SWOT of Canadian Operations of Wal-Mart: Supply Chain Innovations to Fight Competition in Canada

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SWOT of Canadian Operations of Wal-Mart –Supply chain innovations to fight competition in Canada

Supply chain innovations should ensure on-shelf availability at retail outlets, improving collaboration between vendors and retailers, translating supply chain costs to product pricing, lean inventory and real time replenishment. Wal-Mart should ensure that process differentiation to determine the right method of moving products with varying demand characteristics (Akehurst, C., & Alexander, N. (1995)
SWOT Analysis of Canadian operations with particular focus on Supply Chain

Strengths

1. Strong distribution process- warehouse, assembly and direct-to-store based on demand variability and margin.
2. Leverage economies of scale to lower vendor prices, achieve distribution and transportation efficiencies. The larger diversity of products attracts customers who want to avoid the transport costs inherent in buying at several stores(Basker et al., 2008)-One stop shopping effect.
3. Cost effective supply chain practices including distribution system, procurement system and logistics system.
4. By making strong use of customer and supplier data, Wal-Mart is able to analyses each demographic consumer behavior and tailor offering accordingly.
5. Fresh Vegetables and Groceries strategy employed by Wal-Mart to take on Loblaw Cos is successful. Wal- Mart’s strategy to forego “super center” banner and invest in “fresh” brand name to take on Loblaw is successful (Business Financial Post, 2013). Wal-Mart emphasized food, while Target asserted stronger price positions in health and beauty aids and non-edible grocery items (business.financialpost.com 2013).
6. Wal-Mart’s private fleet strategy of delivery of goods from suppliers to its distribution ...

... middle of paper ...

... and credit providing service to its customers and suppliers. This could be leveraged by making proper use of customer and supplier data an identifying proper market segment for these services. Offering credit card to customers could boost sales. Wal-Mart could also introduce seasonal discount for holidays to drive sales.
Wal-Mart could also chose to operate in dispersed rural locations to thwart competition from discount retailers and hence achieve higher revenue realization. Wal-Mart could also introduce newer product lines including organic food .Wal-Mart also should focus to increase market share in the grocery and vegetable market segment apart from the consumer durable portfolio. Wal-Mart should also focus to achieve higher margin realization by investing in specialty services like pharmacy with special tie-ups with insurance groups for high volume purchases.

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