with excellence, winning strategies give advantages competitors cannot readily replicate, and often they succeed before the competitors even know they have been engaged. When a strategy is brilliantly conceived and executed with precision, an organization-whether a musical group or any other organization-dominates with a differential advantage that is difficult to duplicate.