...Differentiating Between Market Structures Don Peterson ECO/365 February 2, 2015 Elena Zee Differentiating Between Market Structures A market structure in economics describes the state of a market with respect to its competition. There exist several different market structures like perfect competition, oligopoly, and monopolies among others. These markets all produce different types of goods or services, like public and private goods as well as common and collective goods. Firms operating in these different market structures utilize the labor market in very different ways because of very diverse uses of labor in each market structure, so it is important for a firm to use the labor market equilibrium principles to their advantage to efficiently cover the costs of production and maximize profits. In economics, a good is something defined as any object, service or right that increases utility, directly or indirectly (Colander, 2013, Chapter 13). Goods are further broken down into public and private goods. A public good is a good that can be used simultaneously by many consumers, which is called non-rival, and people who have not paid for the good cannot be excluded from its utility, which in economics is call non-excludable (Moffatt, n.d.). Together this means that the consumption of a public good by an individual does not affect the availability of that good to anyone else, which is called being non-rival and non-excludable. It can be seen however, that a truly...
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...In choosing an industry in which two or more companies that have been voted on some of the best places to be employed and carefully reviewing the Top 100 companies on Forbes I have chosen Wal-mart and Target. Wal-mart and Target are the leaders in the Retail industry. Both have many things in common when discussing corporate culture. Wal-mart and Target are both very customer driven. You can go into a store owned by either business and be met by knowledgeable, helpful employees. The type of service provided is a direct reflect of the type of training that is provided by each companies Human Resources Department. Each company has also embraced the idea of focusing on customers’ needs as well the needs of their employees and realizing that taking care of their employees is a way to build a strong team. Another way that these companies mirror each other is through community service efforts, both strive to be good corporate citizens at a time when the communities really need the help. Determine how each corporate culture differs from the other. Target corporations pay entry level employees less than Wal-mart. Target is considered more restrictive in terms of health care insurance. A few years ago, Target dropped health care insurance coverage for all part-time workers. By contrast, Wal-Mart makes its medical plan available to all workers, full- and...
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...Wal-Mart is the number one retailer in the United States. Geographical growth opportunities are shrinking within the boundaries of the United States.The company needs to evaluate multiple options to determine the best strategy to deploy. The challenge is “keeping the world’s biggest retailer on its phenomenal roll and delivering the huge sales and earnings increases that investors had come to expect from Wal-Mart over the years” (Camerius& Hunger, p. 19-30, 2006). The company’s current strategic plan is tothrive in the followingareas: • Low costs, high customer service, and always low prices • Product mix • Logistics and supply-chain management • International markets • Domestic growth • Public relations I have developed multiple strategic alternativesfor the company. They are as follows: • Stability – Pause And Proceed: Pause physical growth then proceed with growth domestically and globally • Growth – Concentration: Concentrated Internet program to target domestic and foreign markets • Growth – Concentration: Horizontal Growth with International Entry for global geographical internal expansion The plan deployed must be consistent with the corporate strategy. Per Sam Walton (1918-1992), the company’s founder, “Our goal has always been in our business to be the very best and, along with that, we believe that in order to do that, you’ve got to make a good situation and put the interests of your associates first. If we really do that consistently, they in turn...
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...find themselves under intense scrutiny. In terms of retail companies, this can manifest itself in terms of labor relations and corporate responsibility. Such is the case for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Some groups maintain the position that Wal-Mart is terrible for poor Americans, while others assert that they are a progressive success story. In the article Up Against Wal-Mart, Karen Olsson communicates that Wal-Mart is detrimental to its employees by being anti-union. She utilizes an expansive array of facts, quotes, and statistics to persuade readers that Wal-Mart has little concern for its employees or environment in which they operate. On the other hand, Sebastian Mallaby argues in his article Progressive Wal-Mart. Really. the pay, opportunities, and perks the company offers to its employees must serve its goal for long-term growth and profitability. He does this in a succinct, sometimes argumentative, fashion by rebuking specific attacks on the way in which they conduct business. Within their own writing styles, each author expresses different points of views regarding Wal-Mart’s healthcare policies, compensation plans, and its effects upon the communities and economies in which it operates. Many people are under the impression that employers are responsible for the healthcare cost of their employees. Mallaby argues that Wal-Mart improves access to healthcare by raising the real incomes of people who are its customers. Furthermore, the size of Wal-Mart allows it to influence...
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...Name Tutor College Course Date Wal-Mart Case Analysis Introduction Wal-Mart first store was opened in 1962 by Sam Walton and his wife Helen Walton. They had the main idea of opening a discount oriented shopping store all through the rural American. The first store was opened in Rogers, Arkansas from where the stores spread to other regions. The company grew rapidly incorporating Wal-Mart Stores Inc. just after a period of seven years. Within 8 years, the company was able to open the first distribution center in Arkansas and also be valued at the New York stock Exchange. By 1991, the company opened the first international center in Mexico City an achievement that has seen opening of several other stores internationally. Identification and Analysis of Corporate Strategy The main strategy that was emphasized by Wal-Mart was that of the control of prices and costs to attract more customers. Walmart had the idea of lowering the prices of its commodities and services to ensure that they attracted more customers as well as retain them too. With opening of retail stores that offered one stop shopping centers, Wal-Mart was able to grow more than its competitors. Consumers for a long period valued one stop shopping centers where they could find a variety of goods at the same time to ensure convenience and minimize time spent during shopping trips. Walmart stores took this strategy to open all purpose stores with grocery, clothing and other commodities...
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...STEPS IN STAGE I STAGE I: STEP I - Brief Summary Founded in 1945 and based in Bentonville, Arkansas with 10,773 retail units under 69 banners in 27 countries, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is a department store chain of retail goods and services operating in various formats worldwide. The company’s operation is divided in three main segments: Wal-Mart U.S., Wal-Mart International, and Sam's Club. It operates retail stores, restaurants, discount stores, supermarkets, supercenters, hypermarkets, warehouse clubs, apparel stores, Sam’s Clubs, neighborhood markets, and other small formats, as well as walmart.com; and samsclub.com. The company’ s retail stores produce, deli, bakery, dairy, frozen foods also offers meat, alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages, and floral and dry grocery; health and beauty aids, baby products, household chemicals, paper goods, and pet supplies; and electronics, toys, cameras and supplies, photo processing services, cellular phones, cellular service plan contracts and prepaid service, movies, music, video games, and books. Its stores also provide stationery, automotive accessories, hardware and paint, sporting goods, fabrics and crafts, and seasonal merchandise; pharmacy and optical services, and over-the-counter drugs; shoes, jewelry, accessories, and apparel for women, girls, men, boys, and infants; and home furnishings, housewares and small appliances, bedding, home décor, outdoor living, and horticulture products. In addition, the company’s stores offer...
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...WAL MART SWOT ANALYSIS Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. was started by Sam Walton in Newport, Arkansas in 1946 in an effort to “help people save money so they can live better” and was achieved by keeping sales prices lower than his competitors by reducing his profit margin. From this simple concept the company has grown to nearly 3000 stores in 14 countries and is the world’s largest company in terms of revenue bringing in a staggering average of $401 billion annually. In addition to the Wal-Mart supercenters you now have the Wal-Mart neighborhood markets as well as Sam’s clubs that have begun to pop up all over since 1984. The ability to offer value and service to customers has largely determined their competitive position within the retail industry. There are many programs that are in place to meet the high competitive pressures within the retail industry that are the cornerstone of the Wal-Mart philosophy and are as follows: * Every Day Low Prices (“EDLP”) – the pricing philosophy under which items are priced at a low price every day so that the customers trust that the prices will not change frequently within promotional activity. * Roll backs – the commitment to pass continually internal and external cost savings on to the customer by lowering prices on selected goods. * Store Within a Store – a program to provide accountability to assistant managers and department managers as to merchandise planning and overall department performance. * Store of the Community...
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...Investing in Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer would seem to be a “no brainer” because of the great history and success of the company. Sam Walton had a vision to achieve higher sales volumes by keeping sales prices lower than his competitors by reducing his profit margin. His mission "to help people save money so they can live better" (Walmart, 2012), has proven to be the culture of the company that began from a single store to an empire. Today, Walmart operates more than 10,000 retail units under 69 different banners in 27 countries. Walmart employs more than 2 million associates who serve 200 million customers and members every week (Walmart, 2012). Walmart’s strengths lie in their high technological information systems monitoring worldwide product activity at a single glance, they manufacture they own branded goods as well as supply goods from local suppliers and other major brands not to mention their buying power. The weaknesses of Walmart include having control of such a huge organization and being responsible for and managing a great number of employees. Having pressure from suppliers with regard to price and their ability to supply when required. Becuase of the low prices customers often question and are concerned at the quality of the goods.This is offset to some extent by the satisfaction guarantees offered. The opportunities for Walmart include worldwide expansion, creating Walmart convenient stores and home delivery of goods purchased via internet to rural...
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...This article appears in the Nov. 14, 2003 issue of Executive Intelligence Review. Wal-Mart Is Not a Business, It's an Economic Diseaseby Richard Freeman and Arthur Ticknor(See also ``Wal-Mart Collapses U.S. Cities and Towns,'' Nov. 14, 2003; ``Wal-Mart Eats More Manufacturers, Jobs,'' Nov. 21, 2003; Wal-Mart Family Trust--The Real Beast of Bentonville, Ark., Jan. 23, 2004.)The Wal-Mart department store chain, which employs 1.3 million people at 4,700 stores worldwide, and in 2002 became the largest corporation in the world, is levelling economies of the U.S., industrial nations, and the Third World.Wal-Mart is a driving force behind the decadent Imperial Roman model of the United States. Unable any longer to reproduce its own population's existence through its own physical economy, the United States has, for the past two decades, used an over-valued dollar to suck in physical goods from around the globe for its survival. Wal-Mart is both the public face and working sinews of that policy. It brings in cheap pants from Bangladesh, cheap shirts from China, cheap food from Mexico, etc. Workers who produce these things are paid next to nothing.Not since the days of the British East India Company as the cornerstone of the British imperial system, has one single corporate entity been responsible for so much misery. At the core of its policy, Wal-Mart demands of its suppliers that they sell goods to Wal-Mart at such a low price, that they can only do so by outsourcing their work to low-wage...
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...Introduction Loblaw Companies Limited’s business strategy of “driving down costs through size and operational efficiencies, and differentiating both its products” has enabled the firm to gain 32% of the food retail market in Canada. Despite this success, Wal-Mart is looking to enter into the mature food retail market with the introduction of their SuperCenters (combining grocery and nonfood items). Wal-Mart is a forceful competitor, and the Every Day Low Prices strategy of Wal-Mart’s Supercenters could wean away traffic from Loblaw’s various value banners. The objective of this paper is employ a PEST analysis and Porter’s 5 Forces Analysis to access the Canadian food retailer industry to decide if Loblaw should continue its current “time-tested” business strategy or a create new strategy to protect against competitive attack by rivals, in particular Wal-Mart. Loblaw’s Strategy Due to the threat of Wal-Mart entering the food retail market, Loblaw first must understand its greatest strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats if they maintain their current strategy. Loblaw’s existing strategy is driven by product differentiation with their President’s Choice (PC) control label product, combined with a multi-banner, multi format approach. This strategy has created a sustained competitive advantage for Loblaw in the Canadian market. PC products have added value by enabling Loblaw to exploit opportunities or defend against competitors in the ultra-competitive Canadian...
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...Company overview Wal-Mart (WLMT) is the world’s largest retailer and has been at the top of Fortune 500 listing for many years. The company has operations in all 50 United States and Puerto Rico. A broad, Wal-Mart operates in 14 countries with totally owned subsidiaries in Argentine, Brazil, Japan, the U.K, Chile and Mexico with over 9,600 stores under its management worldwide. Founded in 1962 by Sam Walton, Wal-Mart was incorporated in1969 and publically traded on New York stock Exchange in 1972. The headquarters are in Bentonville, Arkansas. Wal-Mart operates retail stores in various formats around the world and is committed to saving consumers money by offering the lowest prices on broad assortment of quality merchandise. “Everyday low prices” is the company philosophy. Like the yellow happy face that bounces through the aisles in its television ads, Wal-Mart is expanding across the world, planting giant supercenters as well as neighborhood scale markets in its continued effort to serve the world over making the company the largest retail company in the world. Sheer size is clearly a factor. “There is no one bigger” says William Cody, managing director of the Jay H. Baker retaining initiative at Wharton. Considering the global recession, we are experiencing today and competition in the retail industry Wal-Mart is doing very well. The simple formula of low-prices and rocket science logistics to back up its operations is the engine for the company success. According to Ira...
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...Deadline: 16-02-2015 Wal-Mart: But We Do Give Them a 10 Percent Employee Discount "l I Tal-Mart began as a simple dream by its founder, Sam Walton: to provide low l' l' prices for customers every day. That philosophy has taken Wal-Mart in fortyfour years from one five-and-ten store in Bentonville, Arkansas, to the largest retailer in the world with estimated annual sales of close to $300 billion. In 2005 it was the largest company in the world based on revenue and slipped to number two in 2006 when Exxon/Mobil took over the number one position. Wal-Mart has more than 1.5 million employees worldwide, including 1.3 million in the United States, and generates more than 2 percent of the gross national product in the United States. On December 19, 2005, the results of a Pew Research survey showed that 81 percent of the 1,502 people who responded to the survey considered Wal-Mart a good place to shop. In addition, 69 percent of the respondents stated that they had a favorable opinion of Wal-Mart. However, 31 percent of the respondents stated that they had an unfavorable image of Wal-Mart. Furthermore, 68 percent of the respondents believed that having a Wal-Mart store in their area was good for the community, and 64 percent said that Wal-Mart was good for the United States. Finally, 54 percent of the respondents stated that they believed that Wal-Mart was a good place to work. 1 Sam Walton's vision and beliefs still remain the cornerstone of Wal-Mart's business philosophy...
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...could improve their living conditions. PharmaCARE is taking advantage of this group of stakeholders because the healers are uneducated, ignorant to intellectual property laws, and do not know the true value of the information they are sharing with PharmaCARE. According to authors S.C. Jain and R. Bird, the Trade-Related Aspect of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is considered the most relevant intellectual property treaty, and nations that have signed on must treat foreign intellectual property rights holders the same as domestic ones (2008, p. 7). Yet, PharmaCARE failed to compensate the healers of Africa in the manner required by U.S. laws. Next, let us look at the relationship between the executives and the rank-and-file workers. Under...
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...Johnson & Wales University Providence, Rhode Island College of Management Marketing Final Project Walmart MTKG 5500 Spring Term 2015 Professor Kim By: Andreas Ulrich, Chia-Yi Lin, Lauren Hahn and, Min Zhang May 13th, 2015 Abstract This document discusses how Walmart is one of the largest retailers in the world with how the mass production utilizes its resources to be cost effective in its selling price of all their products which makes the brand very well known in this aspect. Walmart has evolved since it first began the company and has changed their marketing strategy to better suit their customers’ interests and demographics. The company has become well known internationally for the brand image Walmart created for them and sets them aside from their competitors. Their excellent marketing strategy stems from the four P’s of price, product, distribution (place), and promotion. The pricing is low, but efficient from the cost control of the resources they obtain. The products walmart issue to the product range varies according to the needs of customers. The distribution is industrialized internationally and continues to expand. Walmart uses the differentiated strategy to target their customers. The organization utilizes product diversity, low- price strategy, e-commerce, long-term growth strategy, and technology innovation for future business. However, there are suggestions that were made for better expansion were product development, different approach...
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...needed. When employers and a group of employees negotiate to reach an agreement that regulates working conditions, it is called collective bargaining. The group of employees is usually the union. When collective bargaining is taking place there are four issues that are mandatory components. They are compensation, personnel policies, and employee and employer rights and responsibilities. Compensation has to do with the wages, benefits, vacations, holidays, shift premiums, and profit sharing of the employee. Personnel policies and procedures involve layoff, promotion, transfer policies, overtime and vacation rules. Seniority rights, job standards and workplace rules falls under employee rights and responsibilities. Management rights just cause discipline and discharge, subcontracting, and safety standards fall under employer rights and responsibilities. The four primary issues are discussed in detail regarding the United States Postal Service and their respective Union. The Postal Service and the Union had to agree on a new collective...
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