TJ MacPherson
Wal-Mex case analysis

In this case study, Wal-Mart, or known as Wal-Mex in Mexico was facing some forward challenges upon entering and expanding in the Mexican market. The brut of the challenges faced were derived internally from its employees and operations. There were five key issues and they were known as the “five key syndromes”. I will further explain in depth about the adversity these syndromes can cause on Wal-mex operations. The first syndrome is known as the blue ink syndrome. Second is the lost key syndrome. Third is the cookie syndrome. Fourth is the been there done that syndrome and fifth, the don’t blame me syndrome. Within my analysis of these key syndromes, I found that the most important ones to tackle first are; the lost key syndrome, cookie syndrome, and don’t blame me syndrome.

The “lost key syndrome” is a key example of how not to operate a retail store location. A key was lost to a glass cabinet that contained electronics and instead of having it repaired or replaced, employees put a sign up stating that nothing can be purchased in this case due to the key being misplaced. How can a company expect consumers to purchase products when they can’t even have access to the items? As of 2005, retail sales were estimated to make up $220 billion of Mexico’s $770 billion GDP. That is roughly 28% of the entire countries GDP and if Wal-Mex plans to capture as much market share as possible, they sure won’t be able to do it if they can’t solve a simple misplaced key issue. Operations are efficient in the USA for Wal-Mart and I highly doubt this would ever happen in that market. Next is the “cookie syndrome”. In this case, a manager had not replaced some high-priced cookies with a lower-priced equivalent that had enjoyed much better sales. He left the high-priced cookies in place on a prominent end cap because his superior had asked him to.