Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.: On Becoming The World’S Largest Company (2002)Essay Preview: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.: On Becoming The World’S Largest Company (2002)Report this essayTitle: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.: On Becoming the World’s Largest Company (2002)Executive Summary:Objective:This case’s objective is to be able to find out how Wal-Mart Stores positively responded to the time when they encountered a lot of problems and still end up to be the world’s largest company.
Problem:Wal-Mart had experienced a very disappointing year. It was when sluggish consumer spending, rising unemployment, the energy crisis, and the terrorist events of September 11, 2001 all have unite to make the year a very difficult time in retailing. How did Wal-Mart prevail over this challenging time in history?
Alternative Courses of Action:•Be consistent in executing their goals in the company.•Be persistent in treating their customers with a clean, pleasant, and friendly shopping experiences that will definitely satisfy their wants and needs.
•Before deciding to expand stores in other countries, have a marketing research team to study the cultures and buying preference of the target markets.Methods of Analysis:SWOT Analysis. It is a tool for strategic planning that will help evaluate the company’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This tool helps us see why the company is doing better in some areas. This tool identifies the external and internal factors of the company.
Value Chain. It is an analytical tool that describes all allowances that make up the economic performance and capabilities of the firm. It is also used to analyze and examine activities that create value for a given firm.
Recommendation:I recommend alternative number two that Wal-Mart should still be persistent in treating their customers with a clean, pleasant, and friendly shopping experiences that will definitely satisfy their wants and needs. I chose this alternative because as Wal-Mart continues to please customers, they will gain loyalty. With these loyalists they will not run out of customers because a lot of these customers are satisfied and happy with the products and service Wal-Mart offers.
Conclusion:In conclusion, Wal-Mart has overcome all the difficult time in retailing for the reason that they were so good in treating their customers with satisfying strategies.
Analysis:SWOT AnalysisStrengths•Well trained employees.•Aggressive Marketing Strategies.•They have number of stores and outlets.•Consistently updating their technologies.Weaknesses•Employees leave the company because of other lawsuits.Opportunities•Find new areas to grow sales and profits.•Expansion of stores to other countries.•They have been given titles (“Retailer of the Century”, “100 Best Places to Work”, “America’s Most Admired Companies”, and Global Most Admired Companies”) that can increase awareness to customers and people who are unemployed.
•They have variety of products that are sold.Threats•Critics have said Wal-Mart have discriminated woman.•Have underpaid workers•Used illegal tactics to stop unionization efforts.•Have cases against lawsuits due to employees complaining for no overtime pay.•Business operations were subject to a number of factors (cost of goods sold, the cost of electricity and other energy requirements, competitive pressures, inflation, consumer debt levels, interest rate levels, and unemployment levels, currency exchange fluctuations, trade restrictions, changes in tariff, and freight rates, and other capital market and economic conditions) outside of its control and might cause or affect its financial performance.
The complaint is that Wal-Mart will “expect workers to work for less pay and earn less earnings for less money” by making higher-than-minimum wages and other standards and by threatening workers who have a disability. Workers who are still eligible for benefits will “lose jobs due to their inability to work full time, or because of their status as individuals, under this policy.”
Wal-Mart also promised to “prevent discrimination and harassment.” It’s not clear how long a workplace policy will hold. The company will consider changes to how employees may have legal access to the benefits they seek.
A previous version of this article stated that Wal-Mart currently offers free or reduced-price meal options. Wal-Mart has not yet offered a meal plan for its employees, but it was the first U.S. retailer to offer the option, but it has declined to do so due to its desire to “cure the harm” that workers experiencing a meal could cause.
Wal-Mart has been in trouble once over its commitment to pay the highest worker rates on the planet. Last fall, the company faced legal action after union leaders threatened to close a grocery store in Texas to end working hours and lock employees out of the store. But Walmart responded by offering paid sick leave for all employees, including sick or disabled workers.
In May, Walmart also was accused of refusing to allow “unionized employees” to work and had more than 300 unions fight the deal despite its insistence in a press release that the company’s collective bargaining agreement means “all of us will be in uniform, and work for full pay.”
In May, the company defended its decision not to offer an “unpaid sick leave” for union members.
Last year, the Labor Department called its efforts to implement a policy of pay discrimination “widespread and systematic,” saying that “employer complaints are likely to increase worker turnover, and the government seeks to implement the policy by allowing employers to establish wages and hours, but not by discriminating against employees against the wishes of any specific group of employees as defined by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.”
•Competitive competitors who offer also low or discount prices.Value ChainPrimary Activities•Inbound LogisticsWal-Mart’s products are being transported to their different stores or warehouse.•Operational LogisticsTheir products are being displayed and tags or signs areplaced in it to assure customers that they have offered them low prices.•Outbound LogisticsThis does not apply to the company.•Marketing/SalesWal-Mart has aggressive marketing strategies. From time totime they have new strategies that are applied to customers.•ServiceThey have well trained employees to treat customers withsmiles in their faces. Through this, customers are satisfied and find it compliant to shop at Wal-Mart.Secondary Activities•ProcurementWal-Mart