WMT
Wal-Mart faces significant challenges in the Chinese market. There are many barriers to trade and issues that constrain the company from using tactics that proved successful in the United States. As a result, the company needs to balance being able to follow the classic Wal-Mart business model with being able to handle the unique characteristics of the Chinese market. Faced with these strategic challenges, Wal-Mart needs to have a human resources strategy that supports being able to meet its strategic objectives in China.
Recruiting
The first issues is with recruiting. Wal-Mart aims to have a low cost workforce, implying low wages and flexibility on hours. In China, unemployment in 2005 is at 4.2% and has frequently been lower in recent years, which pushes up wages (Trading Economics, 2015). While there are millions of potential workers who are coming from the agricultural sector, where wages are often barely above subsistence, wage inflation is especially strong in the wealthier areas where Wal-Mart would want to situate its stores. This will pose a recruiting challenge for the company.
Furthermore, Wal-Mart relies on its managerial talent for a large part of its success; it is a very well-run company. The problem is that unlike American business schools, Chinese business schools do not turn out a lot of high-quality managers. Often, Chinese companies are forced to import managers from Taiwan or Hong Kong (Yang, 2015). This would not be an issue if Wal-Mart could simply send Americans over, but as the company is struggling with China-specific challenges, it needs to have Chinese managers. The better Wal-Mart is at recruiting, the lower is turnover will be and the more it will be able to build...
Walmart SWOT Wal-Mart: SWOT Tables and Synopsis External Forces Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats Trends Legal and Regulatory Extensive legal resources Frequent violations of labor, environmental law To become a leader in improving global labor law Sweeping reform in global trade regulations Unfettered labor and environmental practices in developing sphere Global Cheap outsourced production Poor retail penetration outside base 14 countries To penetrate growing markets like China and India Creation of global wage standard Continued deregulation in developing sphere Economic Largest retail firm in the world Highly dependent on U.S. consumer habits To penetrate
Brief History and Background Sam Walton founded Wal-Mart and quickly grew the company by offering goods at the lowest prices. The stores were originally smaller than the stores of today, and focused in rural areas of the South that were otherwise underserved by retail stores. The current Wal-Mart model emerged by the 1980s as a large format store selling a wide range of consumer goods. The company would later extend its
This analysis shows that the financing need will be $ billion, and that the net income will account for $13.749 billion of that. Wal-Mart will then need to find additional financing of $3.257 billion in order to fund its operations for the coming year.Part II.The sustainable growth rate for Wal-Mart is the ROE * (1-dividend payout ratio). The ROE for Wal-Mart last year was $13643 / $80535 = 16.9%The dividend
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,
Thus, the HR activities are currently more structured, but in the same time more decentralized to be able to respect the local characteristics of each market. Reference List Barney J.B. 1986. Organizational Culture: Can it Be a Source of Competitive Advantage?, the Academy of Management Review, vol. 11(3): pp. 656-665. Bass B.M. & Avolio B.J. 1994. Transformational Leadership and Organizational Culture, International Journal of Public Administration, vol. 17(3): pp. 541-554. Beer M. &
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
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