The Five Competitive Strategies For Wal Mart

Wal-Mart is a brand that is well known around the world, especially in the USA. It has gradually developed into the largest retailer in the world. Wal-Mart’s globalization efforts have been happening rapidly. But have they been successful in all aspects of their international expansion or not? This is the main thought that is going to be discussed in this essay. The questions I will be looking at are based on a case called “Wal-Mart takes on the world” from the book of International Business The Challenge of Global Competition eleventh edition – Ball, McCulloch, Geringer, Minor, and McNett. Questions are the following:

Walmart is one of the biggest companies in the world, but it also has extremely tough competitors. Currently Walmart is the largest retailer in most countries of the world for numerous reasons. For one, they supply a wide variety of items to be purchased that include entertainment, groceries, health and wellness, hardware, furnishing, apparel and many more. Walmart also has over 11,100 stores in over 27 countries according to Market Realist. These two reasons alone give Walmart a huge advantage over its’ competitors. Walmart has both strengths and weaknesses when it comes to its’ competitors not only across the nation, but across the world as well. Some of the main domestic competitors of Wal-mart consist of Target, Costco, Amazon, and the dollar store trinity. Along with that, Walmart has international competition such as Carrefour in France, Metro in Germany, Tesco in the United Kingdom, Loblaw Companies in Canada, and Ahold in the Netherlands. Although Walmart has competitors with all of these companies worldwide, it still remains the “#1 retailer in Canada and Mexico and has operations in Asia (where it owns a 95% stake in Japanese retailer SEIYU ), Africa, Europe, and Latin America”, according to Hoovers. Strangely enough, Walmart is growing more overseas than it is in the United States. Even with all these companies it has to compete with, Wal-mart’s total sales are still almost 5 times its’ competitors. As it generates a net sale of over $483 billion in one year,

10. What are the five generic competitive strategies? Briefly describe each one and identify the type of competitive advantage that each strategy is aimed at achieving.

Wal-Mart is a company that has taken its core competencies, which are the capabilities the firm emphasizes and performs especially well while pursuing its vision (Ireland, Hoskisson, Hitt, 2008), and turned them into competitive advantages. Core competencies must satisfy four characteristics in order to be a competitive advantage. These advantages, according to our text, include: *valuable, *rare, *difficult to imitate,*nonsubstitutable.

Their affiliates are offered a controlled assortment of nationwide brand-names in addition to choosing private label goods in a widespread of commodities. Costco merges its fast inventory revenue with the functioning competences to track the business lucratively at a substantial lower gross margin. Moreover, Costco gains benefits of its great sales capacity and fast inventory turnover to gain the advantages of timely sum rebates from merchandise wholesalers due to the extraordinary deals and fast inventory turnover. This allows Costco to produce an abundant of cash in their account. The pricing strategy of Costco is the central factor that reinforce the low price business strategy which is to improve the limitations on brand-named merchandise which is at 14%. Which allows their members to bargain at such a low value. Costco has the prominent status amongst consumers as the number one merchant of mutable merchandise and low prices. Costco's economical benefit is positioned upon its aptitude to purchase in massive wholesale, consolidate, and sell in its

Walmart started as a small discount store with an idea of giving customers low prices and has grown into the largest retailer in the last 50 years. Their ability to remain relevant and innovative has insured their success. Walmart uses strategies in competitive advantage, change management, diversity management, recruitment and selection, compensation and benefits, and organizational climate to remain the leading retailer in over 28 different countries. These strategies ensure that their consumers continue to walk through their doors; their focus on their associates keeps high retention rates and ensures the organization saves money.

Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, and Strickland (2012) found that competitive strategy depend on whether a company’s target market is narrow or broad, and whether a company is seeking competitive advantage through low-cost or product differentiation. These two factors reveal five generic competitive strategies. The five strategies are Overall Low-Cost Provider Strategy, Focused Low-Cost Strategy, Broad Differentiation Strategy, Focused Differentiation Strategy, and Best Cost

“Always low prices”, is the first thing you think of when you think about one of the most successful companies around the world, Wal-Mart. For years they stand as a well know company due to their everyday low prices and variety of products. Their mission statement is “Saving people money so that they can live better”. They have chosen their mission statement wisely yet there is a lot of controversy when it comes to this International Company.

The objective of a company using a low-cost provider strategy is to sell its products at the lowest possible price to attract customers. This is known as a price advantage. Companies using this strategy will typically earn low margins but achieve high sales volumes. Low-cost providers aim their products at the broad market, making them appeal to as many consumers as possible to achieve high sales volume.

In business, three major strategies comprising of cost leadership, differentiation, and focus strategies exist. The focus strategy emphasizes on providing services and products to a specified buyer group or market segment within a given geographic market. The differentiation approach is often defined as provision of services or products that are perceived to be unique in the market place. Wal-Mart emphasizes on the long-term strategy of cost leadership. Through this strategy, the company ensures that it offers customers with quality products at relatively lower prices than other providers in the industry. Through overall cost leadership strategy, Wal-Mart has been offering better quality products at a lower price than any competitor can offer. For the organization to achieve this goal, it has developed long-term supply chain management, which ensures that products are made available to the market at the required time (Enz, 2010).

As determined by the IE Matrix, Wal-Mart fits into the category of grow and build strategies. Thus, the aforementioned strategies would fit Wal-Mart very well. All three of the strategies that we decided on are grow and build types. The three strategies that Wal-Mart would benefit most from are: market penetration, market development, and product development.

Founded in 1962 by Sam Walton, Wal-Mart followed an amazing pattern of success and growth, eclipsing all other U.S. department store retailers by the early 1990’s. In early spring 2001, Wal-Mart enjoyed a huge market capitalization of over $230B, which was down from highs of nearly $300B in early 2000. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is the world 's largest retailer and the largest company in the world based on revenues, ignoring profits (income), assets, and market capitalization. In the fiscal year ending January 31, 2002, Wal-Mart had $219 billion in sales and $6.6 billion in net income. It employs over 1 million people in the United States at 3,400 stores and 1.4 million people worldwide at 4,500 retail units in 10

A retailing company with a mission to continually provide members with quality goods and services at the lowest price possible, Costco Companies, Inc.’s business model was to generate high sales volume and rapid inventory turnover by offering members very low prices on a limited selection of nationally branded and select private-label products in a wide range of merchandise categories. It is very much appealing as small businesses are the definite target customers. Low price definitely attracts more customers, and is strategically advantageous to this kind of industry.

Class: This required a wide range of application because if you focus to much on 3PL then you’ll be limited to what actually accounted for Wal-Mart decision not to pursue 3PL. To address this question properly, put on your logistics and “Supply Chain hat” and come along with me as we zoom through Wal-Mart. Don’t forget to wear your scholarly hat as well. Now, think about your recent visit to Wal-Mart with you girlfriend, wife, daughter, and son. Is either a good/bad feeling? So, let me talk about Wal-Mart.

Target Corporation is the second largest retailer in the United States, behind Wal-Mart. Target is involved in selling a variety of general merchandise and food products. Its main strategy involves a low cost and differentiation approach, which sets it apart from its competitors. Target’s products it offers also sets it apart from its competitors due to its high quality. Target has relationships with top designers, such as Mossimo, which allows it to provide more innovative and trendy products to keep up with the changing demands of consumers. Target is also able to achieve their quality through its relationship with its suppliers. This relationship and Target’s size allow it to achieve economies of scale to provide low prices. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, offers lower quality products at low prices. Wal-Mart solely focuses on a low cost strategy. Wal-Mart however has a global advantage. Wal-Mart operates in twenty-six different countries with over 6,100 stores internationally. Wal-Mart also has 4,540 U.S. stores compared to 1,795 Target stores in the United States. Target also only operates in the United States. In 2013, Target attempted to expand into Canada, but failed, having to sell its stores and relocate domestically. Their domestic presence, however, can be seen as an opportunity for Target to expand globally, especially into markets such as China and India. If they expanded, it would allow them to squeeze out some of Wal-Mart’s market share and