Skip Falatko, the MACPA's director of finance and administration, is back with some more insights. Skip?

I heard Wal-Mart CFO Tom Schoewe speak at an FEI Baltimore Chapter dinner recently. He gave an overview of the company's results for the year and had some interesting insights into what makes Wal-Mart a success.

First, Wal-Mart is a retail colossus with $405 billion in revenue last fiscal year, $100 billion of which is from international sales. Here are some other key metrics Schoewe shared from the year just ended:

• $24 billion operating income
• 8,400 retail outlets
• 2 million employees (associates, in Wal-Mart parlance)
• 55 banners / brands in 15 countries
• 9.3 percent average annual sales growth rate since 2005
• 3.9 percent decrease in inventory with a 1 percent growth in sales. (Ponder that for a minute.)

Wal-Mart measures its financial success with the acronym ART, for absolute (year over year), relative (comparison to competitors) and trend (which way are they headed?). By any of these measures, Wal-Mart has been extremely successful financially.

How does Wal-Mart do it? Schoewe believes these are the critical elements:

• Culture: Hire great people, treat them well, challenge them and help them grow.
• Invest in technology to improve efficiency.
• Communicate internally, constantly.
• Talk to your customers.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

Schoewe also addressed the issue of sustainability and outlined some very ambitious goals for the company:

• To be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy.
• To create zero waste.
• To sell products that sustain people and the environment.

Those seem like they’re unattainable, even in the long term. Can Wal-Mart achieve those goals?

Given its record of financial success, maybe in 10 or 20 years we’ll be talking about Wal-Mart's environmental successes and asking, “How did they do that?”