There is an increasing amount of research also showing how big box retailers including Wal-Mart when they enter local economies, are driving smaller retailers that provided a basis of price competition and employment are being driven out of business (Harris, 2006).
On top of their fear and anti-growth sentiment many communities have about big box retailers moving into their communities, many also fear Wal-Mart will move their manufacturing jobs overseas by shifting their product orders from local companies tot hose off-shore. Worst case, local communities see their manufacturing base going away and their entire communities becoming more reliant on Wal-Mart wages to the exclusion of higher value jobs.
Competitive & Internal Analysis
From a Wal-Mart specific standpoint, in addition to an internal analysis perspective, Wal-Mart executives need to make the issues of the company's lack of ability to globalize their operations, the continue costs of litigation, and the lack of accuracy of their pricing systems as all critical. All of these factors contribute to one of the key metrics the company also concentrates on, which is same-store visits by customers, a measure they consider critical of customer loyalty.
Beginning with the lack of execution of their globalization strategies beginning with the failure to successfully penetrate the German market (Dieckmann, 2007) followed by the tentative launch into China and the reliance on the incomplete infrastructure of their nation (Bowers, 2007) Wal-Mart has made strategic mistakes ranging from ethnocentrism dominating their decision making to attempting to capture a nascent market before it is ready. Wal-Mart executives need to make this a top priority internally for the company to continue growing.
In conjunction with this priority are the many lawsuits the company has both from hiring illegal immigrants to clean stores, a practice that the U.S. Department of Justice served an injunction on the company for. Far more serious are lawsuits contending that Wal-Mart has systematically practiced discrimination based on gender (Wedekind, Himmelstein, 2007) often relegating associate duties to women who had more qualifications to be supervisors and managers than men (Spangler, Britt, Parks, 2008).
In addition to these issues, there is the challenge of ensuring their rapidly changing pricing system is kept consistent with what their it systems and pricing optimization applications generate relative to the prices posted in the stores. There have been...
Wal-Mart's SWOT Analysis and Generic Business-Level Strategy Walmart's SWOT Analysis Wal-Mart's SWOT Analysis and Generic Business-Level Strategy Wal-Mart's SWOT Analysis and Generic Business-Level Strategy Wal-Mart Wal-Mart is the world's leading corporation in the retail industry. It operates in 27 countries of the world with 69 well-recognized brands. With this huge scale of operations and vast business network, Wal-Mart serves a large number of customers with numerous product categories in its retail stores, departmental stores, and
Wal-Mart Porters Wal-Mart Strategic Management Wal-Mart mission is based on the model that by simply saving people money so they can live better. The philosophy and overall business strategy was developed based on a simple idea created by founder Sam Walton: offer shoppers lower prices than they can get anywhere else. This strategy has been the basis of an incredible history and growth record for the company. This strategy still guides the
Wal-Mart Key Issues/Problem Statement: How can Wal-Mart's low cost strategy remain competitive? Root Cause(s): Wal-Mart targets low-income consumers. When forced to raise the price of essentials like food, sales go down. Sales are also down at the end of the month when consumers are running low on their funds and waiting for their paychecks. Wal-Mart will continue to pursue a cost leadership strategy. Advantages/Disadvantages: Advantages include the fact that there are many price-sensitive consumers
Corporate Mission As the largest mass merchandiser in the world, Wal-Mart's work in supply chain execution, research, and policies defines best practices for the broader high volume retailing industry worldwide. Wal-Mart is comprised of three operating segments including the Wal-Mart stores, Sam's Club and the International Stores. The typical Wal-Mart discount store as 50 departments or more and a few are offering groceries in addition to apparel, fabrics, stationery and books,
Wal-Mart faces an industry that is generally challenging, but its strength in the industry results in the industry being favorable. Wal-Mart's success is predicated on excellence execution of key components of the discount retail value chain -- procurement, logistics and merchandising. Wal-Mart has numerous strengths, but as befits the world's largest company it has relatively few weaknesses. In its intensely competitive businesses, Wal-Mart sees many threats, but there are still
The Price-Sensitive Affluents, Wal-Mart has learned (Wal-Mart Annual Reports) is more interested in finding an exceptionally good deal and not necessarily concerned about the shopping experience. This is particularly true as one of the strongest factors influencing the execution of their strategy, the emerging global recession during this timeframe, takes hold. Again as with the Price Value Shopper and the paradoxical purchasing patterns of the Brand Aspirational segment show,
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now