...Case Study: Wal-Mart Stores “Every Day Low Prices” In China Webster University INTB 5000 1 Webster University 2 Wal-Mart Stores “Every Day Low Prices” In China FACTS: First opened in Shenzhen on August 12, 1996 As of December 2007 94 stores in 51 cities Employs 43,000+ associates Serves around 5 million customers per week Transition from rural US to metro/urban in China Competitive analysis a core value of the company Shopping 1,500 items and price matching them through “Special Buy” Analysis Major pressure from the Chinese regional governments to centralize in high growth regions About-face by Chinese govt. on Shanghai is of interest Has major implications on Wal-Mart’s ability to provide infrastructure for stores Supply Chain Challenges Abound Tier 1 cities include Beijing – Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou Tier 2 cities include Chengdu, Nanjing, Chongqing, & Wuhan Tier 3 cities include Changzho, Jinhua, Mianyang Webster University 3 Wal-Mart Stores “Every Day Low Prices” In China 7,058 Units 1.9 Million Associates 23 offices sourcing from 70 countries UK 340 Units Canada 292 Units Japan 393 Units US 4,103 Units Mexico 943 Units Central America 433 Units China 86 Units Trust-Mart 101 Units India JV –Aug 2007 Puerto Rico 54 Units Brazil 297 Units Argentina 16 Units Webster University 4 Wal-Mart Stores “Every Day Low Prices” In China Webster University 5 Wal-Mart Stores “Every Day...
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...Cost Leadership and Differentiation Strategies @Walmart Submitted by: Samrat Basu INDEX PAGE Walmart Origin Page-3 Walmart Mission/Vision Page-4 Corporate Culture@ Walmart Page-4 Competitive Position of Walmart Page 5-6 Strategies @ Walmart Page 6-9 Private Label and Store Layout Page 9-11 Conclusion Page-11 Appendix Page 12 References and Bibliography Page 13-14 Wal-Mart- Origin Wal-Mart was the product of Sam Walton, a businessman from Arkansas. In the late 1940s, in USA, a retailer who was successful in obtaining a sufficient discount for his products from the whole-seller, used to sell the products at full price to the customers and thus enjoyed a substantial amount of profit. Sam Walton during that time was working as a retailer at a J.C. Penney store in Des Moines, Iowa.(Walton & Huey, 1993) Incidentally while working there, he was introduced to Butler Brothers, a big retailer who had chains of variety stores known as Ben Franklin and Sam was offered...
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...Cost Leadership and Differentiation Strategies @Walmart Submitted by: Samrat Basu INDEX PAGE Walmart Origin Page-3 Walmart Mission/Vision Page-4 Corporate Culture@ Walmart Page-4 Competitive Position of Walmart Page 5-6 Strategies @ Walmart Page 6-9 Private Label and Store Layout Page 9-11 Conclusion Page-11 Appendix Page 12 References and Bibliography Page 13-14 Wal-Mart- Origin Wal-Mart was the product of Sam Walton, a businessman from Arkansas. In the late 1940s, in USA, a retailer who was successful in obtaining a sufficient discount for his products from the whole-seller, used to sell the products at full price to the customers and thus enjoyed a substantial amount of profit. Sam Walton during that time was working as a retailer at a J.C. Penney store in Des Moines, Iowa.(Walton & Huey, 1993) Incidentally while working there, he was introduced to Butler Brothers, a big retailer who had chains of variety stores known as Ben Franklin and Sam was offered...
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... eCommerce | Revenue | * * US$ 476.294 billion (2014) * US$ 468.651 billion (2013) | Operating income | * US$ 26.872 billion (2014) * US$ 27.725 billion (2013) | Net income | * US$ 16.022 billion (2014) * US$ 16.999 billion (2013) | Total assets | * US$ 204.751 billion (2014) * US$ 203.105 billion (2013) | Total equity | * US$ 81.339 billion (2014) * US$ 81.738 billion (2013) | Owner(s) | Walton family | Employees | 2.2 million (2013) | Divisions | Walmart Canada | Subsidiaries | Asda, Sam's Club, Seiyu Group,Walmex, @WalmartLabs, Walmart eCommerce | Website | Corporate.Walmart.com Walmart.com | Executive Summary: Wal-Mart has shown continued success in their use of information technology with e-commerce, a system that allows managers to view point-of-sale information, and the possible use of RFID chips in the near future. After reviewing the 2005 Harvard Business School study of Wal-Mart, it is evident that this company has been successful in expanding its operations in several foreign markets. Wal-Mart had established itself as the largest retailer in both Canada in 2003 and Mexico in 2004. Through acquisitions, partnerships, and go-it-alone strategies, Wal-Mart began the expansion of large-scale operations in other countries...
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...INTRODUCTION Recently, Tesco announced that the firm was ending its US venture. Indeed, Tesco appears to be the most recent British retailer to have encountered with failure in the US. Indeed, over the past decades, several major firms such as Sainsbury’s have been compelled to review their overseas ventures (Butler, 2012). These firms have incurred significant deficits in their quest for a new market. However, there seems to be evidence that some of these companies have been able to establish themselves in some foreign markets. For example, Tesco has failed in Japan but has proved to be a success in South Korea. Over this past century, there has been an evident emergence of multinational retail corporations. The general philosophy of these companies has been economically driven, that is, to prosper in terms of sales revenue and to expand globally while acquiring maximum market shares. The most dominant firm in this aspect is U.S. based Wal-Mart that leads with sales revenue exceeding $466.1 billion in 2012, followed by French based Carrefour with income of $112.6 billion (Forbes, 2013). They are trailed by U.K based Tesco at $96.8 billion and by Germany’s Metro in fourth place with sales of $90.5 billion (Forbes, 2013). The common strategy of these stated firms has been to target their marketing efforts towards rapidly emerging countries by investing in the establishment of foreign branches. An emerging market can be defined as an economy which is in the process of a shift...
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...www.hbrreprints.org TOOL KIT Companies routinely exaggerate the attractiveness of foreign markets, and that can lead to expensive mistakes. Here’s a more rational approach to evaluating global opportunities. Distance Still Matters The Hard Reality of Global Expansion by Pankaj Ghemawat • Included with this full-text Harvard Business Review article: 1 Article Summary The Idea in Brief—the core idea The Idea in Practice—putting the idea to work 2 Distance Still Matters: The Hard Reality of Global Expansion 12 Further Reading A list of related materials, with annotations to guide further exploration of the article’s ideas and applications Reprint R0108K TOOL KIT Distance Still Matters The Hard Reality of Global Expansion The Idea in Brief Why did U.S. media giant Star TV lose $500 million trying to deliver TV programming to Asia? Like many companies, it was so dazzled by the foreign market’s immensity that it ignored the difficulties of pioneering new territories. For example, it assumed—wrongly—that Asian viewers wanted English-language programming. How to avoid this fate—and select the right targets for your firm’s global expansion? Look beyond a country’s sales potential (as expressed by national wealth or propensity to consume)—and analyze the probable impact of distance. But don’t focus only on distance’s geographical dimension. Consider three other dimensions as well: cultural factors (religion, race, social norms, language); administrative factors...
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...Retail Sector: Some Issues Abstract Foreign direct investment (FDI) plays an important role in India’s growth dynamics. There are several examples of the benefits of FDI in India. FDI in the retail sector can expand markets by reducing transaction and transformation costs of business through adoption of advanced supply chain and benefit consumers, and suppliers (farmers). This also can result in net gains in employment at the aggregate level. This paper brings forth a few conceptual issues and analysis of qualitative information, data and stylized facts on these issues. Key words- India, Foreign direct investment, Retail, Supply chain, Farmers 2 INRODUCTION In applying transaction-cost logic to political aspects of the reform process in less-developed economies, Dixit (2003)) characterizes three phases in the formation of interest groups under information asymmetry: ex ante, interim, and ex post. At the ex ante stage, each individual is uncertain about his own type as well as the types of others because there is no private information. At the interim stage, each individual knows his own type but not the type of others. The ex post stage is when all players’ types are publicly revealed. In the case of India, one may start from the interim stage because of existence of powerful incumbents both the private firms and the policy makers. Policy reforms would mean a fall in monopoly rents to incumbents and a decline in the rent-seeking powers of government agents. To illustrate...
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...Walmart’s Global Expansion 1.How does expanding internationally benefit walmart? Wal-Mart needed international expansion critically to remain a successful company. The main reason Wal-Mart needed to go global was because they could no longer achieve the growth needed in the US. This market was saturated. The United States represents only four percent of the world’s population, which meant Wal-Mart was missing out on ninety-six percent of the world’s potential customers. (Govindarajan, par. 7) Also, Wal-Mart needed to continue to make their US employees satisfied. With Wal-Mart’s aggressive stock purchasing programs, this meant that employee satisfaction was directly correlated to their stock prices. Walmart also realized that there were many emerging markets with lower levels of disposable income, which offered a large potential for discount retailers. (Govindarajan, par. 7) Therefore, Wal-Mart’s only option to achieve the growth needed was to enter the global environment. After its beginning in 1962 Walmart ever since had constant growth rates and successfully gained market share in the merchandise and food retailing markets. “By 1990, however, Walmart realized that its opportunities for growth in the United States were becoming more limited”. To keep steady growth rates and profits the company decided to expand globally. The core competency of Walmart is the price. Selling merchandise and food for low prices made them earn market shares and continue the growth...
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...www.hbrreprints.org TOOL KIT Companies routinely exaggerate the attractiveness of foreign markets, and that can lead to expensive mistakes. Here’s a more rational approach to evaluating global opportunities. Distance Still Matters The Hard Reality of Global Expansion by Pankaj Ghemawat • Included with this full-text Harvard Business Review article: 1 Article Summary The Idea in Brief—the core idea The Idea in Practice—putting the idea to work 2 Distance Still Matters: The Hard Reality of Global Expansion 12 Further Reading A list of related materials, with annotations to guide further exploration of the article’s ideas and applications Reprint R0108K TOOL KIT Distance Still Matters The Hard Reality of Global Expansion The Idea in Brief Why did U.S. media giant Star TV lose $500 million trying to deliver TV programming to Asia? Like many companies, it was so dazzled by the foreign market’s immensity that it ignored the difficulties of pioneering new territories. For example, it assumed—wrongly—that Asian viewers wanted English-language programming. How to avoid this fate—and select the right targets for your firm’s global expansion? Look beyond a country’s sales potential (as expressed by national wealth or propensity to consume)—and analyze the probable impact of distance. But don’t focus only on distance’s geographical dimension. Consider three other dimensions as well: cultural factors (religion, race, social norms, language); administrative factors...
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...4th Quarter 2010 | 25(4) THEME OVERVIEW: FUNDAMENTAL FORCES AFFECTING AGRIBUSINESS INDUSTRIES Kent Olson and Mike Boehlje JEL Classifications: Q13, L10, L22, M22, L80 Keywords: Agribusiness, Market Forces, Structural Change, Porter’s Five Forces Agribusiness industries are facing numerous challenges and opportunities resulting from various fundamental forces. An understanding of the forces that are shaping and shifting the competitive landscape is useful to not only understand the strategic positioning decisions of the firms in these industries, but also the dramatic structural changes that are occurring in the food production, processing and distribution sector. This series of articles discusses the fundamental forces creating change in the agribusiness industries, and how companies and decision-makers are being affected by, and adapting to, changes in these forces. We frame this discussion using the analytical concepts of value chains and Porter’s Five Forces. We describe the agribusiness value chain as two chains which become one at the consumer end (Figure 1). One value chain follows plants and plant products, and another chain follows animals and animal products. These two chains blend into one chain at the processing and retailing stages of the chain. We also view the value chain rather simply as four stages: (1) input suppliers; (2) producers; (3) processors and handlers; and (4) retailers. While the value chain could be viewed as specific for different products...
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...Case Analysis: GameStop Group 4: Elisha Colvin Lance Bobby Dike David DeBlanc University of Houston - Downtown MBA 6208 Marketing Management November 6, 2015 Table of Contents Executive Summary 3 Situation 4 Questions: 4 Hypothesis 11 Proof and Action 11 Alternatives 15 References: 17 Executive Summary GameStop became the world’s largest video game retailer in 2005 with its merger with Electronic Boutique (EB). However, the company’s leadership team was concerned with how to address future challenges with competitors and changing consumer desires and preferences for product acquisition. This analysis provides an assessment of the case study, GAMESTOP, and offers answers to the pressing questions faced by GameStop’s leadership team. Our review and analysis supports that GameStop is well positioned to continue its aggressive growth and retail presence. We provide four primary recommendations listed below to facilitate the company meeting their growth goals and strengthen their ability to maintain their leadership position in the video game marketplace. GameStop should: * Focus efforts on building a larger presence in the European and emerging markets. * Consider varying its product mix, with a larger focus on used items, within its mall stores to drive higher profitability and enhance differentiation in those customers’ settings. * Align with a software developer to establish a presence in the online gaming and social gaming...
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...Corporate Social Responsibility Literature review Today, the highly competitive business environment demands an increasingly sophisticated market strategy. In order to satisfy customer’s needs and gain competitive advantages, companies have to take consistent effort to create further value in to their products or services. In the meantime, worldwide government’s policy and legal system are adding more pressure on environmental sustainability. On top this, modern customers are asking for sustainable approach (Gauthier, 2005) and the investors are getting more sophisticated not only on company’s financial performance but also on the company’s sustainability and social responsibilities. All of the factors above, made merely financial oriented approach are not sufficient anymore, the companies who have the ambition to compete globally have to have a forward point of view and establish the sustainable marketing approach. Definition and Debate of CSR The concept of CSR has appeared into public view over last several decades, but a clearer definition has not been reached yet. In principle, CSR refers to a collection of value sheared with business stakeholders, namely, the business approach should meets or exceeds the ethical, legal, commercial and public expectations that holds by society, in order to achieve the sustainable development of the planet. Generally speaking, the concept of CSR widely ranged from ethical standard to accomplish the welfare of society. One famous definition...
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...Reputable Management Gurus and Contributors 9 Roger Martin 9 Frederick Winslow Taylor 10 Linda A. Hill 12 Vijay Govindarajan 14 Coimbatore Krishnarao Prahalad 16 Conclusion 17 References 18 Introduction Administration is the function of industry concerned in the determination of corporate policy, the co-ordination of finance, production, and distribution, the settlement of the compass of the organization, and the ultimate control of the executive. Meanwhile, management is the function in industry concerned in the execution of policy, which is within the limits set up by administration, and the employment of the organization for the particular objects set before it. Although literature on the field of business management dates back to the late nineteenth century, the study of human service management and administration is relatively recent. Most of the literature has come from the field of non-profit management such as social work, the arts, education, research, science, religion, philanthropy, and other such activities. It can be seen through some evidences of buildings from which many of them we can admire nowadays. These includes Egyptians pyramids, Colosseum, Chinese great wall, Taj Mahal, cathedrals, and many others great buildings. These buildings must have been built by a thousands of workers or slaves, which is certainly leaded by someone. Therefore, managerial activity has...
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...84 Harvard Business Review March 2011 HBR.ORG Dominic Barton is the global managing director of McKinsey & Company. Long Term Business leaders face a choice: They can reform the system, or watch as the government exerts control. A call to action from McKinsey & Company’s global managing director by Dominic Barton Capitalism for the T ILLUSTRATION: JAMES JOYCE he near meltdown of the nancial system and the ensuing Great Recession have been, and will remain, the de ning issue for the current generation of executives. Now that the worst seems to be behind us, it’s tempting to feel deep relief—and a strong desire to return to the comfort of business as usual. But that is simply not an option. In the past three years we’ve already seen a dramatic acceleration in the shifting balance of power between the developed West and the emerging East, a rise in populist politics and social stresses in a number of countries, and significant strains on global governance systems. As the fallout from the crisis continues, we’re likely to see increased geopolitical rivalries, new international security challenges, and rising tensions from trade, migration, and resource competition. For business leaders, however, the most consequential outcome of the crisis is the challenge to capitalism itself. That challenge did not just arise in the wake of the Great Recession. Recall that trust in business hit historically low levels more than a decade ago. But the crisis and the surge in...
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...pages with additional energy and intelligence to amplify what are often complex and abstract concepts. This month we showcase the “rayographs” of Man Ray, the modernist giant. Born in Philadelphia, Ray moved to Paris in 1921, where he experimented with painting, filmmaking, sculpture, and, of course, photography. He created his rayographs by placing objects directly onto photosensitive material and exposing them to light. View more of the artist’s work at manraytrust.com. ARTWORK Man Ray, Rayography “Champs délicieux” n°08, 1922, rayograph hbr.org Walter Kiechel III is a former editorial director of Harvard Business Publishing, a former managing editor of Fortune, and the author of The Lords of Strategy (Harvard Business Review Press, 2010). The Management Century by Walter Kiechel III November 2012 Harvard Business Review 63 Spotlight on HBR AT 90 If you want to pinpoint a place and time that the first glints of the Management Century appeared on the horizon, you could do worse than Chicago, May 1886. There, to the recently formed American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Henry R. Towne, a cofounder of the Yale Lock Manufacturing Company, delivered an address titled “The Engineer as an Economist.” Towne argued that there were good engineers and good businessmen, but seldom were they one and the same. He went on to assert that “the management of works has become a matter of such great and far-reaching importance as perhaps...
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