Customer Reviews

In Sam We Trust: The Untold Story of Sam Walton and Wal-Mart, the World's Most Powerful Retailer

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In only 36 years, Wal-Mart grew from one store into the largest, most efficient retailer on earth. More people work directly for Sam Walton's corporate Goliath than for any other private-sector employer in North America. At least one-third of all Wal-Mart workers earn less than $17,000 per year and have no benefits; this is corporate policy. And since Sam's death in 1992, Wal-Mart's international operations are expanding rapidly in Europe, Mexico, and South America, with the officially stated intent to "Wal-Martize" the world.

"IN SAM WE TRUST" explains, in living color and for the first time, exactly what being "Wal-Martized" means, both outside and inside the company. As I followed Walton's family and business history, I encountered virtually every major name in the past 150 years of American merchandising. Readers will also discover that Sam Walton did not invent the retailing innovations he is known for, which he deftly wove into the corporate fabric of his avaricious chain of "low price" stores, but which he borrowed (or bought) from others.

Although universally known for folksy visits to his own stores (arriving in his old pickup or perhaps his quail hunting "dog car"), "Mr. Sam" made a point of always knowing what his competitors were doing. He habitually scouted individual stores of competitive chains (even on family outings and vacations), striking up conversations with sales clerks, managers, cashiers ... in order to learn what worked and what didn't, but also to meet experienced, hard-working managers he could lure away to Wal-Mart. The genius of Sam Walton was to use anything and everything (and EVERYONE) so as to slash company costs to the bone. At Wal-Mart the Almighty Buck is king and the Bottom Line motivates every move.

In chronicling how Walton shopped the competition, Bob Ortega weaves a fascinating, authoritative view of the many corporate players and the top executives of the retailing sector of our economy; we get an in-depth look at successes and failures that mark the rise and fall of some of the biggest names in corporate America. In the early 1800s, "consumers" did not exist; today, they comprise the single, most important engine driving our economy. "IN SAM WE TRUST" proves, year by year and in situation after situation, how this transformation occurred,and early in the book the reader acquires a sort of "You Are There" feeling.

Above all else, Wal-Mart is a company motivated solely by a "bottom line mentality," built upon a foundation of PR grotesquely at odds with the facts. But most disturbing of all, in Ortega's view, is that the Wal's modus operandi is rapidly becoming today's paradigm for corporate culture and success in the future. For those who intend to hang around for that future, as businessperson, consumer, or plain vanilla resident of AnyTown, USA, this book is MUST reading. Most probably, "IN SAM WE TRUST" is destined to become a textbook in business schools throughout North America.

Bob Ortega's excellent study of America's largest private employer (728,000 workers in 1997) is truly food for thought not only about Wal-Mart as a retail organization, its leaders, and its impact on America, but also about the direction America was headed into at the close of the 20th century.

Ortega's book, IN SAM WE TRUST: The Untold Story Of Sam Walton And How Wal-Mart Is Devouring America (1998) was widely reviewed as hostile to Wal-Mart and those who support it, but one cannot help but notice an overall tone of admiration in Ortega's book at the success of Wal-Mart's well documented rapacity and avarice, and the fact that its bottom line big dollar success was only possible because it's enormous customer base have voted with their feet and their pocket books to keep it going and growing.

Author Bob Ortega is a Princeton grad later schooled at the Columbia U. Journalism School, well known along with the U. of Missouri Journalism School as the most prestigious in America. He's also a WALL STREET JOURNAL employee. For all of the pretentions IN SAM WE TRUST (1998) makes of being a true muck-raking tome, the author's WALL STREET JOURNAL mentality and morality shines through to any who examine his book closely.

When all is said and done, Ortega has written a book which admires Wal-Mart, and is likely to do that organization no harm whatever. His provided backgrounder information about the nasty and unpleasant side of Wal-Mart doesn't affect the bottom-line, to use a phrase near and dear to Wal-Mart management, and to Ortega's mentor newspaper, the WALL STREET JOURNAL.

The book reminds me of the extravagant PATTON (1969) movie which appeared in the middle of the War In Vietnam, and told the story of General George S. Patton, Jr. and his activities during World War II. The expensive movie (for which the main actor won an Academy Award) provided very critical material about Gen. Patton, and showed his failures and personal problems in some detail. But, all in all, it was a hagiography which was said to have been screened often in the Nixon White House, and which the pro-war people of the Vietnam War era loved. For all its criticism, the movie admired Patton, and was a PR piece for pushy generals, the U.S. Army, and war as a catagory of human activity.

It's doubtful that Wal-Mart bigshots at company HQ in Bentonville, Arkansas lost any sleep over this book. Wal-Mart profits were probably boosted as a result of the book. After all, it provided more publicity about Wal-Mart. As movie star Erol Flynn was supposed to have said often, "I don't care what the newspapers say about me...just make sure they spell my name right."

All this said, the book DOES reveal many interesting facts about Wal-Mart and by reflection, about America these days.

Wal-Mart's status as America's largest private employer is discussed. By 1997, Wal-Mart had long since passed General Motors Corp. to achieve this status. The kind of work offered by Wal-Mart and other "big-box" type discount and "catagory killer" chains... had REPLACED manufacturing to become the dominant new blue-collar job in the United States. This kind of job offered far lower wages, fewer benefits, and less job security than the old manufacturing type job it replaced.

Ortega says the WALL STREET JOURNAL compared GM jobs with Wal-Mart jobs in 1997 and noted that the average GM wage was $19. per hour; at Wal-Mart $7.50 per hour. With benefits included, GM compensation was worth $44. per hour; Wal-Mart's (for those who get benefits) was $10. per hour. Ortega rightfully concludes (but isn't necessarily unhappy about the fact that) Wal-Mart has become a mirror for the new American workplace where Federal employment figures showed that more than 30 percent of American workers hold only part-time or temporary jobs.

It's safe to conclude that when the new #1 employer in America offers less than 25% of income provided by the old #1 employer, Americans as a group are getting poorer.

IN SAM WE TRUST (1998) states that when a new Wal-Mart store arrives in a community, 75% of its profits are drawn from trade previously enjoyed by small, often "Ma and Pa" stores many of which cannot stand against Wal-Mart competition and soon close down. Author Orgega refers to this as "strip-mining" local commerce previously but no longer owned and operated locally, and uniquely responsive to local needs and pressures.

If Wal-Mart ever become history, and its services become unavailable in the 3000 plus locations where it now operates, the loss of the centrally controlled organization would impact the lives of many, many Americans. The re-establishment of the many small business Wal-Mart bull-dozed into oblivion is not likely to provide relief to these Americans.

All this is worth thinking about, and for that reason, Bob Ortega's book IN SAM WE TRUST: The Untold Story of Sam Walton and How Wal-Mart Is Devouring American (1998) is worth buying and re-reading often.

A thorough and factual history of the rise of Wal-Mart. Well written and most interesting. I read this book out of curiosity about how Wal-Mart came into being, and what factors made it grow into the giant of the industry. "In Sam We Trust" did go into the background of Sam Walton himself, without going into any special hero-hype or star-bashing, instead simply outlined the story as it happened. From this, I learned much about the organization, and my questions were well answered.

Great when focusing on what makes Wal-Mart tick. Points out again and again how its fanatical dedication to building a superior distribution system prior to anyone else figuring it out has been instrumental in climbing to the top of the retail heap.

There's quite a bit of rehashing of Walton's 'Made in America' autobiography (with J. Huey). not really much else Ortega could do there, given that the family chose not to cooperate with the project.

The parts on overseas child-labor abuse and small-town rebellion against Wal-Mart expansion at first seemed overwrought and at times seem to beat the reader of the head with a hammer. But the chapter on the infamous Kathie Lee Gifford episode makes it all worthwhile. Ortega really does a great job showing you how the incident unfolded. And although Gifford would seem to make an easy target in the whole affair, Ortega actually gives her a fair shake - she goes through an education process, and seems transformed into a credible spokesperson for independent review of factories.

The real surprise in the book are the extensive chapters concerning the contemporaneous decline of K-Mart. Almost like two books in one. Ortega shows how an insular culture and a total lack of Information Technology infrastructure doomed K-Mart. The free-fall described in Chapter 16 ("Say It Ain't So, Joe") can be read almost on its own. CEO Joe Antonucci manicly swings from one strategy to another in attempts to save it and himself. The losses mount and the pressure builds. Meanwhile, the Wal-Mart metronome continues its steady, inexorable beat.

I worked at Wal-mart and I know exactly what you are talking about. Right now it is happening in my home town. There are a lot of small stores and Wal-mart will run them out of business. When I worked with Wal-mart the main focus was making that money. They had to do everything to make sure that they were getting in every dollar they could. Forget the associates. They did not really care about the associates. We just had to make sure that the customers were happy so they would spend more money. It should not be that way. It is true that Wal-mart gives to the Children's Miracle Network and to other charities but they always get something out of it. Wal-mart cares about one thing and one thing only, making a profit.

Sam Walton wanted to rule the retail world and now he has done just that in America. The book exposes alot about the company and its people. Sam loved Wal-Mart more than himself or his family.The company has come a long way in the last ten years, but the rank and file employees do not benefit greatly.The book is good reading if you want a little inside look at Sam Walton and hisWal-Mart empire.

Bob Ortega's book In Sam We Trust describes how one of the world's largest retailers developed. Sam Walton, the ambitious businessman, started from small five-dime store and through his frugal ways created a 129 billion-dollar company. Sam Walton strongly believed that the only way to make high profits was to lower prices and gain profit from large volumes of goods. This book discusses the rivalries that Sam Walton encountered through his success, JC Penny, Kmart and Sears, were some of his competitors. His idea of developing stores on the edge of small towns allowed him to eliminate such competition. Also, by advancing and taking risks in investing in new technology, which was obsolete in other competitor stores, he was able to devour the market world. Furthermore, looking through Bob Ortega's eyes, it seemed as though the man didn't respect nor believe in Walton's ways of making money. Despite Ortega's feelings on that subject, he was still able to explain both aspects of Sam Walton's life, which was his company. Sam Walton wanted to devour America with his low prices, but the question continues, are the low prices worth the cost? If you are interested in opening a business or brightening your horizons of business knowledge this is the book for you. It entangles you in a different world, the inside of a dirty and profitable business.

As one who worked for John Tate, the union busting lawyer referenced in Mr. Ortega's book, for a great deal of the time period in the 1970's and early 1980's, there are several technical corrections that bear mentioning so that the accuracy of the book then can be weighed by the reader in many respects.

John was a lawyer from Lincoln, Nebraska - not Omaha. His practice was limited to corporate law and union/management relations as a labor lawyer but for the time period mentioned his offices were in Lincoln and not Omaha - although we had many of the Omaha/Dubuque, Iowa meatpackers also as clients.

How John got involved in labor law due to his being injured by picketers as a young teen is very accurate, although what is missing is the fact that it was John's idea originally in sharing the proceeds of the profits with those hourly employees, many of whom are multi-millionaires at this point.

And it was only after the bankers and Wal-Mart went public that the family, and John, had less and less to say about the day to day operations, especially after Ms. Clinton and the state government also got involved during all those public zoning hearings and such, escalating the costs to Wal-Mart of their building new stores, and thus had to satisfy those bankers and then turned to purchasing materials and inventory outside the U.S., which wasn't the case at all in the beginning.

Just for a background on at least a few pertinent details left out of the telling.

This is a negative book on Wal-Mart, but probably not as negative as its severist critics. Actually the author writes quite extensively about K-Mart and about their many missteps over the decades. He also writes some about Sear's (How many times has Sear's tried to reinvent themselves?). I think K-Mart stores will ultimately become Sear's stores with the K-Mart store and logo disappearing, and I could see Sear's going out of business in the next ten to fifteen years. Sear's has a few brand names (Craftsman's tools, Kenmore Appliances) that Home Depot or Lowe's would pay a king's ransom to acquire.

I wasn't aware that Wal-Mart has faced as many battles to build their stores over the years. I thought that it was mainly confined to the liberal northeast.

Considering how large Wal-Mart has become I'm surprised that they're as efficient as they are given the interference from the government. Actually I think Wal-Mart was probably a better company fifteen years ago. Clearly the battles that they've faced with the environmentalists et al has caused them to be a less effective company and has caused them to pass some of these costs onto their customers.

Despite what their critics say Wal-Mart provides hundreds of jobs in every community to those who otherwise would be unemployed. Those employees would leave in a minute if they had the requiste job skills and experience to obtain a better job. The biggest anti-Wal-Mart opponents are unions (non necessarily union members) and environmentalists. The two anti-Wal-Mart websites are union funded, and I read a survey recently where 67% of respondents (which included union members) support Wal-Mart. When union members are subtracted out of the survey results, the support jumps to 80% of the participants.

I enjoyed this book. Anyone intrigued by Wal-Mart, Sam Walton or retailing in general should read this. It is very well reported and reads easily. I particularly enjoyed some of the collateral background stories of people like Hillary Clinton in Arkansas, Joe Antonini of K-Mart and Kathy Lee Gifford with sweatshop labor