Formal justification in philosophical argumentation

¶ … Justification

Wal-Mart is currently the largest retailer within the United States of America and it still has an increased potential for further growth and development. The company's main strengths include its scale economy advantages and efficiencies, whereas its shortages include the limited attention to details, such as employee treatment, customer satisfaction, product quality, impact on the environment and so on. In other words, Wal-Mart is a reputable epitome of corporate success, yet it lacks in its community sustainability and responsibility initiatives.

The company's focus has traditionally fallen on the provision of low retail prices and this strategy has ensured long-term success among the price sensitive consumers; this trend was even further maintained throughout the past recent years, when the crisis has made consumers more selective and more price aware. In such a setting, while the past years have witnessed economic agents going bankrupt, Wal-Mart's sales have continued to increase. The chart below reveals the company's revenues throughout the past six decades.

Source: Wal-Mart 2012 Annual Report

2. The problem

As mentioned in the introductory section, in spite of its success, the retailer is also faced with several challenges. It has for instance been accused of exploiting its staff members or compromising on the quality of its products in an effort to cut costs; its emphasis on the safety and well-being of its customers has also been addressed at the level of safety in the meaning that the store has been accused on not guarding its parking lots, and allowing them to become home to numerous crimes, including murders; all this while the stores are packed with guards and security cameras to prevent any theft (Greenwald, 2005).

Aside from all these, the company has also been accused of destroying the local communities. This complaint is not however characteristic to Wal-Mart itself, but more so a trait of all super stores penetrating local communities. Specifically, the company is blamed for the fact that its low prices render the local products uncompetitive and lead to the demise of the mom and pop stores, which represent part of the American culture and also an integrant part of the American economy.

"We all understand that Wal-Mart destroys local economies, a relentless impoverishing of the communities across the U.S. that is now almost complete. It also depends on near-slave conditions for workers in China to produce the mountains of cheap [products] that Wal-Mart sells. And ultimately, the endless growth model of capitalism is destroying the world" (McBay, Jensen and Keith, 2011).

While this problem of the means in which Wal-Mart is perceived within the local communities is wide and complex, the current proposal focuses on the retailer's decision to import fruit and vegetable from more cost effective locations and sell them within the stores across the United States. This decision has numerous disadvantages, some of the more notable of them being reveled below:

The quality of the fresh produce is decreased as these are plucked when insufficiently ripe, so that they resist throughout the transportation period

The customers are dissatisfied with the quality of the fresh produce

The decision creates unrest among the local community, which witnesses the local farmers selling their crops outside the area, or even throwing it away due to lack of customers

The company incurs additional costs when the fresh produce suffers damages during transportation

The retailer encounters increases in its logistics operations due to the need to continually import fresh produce from foreign locations.

3. The recommendation

Based on the situation described so far, the current recommendation forwarded to the Wal-Mart's managerial team is that of developing contracts with the local farmers in order to purchase fresh produce from them, instead of having it imported. Such a measure could be implemented starting with the following crop season, with the first signs of this partnership being obvious within the following months. Specifically, the local farmers would already possess crops that they could sell, but the size of the crops might be reduced in comparison to the needs of the retailer; additionally, the retail would also have ongoing contracts with foreign fresh produce providers, it would have to readdress. In such a setting then, the full results of this recommendation's implementation would only be available within several months, maybe even the following year.

At a more detailed level, the recommendation is expected to be implemented throughout the following steps:

1. The assessment of the company's needs for fresh produce, established in volumes per each category of fresh fruit and vegetable

2. The assessment of the farmers in the local community at the level of their production capacities

3. The comparative analysis of farmer capacity and store needs in order to identify whether the local production would be enough to cover for the entire needs of the stores; at this level, it would be remembered that the retailer needs increased volumes of products, whereas the capacities of the local farmers might be decreased

4. The analysis of the proposed collaboration from the financial standpoint. At this level, emphasis would be placed on the soliciting of price offers from the farmers and the comparison of the estimate cost with the Wal-Mart budgets available for the purchase of fresh produce. Also at this stage, focus would fall on the comparison of the costs incurred with the current system of fresh produce imports and the proposed system of fresh produce purchase from the local farmers. It is expected that the collaboration with the farmers be more costly since the scale economy advantages are decreased, but the non-financial advantages of the proposition would outweigh this cost.

5. The negotiation and signing of contracts with the local farmers in order to deliver the fruits and vegetables as needed by the retailer; the renegotiation of the contracts for the import of the fresh produce in order to only have them serve the purpose of complementarity -- in other words, imports would only be used when the local community is unable to deliver the entire quantity solicited by the retailer.

6. The promotion of the collaboration with the local farmers throughout the store, as well as throughout the local media. This measure has the advantage of communicating the strategic decision to the community, and as such enhancing the reputation and public perception of Wal-Mart.

7. Launching the actual sale of fresh produce from local farms and the reevaluation of the contracts and the collaboration based on demands and needs as identified throughout the actual collaboration.

The process suggested so far seems rather complex and would even be more demanding from the financial standpoint. In other words, it has the capacity to negatively impact the profitability of the retailer. Nevertheless, despite this feature, it is still recommended for Wal-Mart to collaborate with local farmers in order to capitalize on the following: