...Environment of Walmart can be summarized as follows: a) Economic:Despite the general weakness in the world economy and the uncertain environment that prevailed, Walmart had reported sales growth of 11%, amounting to $6.4 billion. The company's associates were indeed doing the Walmart cheer in faraway places like Germany, South Korea, China and United Kingdom. In three decades, it had grown from its rural Arkansas roots to become the world's largest company, and quite possibly the most powerful retailer. b) Socio-cultural: Walmart stores were geared toward the low-income customer segment; headquarters were reflective of the company's tendency to be tightfisted as they were housed in warehouse style buildings with minimalist decor. Frugality was a central tenet at the company, and every associate was expected to fully adopt this value in all its manifestations. It was also said that the company is homogenizing the marketplace by letting smaller towns dictate popular culture. c) Global: Walmart worked globally under the philosophy: Different store for different folks. As it grows around the world, it is important to its success that it exchange best practices among all the countries where it operates. Walmart launched its globalization efforts with an initial foray into Mexico, then to Brazil, as well as Argentina. It then penetrated Europe with its stores in Germany and in the United Kingdom. Its Asian strategy composed of China, Korea and Japan. d) Technological: Walmart was a leader...
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...created a differentiated, sustainable competitive position through leveraging its key resources and capabilities. Porter argues that the basis for competitive advantage is performing activities differently than competitors. “A company can outperform rivals only if it can establish a difference it can persevere. It must deliver greater value to customers, or create comparable value at a lower cost, or do both” Porter, (1996) He continues by arguing that the essence of strategy lies in a company’s ability to create a unique and valuable position involving a different set of activities. Walmarts value proposition can be summed up as “every day low prices for a broad range of goods that are always in stock in convenient locations.” The question, however, is how does Walmart formulate strategy consistent with its low cost leadership strategy? The answer lies in Walmarts key strategic choices and it’s abilities to use its resources and capabilities better than competitors. First, Walmart has achieved HETEROGENEITY by its different type of geographic market. It’s choice of location gave it a clear competitive advantage in underserved markets. Competitors wishing to enter those markets will have to expend large amounts of resources to hope and take away market share in a relatively saturated market. The early movers advantage in these markets should continue to deter against entry. Walmart has established itself as a low price leader in the eyes of consumers and its strong...
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...Walmart’s Acquisition of MassMart | Resources & Capabilities – Retaining Marketshare | | | | | | | INTRODUCTION Companies are always looking at ways in which they can increase their share in the market. Increased market share for a company means that it can operate within its industry with minimum exposure to threats from competing firms in the same industry. For companies to achieve this growth, they need to constantly review their strategies to ensure that their resources are efficiently utilised and that their processes and procedures are streamlined and free of bureaucracy. These companies also need to ensure that they are continuously looking at methods in which they can improve the ways in which the business operates as well as the continuous improvement of their services or products. This type of improvement can be achieved through innovation which will enable specialized and diversified services and products. It is important that the strategies behind these levels of change still deliver value to the customer as well as the shareholder through effectively reducing costs and maximising profits. Companies that get these winning strategies right, and correctly implemented, are almost guaranteed to outperform their competitors and achieve year on year growth. The past 5 years has been tough for most companies globally. This is due to the recession. The financial sector was one of the sectors that was most hurt during the recession. Because...
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...STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT MGMT E -5000 WALMART CASE ANALYSIS BY Indhu SEPTEMBER 19th, 2012 SWOT Analysis of Wal-Mart: (2008- 2010) EXTERNAL ANALYSIS: Significant findings on the PESTEL analysis were:(Refer Fig 1 ) * Socio Cultural factor: One of the most important concerns among consumers during that period was price. Since its establishment Walton focused on Everyday low prices (EDLP) and always geared towards the low- income groups of the society. This provided Walmart better opportunities and helped them gain a competitive advantage in the industry. * Demographic factor: Another opportunity facing the industry was that Consumers (working Mothers and other American workers) wanted ease of shopping (fast, efficient and one-stop shopping). Walmart provided its customers with what they want in the Walmart supercenters combined with its wholesale unit “Sam’s Club”. * Technological Factor: Heightening of Internet users (70% of the population) and more people were comfortable shopping online. This yielded both favorable (lower over head costs and convenience to the customers with wide choices of items and prices that were appealing) and unfavorable (Walmart has invested heavily on the infrastructure like the EDI links and POS systems) circumstances. * Economic Factor: Domestically the U.S market had a very slow growth. Although the economy was said to be in recession it favored the growth of the organization because it offered consumers commodities at a...
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...Management Sri Lanka NAME OF THE PROGRAMME :- Professional Qualification Resource Management in Human TOPIC OF THE CASE STUDY :- Strategic Human Resource Management in Walmart stores MODULE NUMBER : - 19 NAME OF THE LECTURER : - Mr. Ruwan Egodage Name of the Student D.M.C.S.Dissanayake Index Number T-PQ/KR/03/KDY/10/07 Contact Number 071 0954739 E-mail chathushkas@gmail.com Date of the Examination 31.05.2015 Date of Submission 07.06.2015 For Office Use Only: 1. Final Marks : ……………………….. 2. Remarks : ………………………… (To be filled by the Examiner) LATE SUBMISSION NO OF DAYS Executive Summery Wal-Mart is the biggest retailer in U.S. and also one of the biggest multinational companies in the world. It is well-known for its low-cost structure and has been doing very well despite of the current market instability. Walmart maintains its competitive advantage through its satellite-based distribution system, and by keeping store location costs to a minimum by placing stores on low-cost land outside small to medium-sized towns, no matter in the US or in its abroad affiliations. Since, Walmart Company is obviously taking the cost leadership strategy, it uses the efficient stock control system and imports many goods from China for low cost which helps to make its operating costs lower. So the company-level strategy of Walmart is low cost and low cost, with little differentiation strategy To support...
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... Job analysis can be seen through the implementation in Walmart’s human resource management through the company’s organizational structure, which is a hierarchical functional structure. Walmart’s organizational design is centralized and hierarchical, with some level of decentralization. The hierarchical and centralized organizational structure refers to having central corporate headquarters that monitor and direct all activities in the organization. Corporate departments have jurisdiction over all the Walmart stores. Some degree of management decentralization also exists in the company. For example, each Walmart store has its own human resource department. Each store’s HR department has an HR manager to apply corporate HR strategy based on the unique needs of the individual store. This centralized organizational structure combined with partial decentralization is an acceptable concept. Centralization integrates Walmart’s organization so it functions as one entity. Decentralization makes the organization flexible enough to face new or emerging issues in the business. Thus, Walmart has clear and distinct definitions for every job position and level of the structure. 3.1 METHOD OF JOB ANALYSIS Job analysis data can be obtained in several ways. The more common methods of collecting the data needed to analyse jobs are interviews, questionnaires, observation, and diaries. As a method of job analysis, Walmart applies matching approach which involving interviews and direct observation...
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...Internal Environment Walmart: 1.Company Profile : * History : Walmart is a well known American company that operates retail stores including grocery stores, discount stores,wearhouse , clubs and combination of general merchandise store. It was founded in 1962 by Sam Walton along with his brother Bud in Rogers Arkansas. At the beginning he opened more stores in Arkansas but later he expanded walmart to Oklahoma and Missouri in 1968. In 1972 the company listed in the Newyork Stock Exchange. Walton group also introduced the Sam's Club Warehous store in Iowa ,Nibrasca ,Indianna in 1983. During 1980's the company rises considerably by reaching 25.8 billion dollars sales with almost 1,525 stores and 271,000 workers at the end of the decade. In 1990's walmart considered as a largest retailer of the nation and it continued the acheivement by opening more stores within an outside country. The company entered in Japan by buying 36% stake of Seiyu in 2002 and Walmart increased its stake about 67% in 2007.According to the fiscal year sale of Walmart is about 469.2 Billion in 2013 with 2.2 million workers worldwide and 11 thousand stores under 69 banners in 27 countries. * Scale of Operation: The strong market position is the main strength of Walmart with more then 400 billion dollars revenue and almost 11 thousand stores worldwide and consumer trust that differentiate walmart from its competitors. Walmart can also acheive higher profit because of its huge size and it has a strong...
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...Walmart: Global Strategic Expansion - Executive Summary Since introducing its first international store in 1991, Walmart has transformed itself from an American retail giant into a global one, leveraging a wealth of resources to strategically expand operations. Although Walmart must contend with several formidable competitors, the retailer has successfully opened thousands of stores across the globe; most frequently, it has added international units through the acquisition of foreign retailers, which simultaneously reduces its competition and furthers its dominance. Walmart has differentiated itself by coupling its understanding of political, economic, legal, and cultural systems within target markets with its low-cost, high-quality approach to mass retail. Utilizing simultaneous strategic multiple thrusts, Walmart has developed layers of competitive advantage to establish itself as the world’s leading retailer. Focusing on strategic expansion, Walmart currently operates 9,826 stores across twenty-eight countries, allowing it to capture global scale efficiencies by creating a coordinated and integrated network of interdependent stores. Each unit within its network is regarded as a source of ideas and capabilities, and innovation is diffused across the company through initiatives such as a market-by-market training program that helps increase the company’s responsiveness to local demands and preferences. Thus, Walmart has established itself as a transnational corporation by developing...
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...internal strengths and weaknesses. From these environmental factors, we can now pick up the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the company. Along with these strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, are resources and capabilities that either utilize the opportunities and strengths or counteract with threats and weaknesses of the firm. The author Jay B. Barney indirectly states that valuable tools are available to analyze external forces but there seems to be a lack of valuable tools to analyze internal Strengths and Weaknesses, in the article referred to as “internal attributes” or “resources and capabilities” that are built on a company’s financial, physical, human, and organizational assets. In order to overcome this gap Michael Porter and his associates have developed a number of these models and frameworks for analyzing environmental opportunities and threats. Porter worked on the "FIVE FORCES MODEL” * Rivalry among competing firms * Potential entry of new competitors * Potential development of substitute products * Bargaining power of suppliers * Bargaining power of customers These are few examples of firms who integrated internal strengths and weaknesses with external threats and opportunities * WalMart, a firm that has, for the last twenty years,...
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...management is the seamless transfer of its products, supply chain management gained popularity from the mid-1990s. Supply chain has played and will always continue to play a very important role in Globalization. Some keys functions of Supply chain management, is to manage suppliers, inventory, distribution of goods, customer service and transportation. With supply chain playing an integral part in most of the businesses, it is important for a company to make sure that they have a strong supply chain system integrated and with huge developments in the Information Technology sector its only valid to combine them. Companies have worked on technologies, to name a few, like cloud computing, virtual supply chain, electronic commerce, enterprise resource planning, radio-frequency identification (RFID), among others. (Anon, 2014) The introduction of RFID has played a key in...
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...retailer in the world. Walmart remains a family-owned business, as the company is controlled by the Walton family, who own over 50 percent of Walmart. It is also one of the world's most valuable companies. The company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, incorporated on October 31, 1969, and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. It is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. Walmart is also the largest grocery retailer in the United States. In 2009, it generated 51 present of its US$258 billion sales in the U.S. from grocery business. It also owns and operates the Sam's Club retail warehouses in North America. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the company rose from a regional to national giant. By 1988, Walmart was the most profitable retailer in the US and by October 1989 it had become the largest in terms of revenue. Geographically limited to the South and Lower Midwest up to the mid 1980s, by the early 1990s Walmart's presence spanned coast to coast - Sam's Club opened in New Jersey in November 1989 and the first California outlet opened in Lancaster on July 28, 1990. A Walmart in York, Pennsylvania was opened in October 1990 bringing the main store into the Northeast. II. Wal-Mart Foreign Market Entry Strategy Walmart has over 11,000 stores in 27 countries, under 55 different names. The company operates under the Walmart name in the United States, including the 50 states and Puerto Rico. It operates in Mexico as Walmart de México y Centroamérica...
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...helps to drive down their cost structures. Costco sells a limited range of merchandise in large warehouse type stores. A Costco store has about 3,750 SKU’s compared to the average 124K SKU’s at an average Walmart supercenter. Costco offers consumers the ability to make bulk purchases of basic goods like dog food and breakfast cereal at lower prices than found elsewhere. As of 2011, Costco maintains the number 1 spot in industry inventory turnover ratio, and number 3 in the retail sector. Thus, we can conclude that Costco definitely does a good job tailoring its products to the needs of the segment and, in doing so, is able to successfully undercut the cost structure Walmart achieves with their colossal economies of scale. 2. Describe four functional-level strategies that Costco has implemented to support their business level strategy. Label the function (marketing, production, R&D, etc - see Chapt 4) under which the strategy falls. Human Resources Strategy - Costco pays their employees substantially more than what other competitors in industry as well as the sector pay. Along those same lines Costco offers better health insurance and pays more on the premiums than its competitors. Competitors like Sam’s Club, JB’s, and even competitors within the segment like Walmart tend to want to keep employee wages as low as possible in order to spread those savings on to you. Costco sees this vantage as myopic because Costco believes in investing in employees for the long term, and...
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...------------------------------------------------- Management Information System CIA Report on Walmart’s use of Information Technology Dhananjay Singh 1311611 Walmart’s Supply Chain For Walmart, the major business initiative being used is Supply Chain Management. A supply chain management system is an IT system that supports activities by automating the tracking of inventory and information among business processes and across companies. Wal-Mart is to ensure that all their suppliers are using Electronic Product Codes and for those who do not have the capability they work with them to find packages that are within their price range. This allows for a successful ensuring that customers get what they order in a timely manner. It allows for logistics, fulfilment, production, revenue and profit, cost and price efficiency Riding a rising six-year trend,Walmart reported grosses of $486 billion in the fiscal year that ended in January 2015, an increase of almost $10 billion from fiscal 2014. That's up from $408 billion over the past five years, according to The Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch. That income was generated by more than 4,500 stores in the U.S. alone, and fed by a sprawling supply chain, which moved from No. 14 to No. 13 on research and analyst company Gartner's annual ranking. Walmart’s inventory management funnels information from stores such as point-of-sale data, warehouse inventory and...
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...WALMART'S POST KATRINA EFFORTS: HEROIC OR SUPERFICIAL? Sham Flora 211557766 MGMT 4300 B Bill Woof 06.01.2014 In the face of national crises, people most often turn to the government for safety and social welfare. After all, one must be able to depend on the governing body of a nation to provide for basic needs when an extreme situation escalates to complete chaos and turmoil. It is safe to say that the horrific catastrophe in Hurricane Katrina, and its aftermath, represented a national crisis. Unfortunately for the affected American citizens, even in the state of emergency, then US President George W. Bush and the governing agencies responsible for immediate response were ineffective at providing the necessary aid following Hurricane Katrina. Leading to at least 1,833 deaths and total damages of an estimated $81 billion, the hurricane registers as the most deadly and costly in the history of the United States of America. The most significant number of deaths and casualties occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana, which became a flooded region as the essential levee system disastrously failed. Eventually 80% of the city, and up to 90% of coastal areas were almost entirely flooded, leading to building collapses, houses and cars pushed inland, and several additional disastrous occurrences. Recall that a levee system is essential for the regulation of water levels, whose adequate construction and maintenance is the responsibility of the United States Army Corps of Engineers...
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...Executive Summary Walmart is the biggest company in the world with a highly complex, but efficient, supply chain. In this essay we will try to analyze the bargaining power of Walmart over its suppliers, the importance of RFID (its pros and cons) and make an overview of the green supply chain and its importance for the future of Walmart. Company Overview The Walmart story began in 1962 from the vision of a man called Sam Walton who had worked for a famous retailer called J.C. Penney in Arkansas and Missouri and decided to open a store of his own. With a very aggressive price strategy and conveniently opened stores, locations and schedules, he was very successful and by 1969 he already had 18 stores in the United States. During the 1970’s the company went public and in the 1980’s the company opened Sam’s Wholesale Club, a concept based on the successful cash-and-carry, membership-only warehouse format pioneered by the Price Company of California (now Costco Wholesale Corporation). In 1992 Walmart started expanding to the international markets; they entered Mexico in 1992 through a joint venture with Mexico’s largest retailer, Cifra, to open Sam’s Clubs. The next step was to enter Canada which they did in 1994. Walmart continued to expand internationally, entering China in 1996. Nowadays they are also in Brazil, Argentina, India, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, United Kingdom, El Salvador, Japan, Chile and Guatemala in a total of 14 different countries outside the U.S....
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