Walmart Global Strategy

Q1. The growth of Internet and computer technologies have created new opportunities to better serve the corporations and consumers. Describe 3 new technologies that have changed the ways people communicate or the ways companies conduct their business.

Wal-Mart failed to grasp the consumer and retail environment in Japan. With a population of 127 million, the highest per capita income and the second largest economy in the world, Japan is a very smart market for retailers. The opportunity exists, but there is much more research and planning that needed to be done before expansion began. Instead of adapting business operations to the Japanese culture, the company essentially assumed the Japanese would readily adjust to Wal-Mart’s. For example, in Japan there is a much larger need for local store customization. Consumer buyer behavior is much different than in the United States, with purchasing patterns and product selection varying greatly between regions. They have a trend to buy smaller quantities in regular intervals rather than the more American idea of “stocking up.” Similarly, the concept of large retail stores is foreign. Retailers with the highest growth rate are small specialty stores; quite the opposite of Wal-Mart. The culture tends to buy more fresh produce than pre-packaged goods as well. Lastly, the Japanese view high price as equaling high quality. This mentality causes them to purchase forty percent of the world’s luxury goods annually. Packaging and appearance of goods play a huge role in their purchasing decisions. When looking at Wal-Mart’s product selection, it is obvious they do not usually cater to luxury-brand customers. All of these cultural misunderstandings lead Wal-Mart

Walmart faced strong entrenched competition in Canada and Europe. In these developed countries, they couldn’t gain critical mass through internal growth, so they had to acquire companies that have been in the market already. They acquired Woolco, a money losing operation, applied many of the American business practices, and within a few years, the Canadian operations were successful. They have 317 stores, and they account for more than 35 percent of the Canadian discount and department store market. In Europe, Walmart entered Germany by acquiring the Wertkauf hypermarket chain in 1998 and entered the UK by acquiring the 229-store ASDA group. They the leader and are now losing ground to Tesco. A major problem for Walmart in the European market is overexpansion. Accompanied with the famous “Always low prices” approach, they met large resistance from the competition and regulators. Large price wars began because Walmart was accused of underselling the competition. They struggled to build a strong competitive base in German losing more than $1 billion. They were unable to create a competitive advantage, so they sold their operations to a competitor, Metro. They also faced problems in Korea, so

Within less than 30 years, Wal-Mart had transformed from a small rural retailer in Arkansas into the largest retailer in the U.S. In order to continue this rapid growth, the company had started to pursue international expansion grounded in the belief that the firm’s business model of offering quality products at low prices and great customer service would appeal to consumers everywhere around the world (p.8)[1]. China was of particular interest in going international as Wal-Mart’s top management held the opinion that it was the only market in which the firm’s success story in the U.S. could be repeated (p.2/8). However, in 2005 (nine years after its

Wal-Mart is an American company that was founded in the year 1962 by Sam Walton. The company operates in the retail industry. Notably, the company operates various chains of stores in the entire world which has made the venture a big success in the retail industry. The efficiency and the effectiveness of the company’s operations have seen it ranked the second largest public company in the world (Copeland & Labuski, 2013). The company has over two million workers which makes the leading private corporation employer in the world. Notably, despite the fact that the company is traded publicly, Wal-Mart is more of a family company since Walton’s family still controls over fifty percent of the company’s shares. The company has expanded its business through venturing into external markets such as China, the United Kingdom, North Korea, South Korea, North America, and so forth. However, these markets have produced mixed results in terms of the level of success and profitability. For instance, the German market and the South Korean markets have turned out to be less favorable for the company.

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,

Being such a large company with many stores and employees Wal-Mart faces many issues. Some of the issues the retail giant faces are; wages, gender discrimination, and health benefits. It seems too many that Wal-Marts has lost its way. When the recession hit Wal-Mart laid off many of its employees and because of that consumers feel the shelves are not being restock and they can’t find what they are looking for. According to Bloomberg Business Week Wal-Mart went from having 343 employees in a store in 2008 to 301 employees in a store in 2013. Even though the employee cut seems logical it is costing the retail giant business. There is no man power to keep the shelves stock and give customers the great customer service that Sam Walton envisioned. (Bloomberbusinessweek)

Currently, there are roughly 7,800 Wal-Mart stores worldwide (Wal-Mart, 2012), and they are in 16 different markets throughout the world. Throughout the company, Wal-Mart employs more than 2 million people and serves more than 100 million customers a year. Any new company who wants to enter in the same market as Wal-Mart must be able to counteract their size and scale and likely must have a long-term horizon like Wal-Mart. It would take someone decades to match Wal-Mart as well as likely require Wal-Mart’s operations and offerings to reduce in quality. With the reputation that Wal-Mart has established, they take much of the business away from other companies. As for those other companies trying to have an impact in the same market, it will be minimal or non-existent unless the new company specializes in something that Wal-Mart does not offer. Wal-Mart is branching out into other areas of the market, such as groceries, it will have a bigger impact within its markets.

The development of the Internet and more specifically the business website has seen brand recognition by consumers escalate to never before seen heights. Because of this brand recognition, it has become important for businesses to design their websites to reflect their overall marketing strategies. This is especially important in the retail world. All retail businesses have a similar overall marketing strategy of generating sales and retaining the customer for future sales. Most of the retail giants still greatly rely on the success of their brick and mortar stores to turn a profit. However, internet sales for these brick and mortar stores have increasingly risen over the last few years to compete with the retail stores like Amazon that are strictly internet based businesses. Brick and mortar retail stores, such as Walmart, Target, Kmart, and Nordstrom, have each designed their websites to reflect the overall retail marketing strategy as well as the individual marketing strategies that have made their brick and mortar businesses successful.

Wal-Mart is the world's largest retail and departmental store chain. Having business operations in 27 countries with 69 different brand names, Wal-Mart is able to serve a huge number of customers per day. Wal-Mart is the fastest growing and the most successful retail brand in the world. The factors which make it the strongest brand in its industry include large customer base, sound financial strength, strong brand image, and huge supply chain network. Wal-Mart has certain weaknesses in its operations and business setup like low acceptability of certain products, high employee turnover, and less recognition of newly introduced brands. These weaknesses can be overcome by availing attractive opportunities from the market and investing more in the most profitable areas. Wal-Mart faces the biggest threat from its competitors and ever-changing customer preferences.

The Wal-Mart Stores segment is the largest segment of Wal-Mart 's business, accounting for 67.3% sales during the fiscal year ended January 31, 2005 (fiscal 2005). The segment consists of three different retail formats, all of which operate in the United States. The Company 's SAM 'S CLUB segment consists of membership warehouse clubs that operate in the United States, and accounts for 13% of fiscal 2005 sales. The international segment consists of retail operations in eight countries and Puerto Rico, and generated 19.7% of Wal-Mart 's fiscal 2005 sales. In addition, the Company owns an unconsolidated minority interest of approximately 37% of The Seiyu, Ltd., a retailer in Japan.

The five generic competitive strategies are low-cost provider, broad differentiation, focused low-cost, focused differentiation strategy, and best-cost provider strategy. According to the textbook, “a company’s competitive strategy deals exclusively with the specifics of management’s game plan for competing successfully” (Gamble, 93).

Ans:Wal-Mart,Inc runs a chain of large, discount department stores.it is the world’s largest public corporation by revenue. Walmart is the largest private employer and the largest grocery retailer in the United States. Walmart is one of the best known industries all over the world. Its concentration of a single business strategy is the basis of its success over the decades by this strategy without having to rely upon diversification to sustain its growth and competitive advantage. The leading marketing strategies of Wal-Mart are low prices, service and smile. However by adapting this strategy, it has risked itself by putting all of a company’s egg in one industry basket. While its global strategy worked elsewhere, the results were bad in Germany and Korea that Wal-Mart withdrew from those countries.

Competition among retailers is aggressive, as the demand side of the industry is driven by consumers who expect to get the best value for their money. “Competitive advantage is anything a company has, or does better, that customers value but the competition cannot match” (Romero, 2005). Walmart has a sustainable competitive advantage over other retailers, largely due to their centralized focus of cost leadership and differentiation strategies.

1. TARGET MARKET: As discussed, target market is a group of potential customers in which a company directs its marketing efforts. A company should always anticipate consumers’ needs and work towards fulfilling these needs. It is one thing to identify your “target market” and another to satisfy them. Walmart’s credo is, “save money, live better” this summaries their target market, the lower-middle class and the poorer. (Low income consumers). Walmart is the only retail