Locate the 10-K reports and proxy statements of Walmart, Inc. using the EDGAR site maintained by the Securities and Exchange Commission and answer the following questions. Each item requires you to do certain tasks and contains open-ended question(s) based on the tasks. While you need to have a basic understanding of the financial statements to do this assignment, please remind yourself that numbers need to be accompanied by narratives for the assignment. Your focus should be on what strategic and operational decisions led to changes in numbers. You should examine both the firm’s financial statements and its internal and external environment to be able to deliver an excellent answer to each of the following questions. The page limit for the assignment is 10 single-spaced pages. Be strategic about what to include and what to leave out.According to the consolidated statements of income of the firm featured in the latest 10-K of the firm, the operating, selling, general and administrative expenses (operating expenses in short) in 2021 amounted to approximately $116.3 billion. Using the footnotes to the financial statements and other information available throughout the 10-K and the proxy statement, try to identify specific cost items that are included in the expenses such as advertising, rent, etc. Some of the specific costs are listed in the 10-K report, while others may need to be estimated based on available facts. If you need to make an estimation, set up a set of reasonable assumptions based on relevant facts and make the assumptions explicit. Explain what strategic insights you could get from analyzing operating expenses more specifically.Strategic change or persistence of multiple firms could be measured and compared based on the following six indicators: (1) advertising intensity (advertising/sales), (2) research and development intensity (R&D/sales), (3) plant and equipment newness (net PP&E/gross PP&E), (4) nonproduction overhead (SGA expenses/sales), (5) inventory levels (inventories/sales), and (6) financial leverage (debt/equity). As Walmart does not report R&D, calculate the remaining five indicators for the most recent 10 years and generate a line graph for each. Do you see any distinct patterns in the indicators? Try to interpret the trajectories based on Walmart’s strategies for the past 10 years.
APA Citation StyleFor this class you will use APA citation style in footnotes but you will not use the in-body parenthetical APA style. For business writing it is more appropriate and will be required for this class to use footnotes that will lead the reader to the bottom of your page where your APA style citation appears.
Creating Footnotes for CitationsOften, students will attempt to use the button under the References tab that is labeled “Insert Citation”. Do not use this button. Often this wizard used by WORD will create errors with some aspect of the footnotes (poor capitalization, incorrect handling of institutional authors, etc.), so use “Insert Footnote” instead, which takes you to the bottom of the page, where you can type in the proper citation style yourself.
The rubric for the assignment is below.CriteriaUnsatisfactoryBelow expectationMeets expectationAbove expectationOutstanding 123451. Data collection: Skills in gathering specified data and complementing them with other relevant information.The student’s work is clearly inadequate and riddled with errors and mistakes.Key pieces of information that are needed to complete the assignment are either missing or incorrectly identified.Overall, the student correctly identifies and collects key pieces of information the completion of the assignment requires.The student goes beyond specified data to complement them with relevant facts regarding the firm and its environment.The student’s coverage of factual data leads to a highly convincing narative on the firm’s strategic circumstances. 2. Quality of analysis and its presentation: Appropriate demonstration of knowledge in specific required components of the assignment.The student shows little understanding of the requirments of the assignment.The student’s work contains errors or mistakes that lead to a major misunderstanding of the firm’s circumstances.Overall, the student carries out the tasks specified by the instructor without major errors.The student’s work is mostly error-free and easy to understand thanks to effective presentation.The student’s work is examplary both in the quality of analysis and in the presentation of it.3. Degree of integration: Demonstrated understanding of inherent ties among the firm’s financial metrics and strategic/operational practices.The student demonstrates little understanding of the connection between financial metrics and strategic/operational choices.The student vaguely alludes to the connection between financial metrics and strategic/operational choices.The student discusses how financial metrics and operational practices are related in general terms.The student attempts to make specific connections among financial metrics and strategic/operational choices.The student makes creative links among financial metrics and strategic/operational choices to assess the firm’s circumstances.4. Evaluation of strategic implications and problem identification: Use of required analyses in deriving strategic implications and identifying problems.The student fails to derive any strategic implication or identify problems based on the required tasks.Strategic implications or problems identified by the students do not appear to be supported by the required analyses.The students uses the specific tasks specified by the instructor to derive general strategic implications.The student tries to uncover specific strategic implications by combining and reformulating key pieces of the assignment.The student’s work is examplary in both uncovering specific, actionable insights and generating a holistic understanding of the firm based on the tasks.
