Where we are now with Walmart is at a critical juncture in retail. Amazon and e-commerce has continued to dominate the retail space once led by brick-and-mortars. Walmart has had to shift its focus from being a primarily brick-and-mortar store chain to having an online presence as well in order to fight for market share.
We are in the retail market: we sell virtually every type of retail item and offer several services, such as gas fill-up, oil change, car repair, etc. Our company began as a discount outlet, but with most retailers now acting as discount outlets, we try to stay competitive with prices.
Our customers and markets are all over the world. We have nearly 12,000 stores in over 25 different countries and serve over 200 million customers every day (Karbastera, 2016; Jurevicius, 2018). We have attempted to expand into some countries and found little success, but in many cases our retail outlets have been embraced by a range of customers in different parts of the planet (Rao, 2014).
Our competitors consist of other retailer chains like Target in North America, Costco, Dollar General, IKEA around the world, and Amazon and Alibaba online (Pearson, 2015; Jurevicius, 2018).
Our financial strengths include an increasing year-over-year revenue of 485.873 billion USD in 2017, nearly a 1% increase from 2016. However, our weakness is evident in declining net profits: 13.643 billion USD in 2017 versus 14.694 billion USD in 2016—a fall of more than 7% (Jurevicius, 2018).
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Walmart started out in the 1970s by providing customers a discount outlet option through which our company beat the prices of competitors in the market. We acquired several companies along the way and expanded rapidly over the years so that we quickly climbed to the top of the retail industry and became a top-tier Fortune 500 company. Strategic acquisitions have helped the company to secure its foothold. The company is currently looking to penetrate emerging markets, having reached a saturation point in most developed markets by now. India remains closed off, but the option to purchase Massmart in South Africa attracted our interest in 2010.
The critical steps that we took in the beginning were to keep focused on our business’s core concepts: 1) offering a great product at discount prices for consumers while still guaranteeing a profit for the company, 2) developing and maintaining...
References
CBS News. (2017). Retailers That Have Filed for Bankruptcy in 2017. Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/retailers-that-have-filed-for-bankruptcy-in-2017/
Jurevicius, O. (2018). Walmart SWOT analysis 2018. Retrieved from https://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/walmart-swot-analysis.html
Karbastera, K. (2016). Walmart and IKEA. Retrieved from http://216108.edicypages.com/blog/walmart-and-ikea-which-is-better
Pearson, B. (2015). Re-assembly required: What Target, Walmart could learn from IKEA’s expansion. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanpearson/2015/03/27/re-assembly-required-what-target-walmart-could-learn-from-ikeas-expansion/#7841339a4693
Rao, A. (2014). Wal-Mart in Africa. ICMR.
Walmart's Comprehensive Management Plan: Walmart is a public multinational corporation based in America that deals with chains of large discount department and warehouse stores. Based on the ratings by Forbes Global 2000 list, Walmart is considered as the 18th largest public corporation across the globe and the largest when rated by revenue. In addition to being the largest company in the world, Walmart is the biggest private employer across the globe
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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
This level of operations was reached in less than 50 years, making the rise of Walmart one of the truly sensational success stories of the 20th century. The research was also consistent in showing that the company's organizational culture that stresses cost savings at every opportunity to minimize operational costs and increase savings to customers has been responsible in large part for much of Walmart's success to date. Many
Walmart's Stock Performance Today, the largest retailer in the world is Walmart, with more than 11,000 stores in 27 countries (Walmart profile, 2014). Founded in 1945 and headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, Walmart operates its chain of retail stores using various formats, including discount stores, supermarkets, hypermarkets, supercenters, warehouse clubs, apparel stores, restaurants, drug stores, and convenience stores, as well as various retail Websites including walmart.com and samsclub.com (Walmart profile, 2014).
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
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