walmart

607 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Walmart competitive environment

Wal-Mart’s everyday low prices gives an edge over other retailers.
• Efficient IT infrastructure enables to smoothen inbound and outbound logistics.
• Distribution efficiencies reduces the dependency on the suppliers inefficiencies.
• Wide range of products provides customer anything and everything under one roof.
• Current dominating market position gives advantage in market development and penetration.
• economies of scale of scale
Weaknesses-
• The weakness is that their overhead is expensive to run store facilities all over the world.
• Hierarchical corporate structure may impair decision-making.
• In an attempt to succeed by means of low prices, may possibly portray Walmart as a cheap store.
• Market maturing
• Concentration in a low margin industry
•
• Zoning issues are the store real estate problems. Just because a company has the ability to build a huge store anywhere it wants to, it does not necessarily mean that it is possible to build one anywhere it wants to. The real estate issue becomes more evident in crowded cities such as Japan where there is a major concern over the availability of real estate.

Opportunities
• Expansion into emerging International markets
• Societal trend towards environmental friendly and American –made products
• Move toward value for money products in the slower economic growth

Threats-
• Even though Wal-Mart is the largest retailer and most successful, they can still be threatened by many factors ranging from their main competitors, environmental, and economic factors.
• In many places in USA, Wal-Mart has faced the Anti Wal-Mart activists. According to them having Wal-Mart in the neighborhood kills the local retailers, increases the property taxes to pay for sewage, roads, utilities, and sidewalks.
• Regulations and political stability in the international markets
• Exchange rate fluctuations
• A union problem for ex.Germany has one of the highest degrees of unions and this has a profound effect on hiring, retaining, and laying off employees. Once an employee is hired, it costs more in Germany to keep the employee on payroll and to lay off the employee. German workers are one of the highest paid workers in the world.
• Capital intensive for expansion
•

Challenges
The main challenge for Walmart in the years to come is to make sure they continue to keep their customer’s and associates satisfied. In addition, to be a profitable corporation for their investors who own stock in Walmart.

Show More
Related

  • Under Armour Case Study

    1017 Words  | 3 Pages

    Disadvantage: increase the expense of leasing and managing retail stores; widely distribution will produce more opportunity to competitive with competitors directly, for example, they are located in the same mall.

    Read More

  • Wal-Mart

    1714 Words  | 4 Pages

    Wal-mart is currently the world’s largest company. It has seen continuous growth and financial success since it was founded in 1962. Today it is living off of a previous reputation of solid ethical business practices that are no longer being exercised. Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-mart, was considered to be “freakishly cheap… Cost-cutting was an obsession in the Wal-mart culture… on business trips, everyone, including the boss, flew coach, and hotel rooms were always shared.” (reclaimdemocracy.org. 2006). This was only part of the reason for Sam Walton’s success.

    Read More

  • Impact of Wal-Mart on the US Economy

    834 Words  | 2 Pages

    Wal-Mart has had a significant economic impact on the US, as well as the economies of countries that have relations with the US. Wal-Mart is the world’s biggest company of any kind, with 80 percent of the households in America purchasing something from the superstore; it is the nation’s largest retailer. Wal-Mart’s continuing price reduction has given Americans the advantage of being able to afford 15 to 20 percent more than they previously could. (Hansen) In a world governed by globalization and greed, competition has become rigid; as a result firms like Wal-Mart have utilized advanced marketing strategies to insure that they are on the ‘neck’ of competition, and are the core deciders of the market. (Ortega) However, Wal-Mart made decisions that were of a disadvantage to aspects of the economy, including the depletion on a small scale of Small Town USA.

    Read More

  • Wal-Mart: The High Cost of a Low Price

    515 Words  | 2 Pages

    Wal-Mart represents the sickness of capitalism at its almost fully evolved state. As Jim Hightower said, "Why single out Wal-Mart? Because it's a hog. Despite the homespun image it cultivates in its ads, it operates with an arrogance and avarice that would make Enron blush and John D. Rockefeller envious. It's the world's biggest retail corporation and America's largest private employer; Sam Robson Walton, a member of the ruling family, is one of the richest people on earth. Wal-Mart and the Waltons got to the top the old-fashioned way: by roughing people up. Their low, low prices are the product of two ruthless commandments: Extract the last penny possible from human toil and squeeze the last dime from its thousands of suppliers, who are left with no profit margin unless they adopt the Wal-Mart model of using nonunion labor and shipping production to low-wage hellholes abroad." (The Nation, March 4th 2002 www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020304&s=hightower).

    Read More

  • Walmart Benefits the Community

    985 Words  | 2 Pages

    Wal-Mart has branded stores in all 50 states and in over 27 countries. Wal-Mart started with humble roots in 1962 by Sam Walton in the small town of Bentonville, Arkansas. Within thirty years, the small local discount retailer grew to one of the largest retail companies in the United States of America. Now it stands as the largest retailer in the world. As the largest retailer, Wal-Mart has gained many detractors. In "The Case for Wal-Mart," Karen De Coster and Brad Edmonds recognize how people “like to attack bigness” (632). Many believe Wal-Mart offers low wage jobs with few employee benefits, discriminates against women, and among many other issues, doesn’t give back to the community (631). In contrast to the constant barrage negative attacks, Wal-Mart proves beneficial to the community. Wal-Mart prides itself on being an equal opportunity employer to such a degree it has the most diverse group of employees anyone can imagine. Most Wal-Mart stores are the anchor that provides a steady stream of consumers to other much small businesses in the area. Beyond providing quality jobs for the people in and around the store, Wal-Mart brings convenience, lower prices, and help to those in need.

    Read More

  • Is Wal-Mart Bad For America?

    1169 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wal-Mart, a "Big-Box Retailer" employs more than 2.1 million associates worldwide and has two-thousand seven-hundred stores in the United States with many more in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Central America, Chile, China, Germany, Japan, Korea, India, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom, making Wal-Mart the largest retailer in the world. "Wal-Mart accounts for upward of 30 percent of U.S. sales, and plans to more than double its sales within the next five years" (Lynn 29-36). Why is Wal-Mart so successful, and is Wal-Mart actually bad for America?

    Read More

  • The Impact of Walmart on a Community

    948 Words  | 2 Pages

    In a world scattered with millions upon millions of Walmart locations, one might ask the question-how can one small, insignificant Walmart affect me? The answer is-a lot! Perhaps the most impacting consequence of society's acceptance of a Walmart within their community lies within the drainage and leeching of the economy. Take the San Francisco Bay for instance, the prolonged construction costs alone, cost the city 256 million dollars in additional costs, not to mention the insane amount of fuel consumed by consumers commuting to the new store location. As if that weren't bad enough, that very same Walmart that caused such tedious amounts of grief, tedious amounts of extra time, money and fuel was relocated outside of the area within 2 years-leaving the surrounding land destroyed and devoid of life. But what about the Walmart's within the community that aren't being relocated? How are they hazardous then? Well, the answer is the same type of concept as a lion guarding its' kill from the surrounding wildl...

    Read More

  • Wal-Mart is Bad For America

    841 Words  | 2 Pages

    "Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is the world's largest retailer, with $285.2 billion in sales in the fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2005. The company employs 1.6 million associates worldwide through more than 3,700 facilities in the United States and more than 2,400 units in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. More than 138 million customers per week visit Wal-Mart stores worldwide." (Walmartfacts.com)

    Read More

  • Wal-Mart's Competitive Environment

    1679 Words  | 4 Pages

    Last, Wal-Mart is also in direct competition with large supermarket retailers. Production capacity in the grocery industry is quite populated and Wal-Mart poses a serious threat to many supermarket retailers, both large and small. Kroger, Albertson’s, and Safeway are all finding it very difficult to compete with Wal-Mart’s low prices. Because the industry is so crowded, even the large supermarket retailers are seeking to differentiate themselves in order to stay afloat.

    Read More

  • Swot Analysis Target: SWOT Analysis Of Target

    801 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to Smithson, Walmart can expand its markets to new and emerging markets especially in the third world countries, which can significantly increase its revenues. Secondly, the company can reform is employment practices and improve the quality standard and in doing so, attract more customers and improve its brand image. On the other hand, the company faces threats such as the rising healthy lifestyle trend I that the company in most cases does not provide customers with healthy goods. At the same time, the company can capitalize on this aspect and increase its revenues. Aggressive competition from other discount retailers such as Target creates a great threat to the company (Smithson, 2015).

    Read More

  • 10 Reasons Why Walmart Is The Worst Company In America

    1111 Words  | 3 Pages

    Walmart is a company that can be seen from many different perspectives. Due to its vast size; it can be easy to identify its faults and environmental issues surrounding the company. However, they are well aware of these problems and criticisms and have made many efforts towards issues around the world. The motivation and desire Walmart have to improve the world we live in today can be seen through their treatment of employees, suppliers as well as their efforts towards the environment and other humanitarian issues. Given this, there is still endless resources on the web proving the company to be one of a negative burden on society.

    Read More

  • Walmart

    7713 Words  | 16 Pages

    In 1945, Sam Walton opened his first variety store and in 1962, he opened his first Wal-Mart Discount City in Rogers, Arkansas. Now, Wal-Mart is expected to exceed “$200 billion a year in sales by 2002 (with current figures of) more than 100 million shoppers a week…(and as of 1999) it became the first (private-sector) company in the world to have more than one million employees.” Why? One reason is that Wal-Mart has continued “to lead the way in adopting cutting-edge technology to track how people shop, and to buy and deliver goods more efficiently and cheaply than any other rival.” Many examples exist throughout Wal-Mart’s history including its use of networks, satellite communication, UPC/barcode adoption and more. Much of the technology that was utilized helped Sam Walton more efficiently track what he originally noted on yellow legal pads. From the very beginning, he wanted to know what the customers purchased, what inventory was selling and what stock was not selling. Wal-Mart now “tracks on an almost instantaneous basis the ordering, shipment, and delivery of literally every item it sells, and that it requires its suppliers to hook into the system, enabling it to track most goods every step of the way from the time they’re made and packaged in the factories to when they’re carried out store doors by shoppers.” “Wal-Mart operates the world’s most powerful corporate computing system, with a capacity (as of late 1999) of more than 100 terabytes of data (A terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes, or roughly the equivalent of 250 million pages of text.).

    Read More

  • Operational Planning For Wal-Mart

    1617 Words  | 4 Pages

    Wal-mart has a reputation for caring for its customers, of course their employees, and for the prospective public. So Wal-Mart can be an industrial leader for the world of shoppers with an eye for lower affordable prices, company decision makers would continue it's systematic strategies that it's founder and president established years ago. Sam Walton believed in three guiding principles in his strategy planning they were to provide the customer with good value and service, to have a good relationship with its associates, and to be involved with the community.

    Read More

  • Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices

    1949 Words  | 4 Pages

    "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices." Top Documentary Films. Web. 8 Aug 2011. .

    Read More

  • Performance Management Essay

    1020 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...arket, they still attempt to improve their performance in other areas, by contributing to charity and hence improving their local reputation, however they have very low customer and employee satisfaction. These lowered performance indicators stem from low employee motivation. It would be very beneficial for Walmart to increase these performance factors as the small cost of improving employee’s conditions and motivation would be balanced by not having to re-hire 70% of their work force every year.

    Read More

More about walmart

Open Document