Wal-Mart Case Analyses

Introduction

Wal-mart was established by Sam Walton in 1962 being the first retail supermarket that offered good customer services and low prices of its products. He had Three Basic Beliefs that enabled the retail store to attain its universal acknowledgement a tradition that is still followed by the workforce they include the following Respect for the Individual, Strive for Excellence and Service to Our Customers (Vandenbergh, 2007).

In the resent past Wal-Mart has become the world’s largest retail shop, with above 5800 discount stores, its an employer of averagely more than 1.5 million associates internationally, the company’s good reputation of caring about its customers, employees, and community has enabled it to maintain its strong market position in the discount retail sector, the management guidelines developed by Sam enabled Wal-Mart succeed in the United States just by selling low cost products.

 The unique things that the retail store used enabling it to thrive includes Pricing with the motto "everyday low prices" a way that attracted many customers, The retail relied on "sale" not only on promotions and advertising but it also relied more on buildup of inventory before a sale, catalogue mailing and markdowns on the unsold inventory the principal behind the way Wal-Mart stores operate has enabled Wal-Mart to emerge as a leader in the industry because of containing its costs, allowing the customer to have some savings, making it a major threat to its competitors.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis aim at evaluating the companies’ strong points and the setbacks that affects the realization of the companies’ success it is as a key determinant to the companies’ success and failure and the management should be in the front line to determine the factors that will help in the improving of the outcome of the organization.

In the resent past the Wal-mart have managed to maintain it high performance due to a number of factors that are seen as the key causes of its success the primary reason for the realization of this success includes a developed loyal employee and customer base (Ortega & Duff, 1995). The extreme loyal base is dated back from the founder of the shop Mr. Sam who had the three principles that were aimed to help the community and the to unprivileged American citizens this in return enabled the organization to achieve loyalty from the customers from there good customer service, there move to areas of the country were ignored by other retailers and great pricing there products were cheap.

The company offers its employees with flexible working hours, they are also given competitive wages, three healths are also insurances and they are offered with some discounts on the products they purchase.

The location for there stalls is said to be Good as they have ventured into spreading there stalls to all the locations in America this in the long run has enabled them to defeat there competitors as they have managed to cover a very large area and access to lots of customers this has made it known through out America and its also spread to countries that are outside America.

Every company has to experience some weaknesses in exception of the Wal-mart even after its seen to be experiencing a lot of success it also has some with it weaknesses they are as follows, there struggle to keep down their prices while they have to buy the products in large quantities. This need can lead to their inventory being very little and unreliable, In other words they are unreliable Meaning that you may not always be able to find certain things that you normally buy all the time or perhaps they will have it but you will need to buy a much larger size then you actually need a smaller product therefore this dents one financial plan (Ortega Et al. 2003).

Another often known weakness is that they keep more part time employees than they do full time this is always posing a great threat to the employees as they don’t feel at ease when executing there duties as they feel that the company isn’t committed to there services and they don’t enjoy the benefits of employment or even compensation in case of any termination because no contract is signed to incase of such an occurrence.

The notion that American product are expensive has brought mixed reactions and in the process Wal-mart has stopped buying American product resorting to products that are from the Africa and Asia as they are seen to be cheaper as compared to the America products this in the long run has made the citizens to believe that they are not loyal to American products therefore this makes them to somehow dislike the retail store.

The communities around the wholesales dislike Wal Mart because the wholesale has in a way placed their small business into a risk of not surviving and in the process there business are put out of business, arguing that the wholesale is attracting more customers while it has the capability of serving the minority rich people and leaving for them the majority poor to serve they dislike it so much as the company is there great competition.

The company sell products from other countries and this goes against the set labor laws, this in turn turns to be unfair as the American manufactures are denied the ready market of there products therefore generating mixed reactions on the company’s conservation of the labor laws therefore they assume that the set laws and its supreme over the American set labor laws and breach of the laws of the land.

The company also Carries a larger inventory this is were the company goes at a loss when it has purchased a lot of products that all goes at a waste as they are in the long run they aren’t purchased by the customers forcing the customers to purchase some of the products they didn’t require that much as the company wants to get rid of the products.

The company has also managed to exploit its opportunities that has in the long run enabled it to grow to become one of the mist outstanding stores in the world this is when it decided to implement some of its opportunities to enable it exploit all its resources the first being its ability to Expand to other countries by this it has broaden its chain of supply to many customers of a diverse backgrounds from different nationalities this in return improving its credibility universally (Jana, 2006).

It has also been in the front picture lobbing for the Federal Government to reduce tax and raise or introduce incentives to its workers and the citizens this in return has seen the government to heed to the grievances addressed by the company.

It has also contributed in the avocation of environment conservation and a realization of green world as it introduced the used of paper bags which are environment friendly from the traditional polythene bags. It has also promoted fair trade and human labor laws as they show case products from different corner of the world therefore allowing the customers to make a confirmed decision of the best product they will need to use and from which part of the world does it come from therefore all the manufactures produce are exposed to the customers (CaseStudyInc, 2008).

Threats are also expected in the growth of Wal Mart is the current trade completion between republic of China and the U.S. this could at one point lead to higher prices from a tit-for-tat tariff attitude.

 A push by employees of Wal Mart to get unionized will create a ripple effect on the way the company operates; this will be more costing to the company as it will spend more on labor and in return getting anything for it. The Current economy crisis that is being experienced has turned out to be torturous to the company as it has to device ways that will enable it to provide cheap products to its customers this is a demanding task that the company has to face and it really challenging the company.

The need for the company to import and export products is proving tom be a challenging task Tariff taxes as the transfer tariffs are said to be varying with time to time in the return they aren’t said to be constant as they are always changing making it difficult for the company to estimate its expenditure and profits in time.

Competition from Warehouse retailers for example the Costco seems to be a most challenging factor in the growth of the company this resulting to rivalry between the two companies. TWOS is a way the company can eliminate its weakness and threats and future improve on its strengths and opportunities they are four types of strategies, WO its developed to overcome the companies weaknesses by using its opportunities, SO is developed with the use of the strengths of the company exploits the external opportunities, ST strategies are developed to eliminate the threats by using the internal strengths and last WT strategies is developed to avoid the threat and minimize the weaknesses.

Wal-mart is experiencing stiff competition

Wal-mart is experiencing stiff competition from companies like K-Mart, Costco, Target as they Are companies that are dealing in the same kind of completion as for the part of the competition all the four companies are trying to outwork the other by offering a variety of services that are totally unique as the other, they are also offering good incentives to there workers as they are all trying to gain a positive image from the public and get more customers, as they all tend to lower there products prices making them to attract there customers just from the one that offers the lowest priced store.

The other competitors also have tried have also ventured into similar activates that the Wal-mart is said to be dominating in the resent years such as offering discounts to there customers the Wal-mart is largely known fro this kind of trade but they have also in return arranged that on ways to offer stiff competition to the Wal-mart this in result creating a good environment for the customers to sample the best store that caters for there needs at an affordable price (Berner, 2009).

From the through research about the its clear that the company despite its competition and hardship is said to be going places that will take many years by another company to reach as it has spread its wings to almost all the corners of the world it is likely that the company will son dominate the retail and discount market in the short time possible. The company will get there if it introduces new managerial skills and apply gender balancing which will enable women to hold top positions in the management of the retail store the company should also spread to almost each country to enable that it caters for most customers, some external concerns is the inclusion of America products in there stalls and not selling mostly foreign products in its stalls it or internal environment concerns that the company women in the top positions and also employing its workers to serve at a period of long-term other than part-time this will give the employees the opportunities to serve the company who heartedly because they will believe that the company is committed to them.