Walmart Macroeconomic Factors

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As Wal-Mart becomes a new service provider of cellular service to the market, Wal-Mart’s Family Mobile will face many challenges and one such challenge is pricing. As according to Armstrong and Kotler, “The introductory stage is especially challenging. Companies bringing out a new product face the challenge of setting prices for the first time” (p. 280). That service is cellular service, known as Wal-Mart’s Family Mobile. Wal-Mart has partnered with T-Mobile via the use of T-Mobile towers to create a low cost cellular services that average families can afford. Though Wal-Mart services cost as low as $29.88 a month, the demand and supply of the service can be affected by macroeconomic variables just like any other product. Such variables as …show more content…

Risk may be internal or external and in a variety of forms. An external risk for example may be the unemployment rate in that if people are unemployed they do not have disposable cash for desires. Only necessities are purchased and for many cellular service is not a necessity and cannot be afforded without adequate income. An internal risk to the company may be a divisive organizational structure. If various departments in the organization are not in agreement and backing of the new product, this will create internal tension and potentially hinder the success of the product or in this case the …show more content…

As mentioned the internal risk addressed in this paper is the cohesiveness of the organizational structure. Wal-Mart must ask itself, “Are all of our departments and employees supporting the successful launch of the service?” To answer this question, the successful company must develop a cross-sectional team that is representative of stakeholders in the company. This includes human resources, operations, manufacturing, sales associates and so forth. To combat this risk, the mitigation plan must include a cross-functional team. Forming a cross-functional team is an important aspect of new product or service introduction as the diversity of the team make-up should promote effective communication and technical competencies amongst team members as well as foster innovation and creativity. “New product development is crucial in determining which firms gain a competitive advantage and become market leaders, and is a key factor driving business success owing to the importance of new products to a firm’s prospects”, (G. Huang et al,

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