Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Discussion of Walmarts competitive environment
Wal-Mart's competitive strategies
Wal-Mart's competitive strategies
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Discussion of Walmarts competitive environment
Walmart strategic plan was important by thinking about the future through the lens of the customer. Customers are channel by shopping in stores, online or with their phones is more seamless than it used to be. Walmart is thinking the same way by possesses a unique assets and capabilities to serve customers with their stores, clubs, global supply chain, data and great associates. They want to enable customers to find what they want, at a value, in a convenient, enjoyable way, regardless of how they shop. Walmart customer proposition is focused on four areas – price, access, assortment and experience. Each dimension is important, so they take a holistic view to how they integrate with each other. Walmart plan provides a framework to ignite,
(Soni, 2015) “With the power and success that the company is able to harbor its fellow companies like Kroger, K-mart, and Target don 't even stand a chance. This places Walmart in the driver seat in their market and places direct pressure on their weaker competitors. The success of Walmart eventually will be so overbearing that it will start to push other competitors completely out of business.
Key Competitors It has strategic pricing through programs like the Savings Catcher, Save Even More, Ad Match, and price rollbacks. (Soni, 2015) “With the power and success that the company is able to harbor its fellow companies like Kroger, K-mart, and Target don 't even stand a chance. This places Walmart in the driver seat in their market and places direct pressure on their weaker competitors. The success of Walmart eventually will be so overbearing that it will start to push other competitors completely out of business.
Competitor Supply Chain
This gave the company a huge marketing advantage over its fellow retail stores within the same market. “Walmart’s everyday low price, or EDLP, strategy stems from these economies. It also helped the retailer garner market share from other companies by strategic pricing. It has strategic pricing through programs like the Savings Catcher, Save Even More, Ad Match, and price rollbacks. (Soni, 2015)“With the power and success that the company is able to harbor its fellow companies like Kroger, K-mart, and Target don 't even stand a chance. This places Walmart in the driver seat in their market and places direct pressure on their weaker competitors. The success of Walmart eventually will be so overbearing that it will start to push other competitors completely out of business.
Strategic Considerations and Recommendations
With the expansion into smaller communities, Walmart will be able to provide low cost products to its consumer as well at take out new competition that until now did not exist on their radar. By implementing this low cost strategy into the communities Walmart will not only attract new customers, but will also draw previous customers who will enjoy their new community based market. This new move places Walmart into a completely new competitive market and will proved a new level of challenges and success for multi-billion dollar company.
Recommendation Solution
The success of Wal-Mart is so great, that many people believe that Wal-Mart is becoming a monopsony . Suppliers are forced to deal with Wal-Mart because of the large percentage of sales at Wal-Mart cash registers. As such, Wal-Mart also has the ability to dictate prices of the goods it receives from the suppliers. Every day, more and more retail stores close their doors for good because Wal-Mart controls such a huge margin of the retail sector.
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).
In other words, it wants to offer lower prices than a competitor like Target in order to drive foot traffic and sales. Wal-Mart has been effective in its quest, but Target has an edge in one area, and it 's an area that has the potential to grow. Target 's secret weapon is its REDcard. For Target customers using the REDcard, Target is actually cheaper than Wal-Mart. This is because Target REDcard members save 5% on most purchases. Plus, Target REDcard members visit the store more often and buy more items. Target is also offering free online shipping for REDcard members, which has led to significant online penetration. Wal-Mart has the edge, but not when you include Target 's
Wal-Mart follows the everyday low prices “EDLP” strategy, which proved to be one of the most successful pricing strategies. Wal-Mart achieves that through an efficient supply chain management that tracks all goods from manufacturers to suppliers to end customers. LU, C. (2014)
By keeping their prices low, Walmart can easily pass that savings on to their customers and in return, their buyers are able to have a higher income and can spend their money on more products, preferably Walmart’s.
Walmart is one of the most successful franchises of all time and continues to take fire from multiple angles, whether it’s about the costing of jobs, the wages, the health insurance, the small business destruction, or the environmental impact, but can always back itself up by negating those claims with facts that proves that it is beneficial to the community.
Wal-Mart follows a lower cost competitive strategy and cost leadership. For Wal-Mart, strategic thinking is the process of continuously redefining its objectives. Competitive advantage over its competitors both actual and potential and management of risk to levels regarded as acceptable by the corporation’s main stakeholders.
Wal-Mart’s competitive environment is quite unique. Although Wal-Mart’s primary competition comes from general merchandise retailers, warehouse clubs and supermarket retailers also present competitive pressure. The discount retail industry is substantial in size and is constantly experiencing growth and change. The top competitors compete both nationally and internationally. There is extensive competition on pricing, location, store size, layout and environment, merchandise mix, technology and innovation, and overall image. The market is definitely characterized by economies of scale. Top retailers vertically integrate many functions, such as purchasing, manufacturing, advertising, and shipping. Large scale functions such as these give the top competitors a significant cost advantage over small-scale competition.
According to Greenspan (2016) Walmart’s tactical path is founded on the firm’s responses to the Five Forces in its industry environment. The company has by and large prospered in attaining the top position in the retail industry. Despite the foregoing, the external factors in the industry levy pressure that ought to be dealt with; that is, the firm needs to put in place additional strategies that take care of some aspects of the bargaining power of shoppers and suppliers. Further, potent strategies are required for Walmart to endure the threats of alternates and new entrants (Greenspan, 2016). That being said, please find below Porter’s Five Forces analyses in respect of Walmart.
Wal-Mart has been one of the most successful companies in the world. The success of Wal-Mart can be traced with its vision statement concerning globalization. According to Hitt, Ireland, and Hoskisson in their text book, "Strategic Management," a vision statement is a statement that describes the organization and points out what the organization wants to get in the future (19). Thus, vision statements focus on implementation of strategies and decisions which pave the way to a successful business in the future.
Thirdly, there are areas both domestic and abroad relatively untouched by Wal*Mart: large cities. Though it may seem like untapped potential in these markets, it is not recommended to expand in these highly populated areas. The axiom, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” applies: If Wal*Mart were to do an about-face and start expanding in this form, it would send mixed signals about not only changes in the corporate strategy, but also about the future of this conglomeration of stores. This is especially poignant at this volatile time in the price of their stocks. They should also be extremely cautious in the acquisition of existing discount retailing companies. As the industry becomes more concentrated, Wal*Mart’s selectivity in large acquisitions extends beyond just profits. Many times, Wal*Mart could better spend their resources by improving existing stores or building new ones because they can build them around their ideologies at a much lower cost than through purchasing other companies. Again, this is not to say they should not expand in this manner, just that they need to be extremely selective when doing so.
Walmart operates retail stores in various formats around the world and is committed to saving people money. Walmart earns the trust of its customers every day by providing a broad assortment of quality merchandise and services at everyday low prices while nurturing a culture that rewards and embraces mutual integrity, respect and diversity. EDLP is a pricing philosophy Walmart uses under which it prices items at a low price every day so its customers trust that its prices will not change under frequent promotional activity.
The benefits or competitive advantage Wal-Mart derived over the years from its supply chain management practices is also covered. The reason Wal-Mart is ahead of their competition is because they invest in technology in the 1980s. This investment paid off in the long run. Wal-Mart invested heavily in IT and communication systems to effectively track sales and merchandise inventories in stores across the country. They have set up own satellite communication in 1983. Employees at the stores have the ‘Magic Wand’ at hand. These barcode scanners allow you to check the prices of items at that particular store by scanned the barcode on the product. This is especially helpful when there is clearance that isn 't always marked and sometimes clearance items are cheaper than they
When it comes to marketing, there is always going to be competition. One must stay ahead and on top of things from a competitive perspective because you do not want to be the business falling behind on sales because of it. In the competitive environment, Wal-Mart had to rethink its marketing strategy because of its decline in sales in the retail market. Target was Wal-Mart's biggest competitor. Target grabbed the attention of middle class individuals that throbbed off of their stylish clothing and not worrying about the cost of it, whereas Wal-Mart sought out to upgrade their clothing line into being more fashionable and even by running ad's in Vogue and doing a fashion show in Time Square, but they failed with sales in doing so (Ferrell, 2009).
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.