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Wal-Mart CEO Shares Insight with Webster Audience Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr., made a rare public appearance April 16 when he spoke at the University’s St. Louis campus as part of the School of Business & Technology’s CEO Lecture Series. Scott agreed to the appearance in part because of the partnership that Webster’s Fayetteville, Ark., campus has with Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. A logistics whiz, Scott began at Wal-Mart as assistant manager of its truck fleet. When he landed a merchandising job at the retail superpower in 1995, he had no in-store experience to speak of. “My strength was that I knew what I didn’t know,” Scott told the group, which filled the Webster auditorium to capacity. “I didn’t have to pretend.” From the start, Scott encouraged open communication among the company’s various areas. “We started developing relationships so that silos opened up,” he explained. “We had people in the hard-goods lines talking to people in the soft-goods lines.” Scott also put a premium on giving credit where it was due. “If we did well in the housewares area,” he said, “I made sure people knew that it was the buyer or divisional head who did it and that I had nothing to do with it.” Scott’s honest approach fits right in with the overall Wal-Mart corporate culture. “Sam Walton believed in integrity,” Scott says. “He established it and demanded it. How does it manifest itself? If you’re a buyer at Wal-Mart, you can’t accept a single gift from a supplier. If you’re at the supplier’s office, you buy your own Coca-Cola. Why? Because the customer never gets any benefit if the buyer gets tickets to the U.S Open.” To view a videotaped version of Lee Scott’s Webster presentation, click here. |
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