Wal-Mart : Liberating the chairman

Lifting from the annual report adds resonance.

The Site

Wal-Mart, the leading US-based supermarket group, adds resonance to a hackneyed feature.

Wal-Mart’s company site features three Related information links on the landing page of its About Us section to, respectively, Corporate Governance, Board of Directors and Senior Officers. The first link opens a sub-section index page in Investors where one of the highlighted topics is ‘Letter from Rob Walton, Chairman of the Board’. A summary below the headings reads “Rob Walton, Chairman of the Board of Directors, shares his thoughts about meeting today’s challenges, and those in the future, in a way that’s consistent with the values and customer focus that have taken us where we are”.

Clicking the heading leads to a lengthy article bearing Mr Walton’s photograph and signature. Various buttons at the foot of the piece include options to Share (via any of 16 social networking sites) or Add to My Content. Board of Directors and Senior Officers are biography galleries, similarly located in Corporate Governance.

The Takeaway

The chairman’s letter or introduction is a tick-box feature of company annual reports seen less frequently online outside the PDF version of the full printed work. Wal-Mart has found a way to bring extra resonance to it by integrating a standalone version in its corporate governance coverage. In so doing it transfers and amplifies the ‘ownership’ and stewardship of the company’s conduct implied in the context of the annual report. While that may be a much-needed message for the times, it is also in Wal-Mart’s case appropriately in keeping with (and reinforcing) its brand ethos as a Walton family founded business.

This is backed up by easy access to the individuals running the business. In addition to liberating, rather than linking to, Mr Walton’s letter, the corporate governance content and management biographies are prominently flagged outside Investors. They are equally easy to flag or send to friends or colleagues. Critics – of whom Wal-Mart has rarely been in short supply – may not like the way it does things, but in using the site well the company demonstrates that the people running the show are confident to stand up and be accountable.

First published on 26 May, 2009