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Made in America, My Story (平装)
by Sam Walton, John Huey
| Category:
Entrepreneurship, Biography, Leadership, Innovation |
| Market price: ¥ 108.00
MSL price:
¥ 88.00
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| Stock:
In Stock |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
A real classic on entrepreneurship and business building. |
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AllReviews |
1 2   | Total 2 pages 14 items |
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H. Ross Perot, USA
<2006-12-20 00:00>
Every person who dreams of building a great business must read this book. Sam Walton set the standard for listening to the customers and listening to the people who do the work. In addition to being a great entrepreneur and business leader, Sam Walton was, above all, a fine, decent, kind, generous man. |
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Detroit Free Press, USA
<2006-12-20 00:00>
Here is an extraordinary success story about a man whose empire was built not with smoke and mirrors, but with good old-fashioned elbow grease. |
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The New York Times Book Review, USA
<2006-12-20 00:00>
A sure-fire all-American success story. |
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San Francisco Chronicle, USA
<2006-12-20 00:00>
[A] wise and inspiring autobiography - Walton tells his quietly fantastic story with conviction and makes no bones about his mistakes. |
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An American reader, USA
<2006-12-20 00:00>
Sam Walton explains how he came to create a successful retail store, Wal-Mart. This is almost to an extent of his biography and how he has come to start up a retail store that all American household have come to embrace. As a rising entrepreneur for the late twentieth century, Sam Walton emerges as an American idol in business in ways of displaying his witty management senses in helping to develop and spread Wal-Mart Super centers across the United States. This book is also used in many business classes to examine and scrutinize Wal-Mart in the eyes of the founder. Sam Walton creates an in depth analysis of his private life and his world of business for a better understanding to the readers where he's coming from.
Since this is an autobiography and he is the founder of Wal-Mart, the readers have to keep in mind that this is a view solely through his eyes meaning, he will praise highly of what his accomplishments were of his own company. This is not the best way to use as a reference to argue about Wal-Mart because no CEO is going to bash about his own company. The book is unnecessarily too chirpy and optimistic with Sam Walton's defense spread out in every single line.
Since he did have a significant impact on the Americans, even President Bush made a comment saying "an American original, Sam Walton embodies the entrepreneurial spirit and epitomizes the American dream." This high praise from President Bush is a little too overwhelming to my opinion but, it is true in that he did leave a legacy behind as having been the successful founder of a mega retail store. His life time stories make it easy to read and follow his lifetime at a glance. Different members of his family provide short interviews about Sam Walton and this helps build his character and to give insight on how he was as a person outside of Wal-Mart.
This is a highly recommended book to those curious of how Wal-Mart began. Not just to those who are examining Wal-Mart, but this is a very useful resource in comparing his side of the story and the progress that Wal-Mart is making currently. Not just applying to the business majors studying his system of management, but people without any interest or background of business could enjoy this laid back, easy read to gain more knowledge onto how Wal-Mart came forth. I have personally used this as a primary source for my research paper on Wal-Mart and it was meaningful to me because I was able to create a side of argument from Sam Walton's perspective and used his information to layout the foundation for Wal-Mart. His thought process in creating Wal-Mart is laid out in detail as well as his recommendations, tips and guides for his success is followed at the end of the book. As emerging, eager entrepreneurs this also acts as a handy guide to abide by to follow in Sam Walton's footsteps at achieving success and eventually fulfilling and living the American dream. |
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B. Suneja, USA
<2006-12-20 00:00>
A well-written book with lots of insights in folksy style. My motivation to read this book came after reading Built to Last (by Jim Collins) wherein Wal-Mart is one of the great companies with a strongly in-grained "core" of serving the customers. Of course, Sam Walton's book predates Built to Last and is actually one of the sources for Jim Collin's well researched book.
The main theme of this book:
1. Sam's initial life - learning the value of dollar amidst great depression, working as a newspaper delivery boy, showing initial salesmanship
2. Developing passion for retail; though I could not find any reason for why retail, why not something else; perhaps it was evolved from his initial adventures .
3. A passion for delivering best quality goods at lowest prices. Through my personal visits in Wal-Mart tend to say - ok quality goods at lowest prices.
4. Biggest insights come in how he ran the company:
- very hands-on and detail-oriented style; going over the store figures every week he was still talking with a store manager when terminally ill
- hard-work; there is no replacement for it
- building the team by choosing the right people
- building a culture that cares for people and creates a camaraderie (think cult-like cultures!)
- building "partnerships" with associates
- caring for his associates and for his customers while still delivering great profits (think genius of "AND" from Jim Collins)
These practices and principles are probably not specific to retail; if these are applied, correctly, to any business (or any organization), it seems you can build a phenomenal organization.
The book is very straight and honest; nothing beats a person writing his memoirs in the last year of his life!
Like most autobiography's it is one sided. Very little critique! |
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Mel Blanc, USA
<2006-12-20 00:00>
I love reading business books. I thoroughly enjoy reading about individuals' motivations, actions, and successes, especially if the said person happens to be Sam Walton, the man responsible for creating the world's largest retailer WalMart.
This book is strange. I have never read any other business book as honest and unpretentious as this. With witty Southern - or as Mr. Walton would prefer, Midwestern - humor, he tells the story of how WalMart came to be. From humble beginnings in Arkansas, WalMart has become a giant corporation with revenues of almost $1,000,000,000 a day!
I won't give away the contents of the books, obviously, but will say that it is a must read. Whether you are a manager, entrepreneur, or just want to be inspired and humbled, this book tells the story of a man devoted to retail. This is, for the most part, an autobiography, though I believe it was arranged and perhaps even edited after his passing to format it appropriately for a book.
Oh, and the proceeds from this book will go to a non-profit, so what are you waiting for? This may be the greatest book you will ever read. No advanced theories, no technical mumbo-jumbo, just the honest-to-goodness tale of how one man and his associates devoured competition, changed the face of retailing, and saved consumers billions of dollars a year, all while being constantly doubted and criticized. To describe this book as inspiring would be to understate its full effect.
I highly recommend this book. You will not regret reading it! |
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Shetty, USA
<2006-12-20 00:00>
This is a great book for a person who wants to succeed in developing a great business. I benefited immensely with this marvelous book that depicts the uphill struggle of SAM in building a world class business. The language is very simple and you never get bored while reading this book. I purchased this book last year, read it carefully and then implemented some of my learnings from this book in our business in my home town. And it worked very well. The greatest quality of SAM is that he was obsessed with his goals and highly determined to extract the results from his efforts. His efforts were highly focused and he had a fire burning in his belly. He had a great vision and willingness to take risks. He always tried the new things and emphasized on the differentiation. I feel that every serious businessman must read this book. |
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Janice, USA
<2006-12-20 00:00>
Made in America by Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, chronicled his journey from his humble beginning in rural Arkansas to creating the first Wal-Mart and subsequently a successful empire. Sam wrote about working for JC Penney and that was how he knew he wanted to be in retailing. He also wrote about the challenges and competition that he faced and how he overcame those to create such successful stores nationwide. Throughout his book, Sam talked about his working philosophy such as using associates as partners, treating the customers right, encouraging creative ideas and also thinking ahead.
I truly enjoy this book as I have always been fascinated with Wal-Mart. Even though I thought that I know a lot about Wal-Mart but this book reveals to me there are tons of things I am not aware of. Sam touched on things such as how the name "Wal-Mart" came about, how they started having people greeters at the entrances of every stores, how he dealt with competition from Kmart, and others which I feel are quite insightful. Sam also showed true entrepreneur spirit by his willingness to take risks, having a great vision, thinking ahead, tons and tons of hard work and not afraid of failings. Even if you are not interested in Wal-Mart or retailing in general, I still think this is a great book to read as there are definitely tons of valuable learnings. Detroit Free Press, I thought summarizes this book really well by saying that, "Here is an extraordinary success story about a man whose empire was built not with smoke and mirrors, but with good old-fashioned elbow grease."
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Mathew, USA
<2006-12-20 00:00>
I honestly wondered at first if the Wal-Mart story would keep my attention, but I figured that since I had an interest in business I might as well give it a try. I'm not sorry that I did. Sam Walton's story is a marvelous depiction of the American dream. As you may have read in other reviews, it's a very good rags-to-riches kind of a story. I found it to be entertaining and even a little thought provoking.
The book focuses on the rise of Wal-Mart and the ingredients of its success. If you are contemplating on ever going into business, this book is well worth the read. Sam has a very blunt and matter-of-fact way of saying things that I find particularly refreshing. He doesn't spend a bunch of time saying, "look at us!" but rather points out the challenges and responsibilities of having the largest retail chain in the United States.
While it's interesting to read about the competition with Kmart and the adventures of growing a business, I found his last few chapters very interesting. In the end he discusses issues regarding the country, its growth and its education. He also tackles a lot of the Wal-Mart's criticism of being bad for small businesses. If I have a complaint it's that sometimes I feel he repeats himself too much. The content sometimes overlaps so much that you feel that you've been reading the same stuff forever. That's really the only thing I can think of though. All in all, it's worth your time. |
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1 2 | Total 2 pages 14 items |
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