Wal-Mart's Sustainable Competitive Advantage Essay

Not only Wal-Mart is saving money for consumers, Wal-Mart creates jobs, improve economic conditions and overall improve the areas in where they operate. Wal-Mart usually open in rural and down trotted areas. A perfect example is Carol Foote. She and her friend Paula Beaulieu started a petition to open a

Wal-Mart should project a community friendly, environment caring and employee welfare seeking brand image to combat. Emerging threats. Investment in sustainability initiatives like solar energy and recycling could be possible opportunities.

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

Not only does it provide various benefits to its consumers but also to its community by providing jobs and that's also including minorities and disabled workers with decent amount of wages and benefits with room to grow in the corporation. Walmart also thinks about the environment by utilizing energy saving LED lights throughout the store and parking lots and also working with the suppliers to improve efficiency and

Wal-Mart is a producer who has the sole purpose of promoting consumption of the consumer. Wal-Mart and its quest for capital improvement are playing a major and vital role in the evolution of economic life. Wal-Mart brings positive change to towns in the U.S. They increase competition between retailers, stimulating the economy, and they also bring more capital and tax revenue to at town, some of which desperately need a positive change.

The generic strategy that Wal-Mart employs is mainly a low-cost leader. This is evident by the company’s purpose: “saving people money so they can live better”. Wal-Mart believes that having a lower price matters to their customers. They continuously seek to reduce costs throughout their company, which will in turn reduce costs for

In 2005, “Wal-Mart took a leading role in disaster relief, contributing $18 million and 2,450 truckloads of supplies to victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita”. In addition, Wal-Mart strongly believes in supporting our service members and veterans. Along with Wal-Mart’s charitable contributions, it has “made a major commitment to environmental sustainability, announcing goals to create zero waste, use only renewable energy and sell products that sustain people and the environment” (Wal-Mart, 2015). Even though this retail giant exceeds its competitors in profits and revenues and, is a very charitable organization, it still faces many

This incorporates producing their own energy at our stores and offices, lessening GHG discharges and making their private trucks more proficient. Because of developing customer interest for earth mindful items, Walmart started a Sustainable Product Index program in mid-2009 with the objective of looking at its supply chains and making a file that will rank items on different measures of ecological effect. An introductory supplier evaluation has been finished and a Sustainability Index Consortium is presently at work constructing the devices and social event the information important to make a last item level sustainability file. Whenever complete, such a list will permit customers and makers to effectively pick from the items and production methods, separately, that outcome in less effects to the earth.

Wal-Mart boosts the standard of living for its customers by offering a plethora of quality products at the lowest possible prices. And by forcing its suppliers to become more efficient, Wal-Mart drives greater productivity and

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.

Perhaps this is giving Walmart a free ride in the media/marketing as being sustainable without any parties doing their due diligence to verify the actual numbers. As Senge explained, perhaps “Walmart is using going green to offset negative press for treatment of its employees” due their recent lawsuit losses and settlements (Senge, 2010, p. 114). Although Walmart should be commended for its sustainability portfolio, I believe the results of their goals need to be looked at from proportional aspect as well as how/where Walmart sources their products.

Wal-Mart maintains their strategy of low-cost leadership, which appeals to a larger market than competitors. The most prominent difference is that Wal-Mart owns the supply chain and has superior bargaining power over suppliers. This cost-saving opportunity is represented in inbound and outbound logistics. They maintain a young fleet of trucks, and recently released a new concept truck and trailer that has higher fuel efficiency due to the low profile aerodynamic design, and a 53 foot trailer made out of carbon fiber, which saves on weight and can further

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)

A. The Wal-Mart China work in co-operation with the government and employees in advancing sustainability. The best practices known by Wal-Mart should be shared with government and employees to reduce carbon footprints. Also Wal-Mart should abide by the regulations of the government pertaining to sustainability and also Wal-Mart should voluntarily adopt best practices which lead to greater sustainability. The employees should be trained for reducing carbon footprints resulting from their actions and should be rewarded to encourage them to continue addressing sustainability issues.

Wal-Mart also has a green goal. It claims that their environmental goal is to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy, to create zero waste and to sell products that sustain our natural resources and the environment(Wal-Mart website 2008).