SWOT of Canadian Operations of Wal-Mart: Supply Chain Innovations to Fight Competition in Canada

Since Wal-Mart opened its doors in the early 1960’s profit as with any corporation has been a main focus. Achieving and succeeding in this however is easier said than done, development and success of a company relies on efficiency in current practices and improvements in those practices to insure the future of the company. A strong sustainability strategy which is closely followed will allow for such growth and success; bringing profits to the organization.

Wal-Mart uses its resources in research since before (2011-2012) for the sole purpose of coming up with new ideas and new ways to sustain itself in the local and global community. Locally it provides electricity in stores from solar panels and wind turbines. “Wal-Mart has taken strides to obtain its sustainability objectives. It has opened two environmentally friendly stores in McKinney, Texas, and Aurora, Colorado.” The company hopes that these experiments will conserve natural resources, save energy, and reduce pollution. In addition, Wal-Mart is attempting to reduce fossil fuel. Its fleet of hybrid trucks is a new technology for going “green (Ferrell, Fraedrich, Ferrell, 2011).” Similarly, Wal-Mart is “Currently working on four main green areas: waste improvement and recycling, natural resources, energy, and social/community impact. Wal-Mart’s long-term goals are to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy, create zero

High employee turnover. The business suffers from high employee turnover that increases firm’s costs, as it has to train new employees more often. The main reason for high employee turnover is low skilled, poorly paid jobs.

The two supply chains of Walmart and Amazon are different from each other and are efficient at their own perspectives. Both the supply chains are highly efficient in reaching out the customers in different ways. Walmart’s supply chain is completely based on store based retailing whereas Amazon’s supply chain is based on online retailing. The various methods followed by Walmart in its supply chain are vendor management inventory, cross-docking and central warehousing. Amazon acts as a retailer, as a third party and as an agent in supply chain management while selling various products through online.

There are many environmental forces that can affect an organizations. One particular organization that has been affected by these environmental forces is Walmart. Some organizations such as Walmart believe in saving people money so they can live better. Walmart first store open in 1962 in Arkansas and now fifty three years later operates all over the world, deals with over 245 million customers, has 11,000 stores in 28 countries, and employee’s 2.2 million employees worldwide. Walmart believes in being innovative and demonstrate leadership through the service they offer customers and communities. Walmart is best known for their low prices and is considered by most the one stop shopping experience. In the following paragraphs we will look

Furthermore, of the top 15 discount department stores in 1993, 2 were in Chapter 11 and 2 emerged from Chapter 11. Other factors included a lack of differentiation in product offerings, low switching costs for buyers, competitors had volume driven strategies aimed at obtaining market share at the expense of profitability, creating price wars, and a high pressure to increase volume to generate cost efficiencies. Based on Porter’s Five Forces Analysis, potential entrants was high with high entry barriers. With this, competitors had access to distribution channels, were established with multiple locations, had strong brand name recognition, had financial strength to fend of competitors, and had high capital which resulted in high buying power and high economies of scales. Based on Porter’s Five Forces Analysis, buying power was low to moderate. With this, customers had a high availability of substitutes as they could shop elsewhere and had ease of switching between competitors. There was a lack of differentiation among competitors as competitors competed on price. Based on Porter’s Five Forces Analysis, substitutes was low. With this, prices and quality of substitute products were very competitive, performance of substitute products were similar, and there were low switching costs for buyers. Based on Porter’s Five Forces Analysis, suppliers was low to moderate. The top 5 competitors accounted for 71% of

Wal-Mart now has to rebuild their images, procedures on how they conduct business nationwide and how the use ethical business practices. The New York time article reported, “Wal-Mart announces new ethical and environmental principles complete by 2012”. (Robinson, 2008)

Wal-Mart’s job is to manage these tensions, weighing the demands of customers against the concerns of network partners. To offer a profitable mix that includes more green products, Wal- Mart can retire conventional products in favor

This papers purpose is to give an example of the benefits and how the supply chain works by taking a look at the Target Corporation’s supply chain. Target is one of the largest retail chains in the US; they first opened in 1962 in the state of Minnesota. It started out as a family- run (The Dayton Family) department store. After company growth the family started looking for ways to expand. Today Target total sales ad diluted earnings per share reached new highs of $72.0 billion and $4.52, respectively. They invested $3.3 billion of capital in our U.S. and Canadian businesses, and they returned over $2.7 billion tour shareholders through share repurchase and dividend payments. Their full-year results were right on

Wal-Mart was known for its excellent supply chain management. Wal-mart grew in the 1960s to 1980s and benefited from improved road infrastructure and the inability of its competitors to keep up to changes in legislation. The main change was the removal of “resale price maintenance,” which had prevented retailers from discounting merchandise. A strong and efficient supply chain is the key to distribution and keeping their customers satisfied with the promise of “Everyday Low Prices.” Things within the supply chain in which Wal-Mart excelled at would include logistics, purchasing, retail decisions, and limiting the overall bullwhip effect of the supply chain.

One of the largest retailer in the United States is known to many of us as Wal-Mart; boasting over 3,500 domestic stores in the United States, with continued growth in their numbers…and about 1,300 locations in Canada, Mexico, the UK (only Western), Germany, Asia and South America (Mergent). Many of these stores include Supercenters, Sam’s Clubs, and smaller Neighborhood Market centers. Wal-Mart primary focus is on based on six strategic merchandise units: grocery, entertainment, hardlines, health and wellness, apparel, and items for the home (Mergent). Since the begininning of the company in 1962, Wal-Mart has skillful continued growth and prosperity. With their long standing history of profitability and prominence thoughout North

Wal-Mart is certainly credited with changing the retail world as we know it with its low prices and big stores with huge selections but it has come at a price. They have struggled with issues that question the ethics as a company and legal issues that question how they manage people. These issues will continue to hurt their organization unless a complete change in management thinking and actions are changed. As a socially responsible organization, their management planning in this area is second to none. Lets hope they take the same effort in improving their image when it comes to ethics and legal issues.

Walmart and Amazon have become global, household names in the US and for good reason: both of these companies have revolutionized the way in which we shop. Amazon offers a convenient experience, and an ever-expanding selection of products whereas Walmart has a wide network of store locations and famously low prices. As investments, these companies highlight the dichotomous nature of the retail industry – brick-and-mortar vs e-commerce; high growth vs steady growth; US vs International; actual vs market expectations. This report provides an in depth comparative analysis between Walmart and Amazon. We will first summarize the industry and these companies, followed by an analysis of market position and financials, and finally an

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is known as the largest retail company in the World. It holds the top spot in Fortune Magazine’s Fortune 500 Index of largest corporations. Operating under 3 segments: Wal-Mart U.S., Wal-Mart International, and Sam’s Club, it boasts plentiful market share domestically and internationally. The company focuses on 4 main priorities. Those being store formats, technology deployment, human capital, and internationalization. Although they have been the world leader in all four categories, they must stay ahead of the competition if they wish to maintain their stronghold on the market.

Due to increasing environmental imbalances, it is necessary for firms to achieve competitive advantages in the area of environmental convergence as well. Wal-Mart is putting continuous efforts from a long time for environment sustainability and energy conservation. It also received Aspen Institute Energy and Environment award for Corporate Energy Efficiency in 2009. Here are a few steps that Wal-Mart has taken to encourage environmental sustainability: