The stores diversity is an ardent supporter of diversity in its staff and in supporting other diversity related issues especially in harmonizing races and cultures. In February for example Wal mart donated $250 000 to the Museum of African American History in Boston. The funds were to be used in restoration of the African Meeting House located in that area. The company also sponsors other numerous diversity events in the US that discusses contemporary issues in the society. On another front the firm portrays its liberal mind in supporting same sex marriages that are a no go zone for other corporate. The company however has ran in trouble over some videos released recently showing the firms top executives mocking women over sex. The recorder as the owner of the copyright is selling the video which Wal mart has unsuccessfully tried to buy to protect itself.
Wal mart legal trouble
Wal mart is one of the largest chain stores in America and the world at large. In the recent past the organization has gone international in sourcing its products and even in opening new store such as in Canada. However the expansion program and its command in the retail market is threatened by recent legal battles pitting the organization against individuals and the most prominent one being On shank.
The giant retail chain has in the recent past been appearing in the media over a case which many judged emotionally. The case involved Debbies Shank who eight years ago (before a tragic traffic accident) worked with the organization. After the accident however, she could no longer work as she sustained serious mental damages that rendered her mentally challenged and confined to the wheelchair. Having earlier registered with Wal marts health plan the lady was legible to receive compensation for the treatment. Unfortunately during the signing of the contract Debbie did not notice the contract had a disclaimer saying that the company could in no way compensate anyone who had received compensation from another source fro the illness.
As per the Health plan agreement Debbie received her compensation of $470 000 from Wal mart. Later on the insurance company covering Debbie on the car accident case also compensated her. At that point, Wal mart was legally backed to claim its money and consequently sued for the same amount paid to Debbie. The family sued the organization but lost the case and the appeal also. With the family in dire financial state there was a public outcry over the firms lack of a humanitarian aspect. This case painted a bad public image of the stores with many people pledging to boycott doing their shopping at the various outlets of the stores. This issue was aggravated by the almost simultaneous announcement by the stores of making $90 billion. Other cases that have been publicized a lot were the one the companys employees sued the firm for non payment of over time hours. The company acknowledged the case and paid out the amounts though saying the case was not intentional but rather resulted from a technical error.
NOW against Wal mart
The organization has been in a war of words concerning the managements position and discrimination in regard to women and their position as far as the organization is concerned. The organization is being accused of not balancing the positions well among men and women. NOW is accusing the organization of relegating women to very low job classes which attract very low salaries. In 2004, NOW took to the streets in a rally to express their dissatisfaction with Wal mart.
In relation to child labor the store chain has distanced itself from companies in Thailand and other countries where they source some of their wares that have records of child labor use. This is in protest of using underage children in factory jobs.
Organization of Wal mart
Through the funding and sponsoring of diversity programs such as the one on Boston African museum displays the organizations commitment in diversity issues which we expected to carried on in the company itself regarding how they recruit and treat their staff (Fishman, 2006) The issue of diversity has been dragged in to the prevailing political battles by many where Wal mart also has joined the band wagon by advising the electorate to vote for someone who is diversity conscious.
Wal marts international management
Wal mart has drastically changed the manner in which it manages its international portfolio to bring into an integrated centralized system. Previously the company managed its international outlets in countries such as Brazil Argentina and Asia (independently as regions). With regional offices located in the said areas a more centralized common office has been established in Miami led by Herkert. This office was established in 2004. Many of the international outlets are ventures or franchises though the ones in China are fully owned.
Shareholders are calling for an inclusion of two thirds of independent directors in the board. Other considerations being brought forward is for a more involvement of the shareholders in decision making. This is greatly expected to bring changes on how the decision making procedures are going to be made as many shareholders are against the rapid expansion of the giant firm.
According to Fishman (2006) the success of the organization is highly associated with the junior staff than the executive management thus a way of motivating the staff. Programs such as the health plan for its employees take care of the staffs medical well-being which was recently upgraded to include their immediate family members.
References
Charles, Fishman. (2006). The Wal Mart Effect, London: Penguin, pp. 45, 99, 106
Labor Infractions by Wal-Mart Supplier in China, 2007, Web.
To attain a substantial market share, Wal-Mart has incorporated the concept of business expansion. One of the investment destinations it has identified includes the urban centers in the US such as Chicago. The firm intends to establish twenty stores in Chicago (Wal-Mart Watch, 2009, p.3). However, the firms efforts have been faced with numerous challenges. Because the firm is committed to the attainment of its profit maximization objective, the firms management team should not give up. This arises from the fact that urban centers such as Chicago present some of the core avenues through which the United States can attain high economic growth. By expanding into urban centers such as Chicago, the firm will be faced with a feasible market opportunity despite the challenges considering Chicagos population. Expanding into Chicago is in line with the firms risk-taking nature. There is a high probability of the firm increasing its customer base by entering Chicago. The ultimate result is that the firm will be able to attain maximize its shareholders maximizing objective.
Wal-Mart should agree to the demands of the Chicago Federation of Labor
To gain a substantial market position, a firm should ensure that a suitable working environment is developed. One of the ways through which this can be achieved is by ensuring effective employees remuneration. Over the years, Wal-Mart has been criticized by activists, politicians, and unions due to its ineffective work practices. One of these relates to depressing the wage rates (Baron, 2006).
To enter Chicago, the firm has been required by the Chicago Federation of Labor to improve its wage rates. One of the requirements entails increasing its wage rate to $8.75 per hour which is $0.50 higher compared to the state minimum. In addition, the firm is required to formulate a comprehensive benefits package (Gaus, 2010, para. 2). By increasing its wage rate, the firm will develop a positive perception within the society. For example, the firm will be considered to be offering competitive salaries (Gaus, 2010, para. 3). In addition, by complying with these demands, the firm will develop a positive public image and hence its acceptance within Chicago. Upon being accepted in society, there is a high probability of the firm increasing its customer base and also improving on customer loyalty. This will contribute towards the firms long-term survival as a going concern entity.
What should it do to build a majority in the city council?
Wal-Marts approval to build stores in Chicago is based on its ability to convince a majority of the legislators within the city council. One of the ways through which the firm can attain this is through the creation of job opportunities. For example, local contractors should be issued with tenders to build the stores. According to Alderman Emma Witts, the Chicago West Side ward is faced with a lack of jobs. The firm should ensure that the job positions created are offered to residents (Skorbug, 2004, para. 2-5). In addition, the firm should ensure that it operates in a socially responsible manner. One of the ways through which the firm can attain this is by integrating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) concepts in its operation such as the provision of healthcare. In addition, the firm should ensure that a substantial amount of consumer spending is given back to society. This means that the firm should contribute to the welfare of the society in which it operates.
An integrated strategy for Wal-Marts urban expansion
Wal-Mart should consider incorporating the franchising strategy to venture into the Chicago market. Dayal-Gulati and Lee (2004, p.71), define franchising as establishing a business relationship between the franchisee and the franchisor. The franchising rights should be issued to Chicago residents. Through franchising, the firm will give the franchisee a right to use its trademark and trade name. However, Wal-Mart will ensure that it controls all the firms operations in addition to the provision of the necessary assistance. The resultant effect is that the firm will effectively enter the market.
Reference List
Baron, D. (2010). Business and its environment. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Dayal-Gulati, A. & Lee, A. (2004). Kellogg on China: strategies for success. Chicago: Northwestern University Press.
Gaus, M. (2010). Wal-Mart outmaneuvers unions to win approval for Chicago store. Web.
Skorbug, J. (2004). City council approves Chicagos first Wal-Mart. Web.
Wal-Mart Watch. (2009). Wal-Marts urban problem: why does the company have trouble in Americas largest cities? Web.
A high inflation rate causes a gradual increase in product costs and handling services for retailers. Unless the populations income rises in proportion to inflation, the demand for goods will decrease soon, reducing retail businesses revenue and inventory turnover. Walmarts reputation as a low-price retailer continues to attract customers using strategies such as Walmarts Everyday Low Price (Douglas Moran, 2022). However, the executives also suggested that Walmart will take the necessary measures to manage inflation if inflation continues to affect value-conscious consumers through increases in staple grocery prices. In particular, the president and CEO of Walmart, Doug McMillon, suggested that managing inflation will be easier in areas where the company makes most of its revenues: fresh food and dry grocery (Douglas Moran, 2022). Otherwise, if consumers become less price-conscious, the company plans to target further development of the digital shopping platform.
Considering the other inflation outcomes, Walmart company experienced significant changes in the number of employees. While it has been a long time since the COVID-19 pandemic started, retailers still experience negative consequences of the pandemic due to the spread of the COVID-19 virus mutations, such as the omicron variant. Thus, Walmarts staffing numbers were lower because of the omicron variants spread. However, through February and March, workers started returning, and now, the employment situation has stabilized.
The employment issues caused by the pandemic and increased prices for goods handling forced the company to consider the option of automation for business processes. Automation can optimize handling costs and increase employees; productivity through more accurate management of inventory and improved processes of loading and unloading goods. The company now partners with tech startups to implement digital innovations in business automation.
The evaluation of the business environment is generally held from the point of view of several factors. Originally, all the most important factors are gathered in the analysis.
PEST analysis
Political
Political environment of the discount department stores network of Wal-Mart is the most favorable for such kind of business activity. Originally, the government and the legislative and political bases do not restrict the grocery retail. Taking into account that it is the largest private employer, the government does not aim to restrict its activity for avoiding the increased unemployment. (Cocheo, 2003).
Economic
The fact is that, the Wal-Mart Corporation is the company with one of the largest revenue and financial turnover. In 2006, Wal-Mart was 67th most profitable corporation (profits divided by total revenue), behind retailers Home Depot, Dell, and Target, and ahead of Costco and Kroger. (Cocheo, 2004) For the fiscal year ending January 31, 2006, Wal-Mart reported a net income of $12 billion on $340 billion of sales revenue. (Jablonsky,, 2005) For the fiscal year ending January 31, 2006, Wal-Marts international operations accounted for about 20.1% of total sales. As of Jan 8, 2009, net sales for the 48-week period ending Jan 2, 2009 was $370.5 billion, up 6.5% from the previous years results. (Mcconnell, 2008).
Social
It should be stated that it is the least favorable factor of the environment. In spite of the fact that it is the largest private employer, the activity of the trade unions is essentially restricted, and the rights of the employees are often violated.
Technological
Wal-mart is the corporation with the widest use of the RFID marks of the goods, thus, the amount of thefts is essentially decreased.
Recommendations
Improve the working conditions (take into account the possibility of allergic reactions, lower contacts with chemicals and heavy metals, incorporate sanitary codes).
Increase the safety level (implement and strictly follow the observation of safety rules).
Create Wal-Marts own Trade Union (thus, it will be easier maintain dialogue with the oher trade unions and restrict their interference).
Take into account national specifications of peoples ration (encourage employees observe healthy diet, and aim to retail the most popular products in different regions of the world).
Arrange the food production cycles (farms, factories etc.) (it would promote further lowering of the prices).
Increase salary of the employees.
Encourage healthy way of life among employees.
Restructure the marketing strategy taking into account ethnic particularities of the peoples (Cocheo, 2008).
Originally, the recommendations that may be given to such a huge company will touch upon the issues of HR management and customer care. There is no essential need t improve the managerial strategies, however, the company should pay its attention to managing its human resources.
Driving Forces
The fact is that, the driving force of any company is the dividends, received from the particular investments. The investing factors of the Wal-Mart are the following:
Research of new markets (some regions of the world do not have properly adjusted grocery retail system, and the competition is rather low. Thus, Wal-mart may use this opportunity for increasing the sales levels).
Employment of new workers (Originally, the retail companies have high turnover rates, thus, the employment of new workers will help overcome lack of working force. Moreover, additional force may be used for the expansion of the retail network).
Buildings (expansion of the network requires additional spaces and territories).
Finding suppliers (competition among suppliers causes the lowering of supply prices).
Properly adjusted marketing strategy (marketing strategy is the key stone of any commercial activity, thus, proper adjustment and constant improvement of this strategy will promote further development of the network).
Increase of competitive capacity (improvement of financial, HR and customer care strategies).
Another driving force is the perspective of the future growth. The fact that there is still room for growth and business expansion is the best encouragement ever. This notion may be explained by the fact that any company claims for steady and constant development. If there is distinct realization of further growth, any way possible will be used to increase the company and the income.
References
Cocheo, S. (2003). Always Aggressive, Always Wal-Mart: What Makes Wal-Mart Keep Coming Back and Back to Financial Services? and Is Wal-Mart Paranoia Psychosomatic or Justifiable?. ABA Banking Journal, 95(5), 29.
Cocheo, S. (2004). Wal-Mart Is Looking for In-Store Partners Again. ABA Banking Journal, 96(4), 10.
Cocheo, S. (2008). You Cant Beat Wal-Mart . or Can You? If Your Industry Winds Up in Wal-Marts Crosshairs, a Frontal Assault Wont Generally Win Says a Former Insider. Heres Why Alternative Approaches May Help When Taking on the Empire. ABA Banking Journal, 100(4), 7.
Hi! Welcome to the Wal-Mart Bank . (2004). ABA Banking Journal, 91(8), 7.
Jablonsky, S. F., & Barsky, N. P. (2005). The Managers Guide to Financial Statement Analysis (2nd ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Mcconnell, A. S. (2008). Making Wal-Mart Pretty: Trademarks and Aesthetic Restrictions on Big-Box Retailers. DukeLawJournal, 53(5), 1537.
Walmarts learning, growth, and internal operations prioritize its talent management above everything else. The main reason is that businesses seek to make their employees and human resources better by equipping them with more skills, competencies, and expertise. The same observation can be made for Walmart Corporation, which is the largest network of distributors around the globe. One should be aware that Walmart Corporation has the People Development Program. It is among the most effective internal business processes to jumpstart the careers of entry-level employees. It strengthens a workers knowledge and skills through in-depth training, field immersions, and a virtual international experience (Walmart, 2022, para. 3). In other words, the People Development Program is a comprehensive system designed to facilitate learning and growth. It is stated that it gives employees the knowledge of where they need improvement and reinforces the knowledge theyve already mastered (Stevenson, 2018, para. 7). The program allows for identifying the gaps in skills and knowledge, which are subsequently worked on to eliminate them. Walmart Corporation invests in and promotes the development of its human resources. The utilized approaches are combinations of training, international education, and field practices.
Internal Business Perspective
It is important to note that internal business perspectives can range from technology to human resources. In the case of Walmart Corporation, the focus is put primarily on its workers because the company views the highest level of shareholder objective completion, as well as customer satisfaction, are achieved through employees (Walmart, 2022). Thus, the corporation is inherently interested in facilitating the professional development of its talent. The companys internal business process perspective is on human resources, and Walmart has an interest in the endeavors of superior talent management.
References
Stevenson, M. (2018). How Walmart and other companies improved learning to continuously invest in people. HR Exchange. Web.
Walmart. (2022). Walmart people development program. Web.
Walmart organization is considered to be an underdog in the online sales field. Amazon, which is believed to be Walmarts major competitor, is the undisputed leader in the e-commerce market. The sales volume is $118 billion, over ten times greater than Walmarts $11.8 billion in online profit. In addition, Walmarts website has underperformed compared to Amazons in terms of usability, search accuracy, variety, and design for years. Overall, Walmart is an underdog in e-commerce since the company is inferior to rivals in brand image. Amazon was able to transform its concept from selling books to a revolutionary online retailer before the idea became obvious to Walmart representatives.
Redesigning Walmart considered the e-commerce presence a strategic challenge. The company formulated its main objective as the necessity to persuade many consumers that purchasing on Walmart.com is a better option than shopping on Amazon. The goal consisted of two factors, which included improving the resource base for online trading and interaction with customers. Walmarts system of over 4,700 shops in America has served as online order distribution hubs, enabling the organization to provide the consumer with free two-day delivery and order pickup that took Amazon years to accomplish. Walmart dropped the term stores from its formal company name in 2018. This statistic highlighted the companys desire to become an omnichannel retailer.
Comparison of websites is an important aspect since through this resource, contact with the customer, who will have to make a choice based on user experience, is established. Walmarts website has underperformed in comparison with Amazons in terms of usability, search accuracy, variety, and design. Walmart anticipates that its website redesign initiatives would help it differentiate itself from Amazons e-commerce presence, and it has made steps to do so. One of the modifications, for instance, was a new automated identification of whether online pickup is accessible in the users geographic location. The issue of the website lagging by many criteria provoked active work in this direction.
Sam Walton established Wal-Mart in 1962. The company that is headquartered in Bentonville in Arkansas has been struggling to maintain the industrys leadership due to the increasing competition from other organizations such as Target. Walton Company owns 48 percent of shares, thus making it the main owner. Wal-Mart appeared in the New York stock exchange in 1972. The company accounts for 51 percent of greengrocers sold in the US (Keil & Spector, 2005, p.336). Wal-Mart is an incredible organization for basing a project plan. It has been facing a number of challenges, which have psychological perspectives tied to them. Such challenges are labor and employee relations.
Enhancing good labor relations within an organization requires one to have cognitions of the factors that influence peoples behaviors such as decisions to seek employment from competing organizations within the same industry. Wal-Mart employs over 2.2 million people across the globe, thus making it the leading employer in the US (Keil & Spector, 2005, p.336). It has been experiencing increased lawsuits by employees. The organization also encounters challenges of high turnover rates akin to poor job satisfaction among other factors. According to Harris (2011), labor turnover in the organization is about 70 percent annually (p.17). Lawsuits are filed by employees in relation to claims of poor conditions of working, insufficient provision of healthcare coverage, anti-union policies deployed by the organization to curb strikes, and complaints of low wages (Ingram, Qingyuan & Hayagreeva, 2010, p.63). Upon considering the contribution of Wal-Mart in lowering unemployment levels, it is crucial to conduct a research to determine how to improve employee retention rates.
Benefits of the Project to Wal-Mart
Organizations endeavor to resolve challenges that influence their performance to develop the capacity to fight competitively with rival organizations. Solutions are best implemented when the root causes of problems are known. For Wal-Mart, the establishment of the root causes of employees behavior is an important step in restoring their confidence to the organization as opposed to challenging the employees in a court of law. In this regard, the findings of this project are important for Wal-Mart. Through this project, findings on the effectiveness of motivation and empowerment approaches deployed by the company are helpful in aiding Wal-Mart to identify the missing links in the satisfaction of employees
Control at Wal-Mart may result in increased turnover. Such controls include the hindrance of the free engagement of employees with the organization to address their concerns through unions. The controls make the organization non-democratic. Investigating the perception of employees on the hindrances of unionization is beneficial to the organization. It provides an opportunity to learn about the implications of non-democratic management approaches to the ability to use employees in building a competitive advantage for the organization. Controls may also hinder employees from creating and innovating ways of doing tasks in a manner that would save costs (Hall, 1999, p.33). Stiff controls may also hinder information sharing, which is a major driving force for organizational success for a knowledge-based organization. Thus, investigation of the impacts of control deployed by Wal-Mart on employees is important in helping to recommend a new approach to directing, controlling, planning, and organizing employees for Wal-Mart to have high employee retention levels.
Strategic Planning
Vision and Mission Statement of the Project
The vision statement of any project plan acts as the guide for achieving the expected results. The main aim of designing a mission statement is to provide a means of availing clarity together with teamwork focusing on the objectives and aims of a project. For the proposed research, the mission is to conduct evidence-informed research on Wal-Mart focusing on organizational challenges that are central pillars to the increased organizational conflicts with employees. The vision of the project plan is to deliver research findings and recommendations that would help Wal-Mart to regain employee confidence and organizational commitment in the effort to utilize them as sources of organizational strength as opposed to the current state in which the two aspects function as sources of organizational threats.
SWOT Analysis of the Project
The main objective of the project plan is to conduct research in Wal-Mart that would help to recognize the missing links in enhancing workforce motivation, job satisfaction, and retention. In an organizational management context, strength is the trait that enables an organization to have an advantage in comparison with other organizations (Hill & Westbrook 1997, p.47). The strength of the project plan is that Wal-Mart is already experiencing several challenges related to employees complaints (Ingram, Qingyuan & Hayagreeva, 2010, p.63). Recommendations that would help the organization to reduce incidences of lawsuits, absenteeism, and turnover have high probabilities of being welcomed. Wal-Mart has been trying to find ways of improving its brand image. The area of concern on the project plan as implied by the stated objective is directly coherent with this initiative. Some weaknesses of the project plan are inevitable. The research will be conducted in a bureaucratic organization. This may affect effective communication between the research team and employees of the Wal-Mart.
One of the major opportunities for the success of the project plan is the increasing concerns of employees to have their concerns addressed in the quest to have a better work-life balance. It is anticipated that inadequate addressing of the challenges encountered in the work environment agitates employees. Hence, opportunities exist for acquiring credible information from them. One of the threats of the project plan is that it is maybe seen by Wal-Mart as an attempt to seek information to justify employees complaints pursued through lawsuits. Consequently, the bureaucratic management structure may cause frustration to the project work team members by denying access and opportunity to recruit respondents. Imposition may also be made on information disclosure by creating fear among employees. This would influence negatively the credibility and reliability of the research findings.
Organizational Chart of Wal-Mart and a Strategy Map of the project
The Wal-Mart organizational chart shows pictorially the function and responsibilities of various high-ranking leaders. This chart is schematically illustrated in fig.1 below.
Similarly, a project plan chart depicts the responsibilities together with the duties of various project team members. This chart is shown in fig. 2 below.
Internal and External Forces that May Affect the Project
Several factors may influence the successful completion of projects. Such factors emanate either internally or externally within the context in which the project is conducted. From the PEST EL approach, the factors are political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors (Simon, 2007, p.125). For the project plan, teamwork members must be paid salaries and/or wages. Hence, they must pay taxes in the form of pay-as-you-earn. The political environment affects the implementation of the project plan through tax policies. The research team must also comply with environmental regulations, tariffs, and employment laws established within various nations where the research is to be conducted. The main challenges of the project plan are that these laws are different for different nations were Wal-Mart has established its stores.
From the perspective of economic factors, the successful implementation of the project plan requires funding. Such funds are used to pay salaries and/or wages and to cater to the data collection and data analysis. Similar to any project, this research project plan has financial and time constraints. Social factors act as an immense success factor of any research. Such factors include the risk of poor management of the research team differences arising from their diversities. Technology affects a project plan in terms of the determination of the appropriate technology for data collection and analysis. In the research project plan, it is expected that it will require a large sample size for reliable representation of the population by the sheer number of the employees employed by Wal-Mart. Since the plan is to collect data through questionnaires, high costs are anticipated since data collection costs are directly correlated to the size of a sample.
Core Competencies of Wal-Mart that Will Help the Project
Collecting data from a large population requires cooperation and willingness by respondents to participate in research with minimal efforts of conviction that the data provided will be treated with confidentiality and anonymity. Where the respondents are the employees for organizations, a research project will progress more effectively and collect the requisite data if the employees are engaged and interested in the results anticipated when the research is conducted. To this extent, Wal-Mart has a key competence in that is has managed to create an organizational culture for all employees to consider themselves associates and owners of the company. In the effort to maintain this culture, the organization is interested in garnering employees views on how to improve the performance of the organization (Keil & Spector, 2005, p.342). Culture as a core competence for Wal-Mart will help this project by providing information sought in the questionnaires. Therefore, employees will consider the research an opportunity to air their views on how the organization can enhance its performance and/or make them more satisfied.
Human Resources
Staffing Needs, Training, and Ways to implement Performance Evaluations
Organizations operate under different cultures. Thus, training of the research staff on Wal-Marts organizational culture is important to help in reducing conflicts between employees of Wal-Mart and the research staff. This ensures the staff acquires skills that are necessary for the needs of the operations. Training also has the significance of helping to achieve better service work safety practices and productivity improvements (Brockbank, 2003. p.338). The research team leader should not lose staff members when the research has commenced. Hence, training is of great importance to enhance staff retention until the project is concluded.
For the research project to attain its objectives, it is important for its performance to be measured continuously. One way of accomplishing this requirement is to measure the performance of the staff in the effective distribution of questionnaires, the capacity to address questions from the target audience in relation to reluctance to provide information, and time management. Utilization of the Q12 approach to measurement of staff engagement can help to implement performance evaluations. This approach aims at uncovering the things that really matter to employee engagement and business performance (Bierbusse & Siesfeld, 2007, p. 9). Performance management strategy in the project aims at unifying diversities of the staff to create a homogeneous project execution culture. This helps in the elimination of frictions associated with different staff diversities. Q12 performance assessment strategy focuses on several chief elements, which must be evaluated by the team leaders and their assistants to determine whether research team members under them comply with the best practices. These are absenteeism, theft, quality, profitability, safety incidents, productivity, incidents of patient safety, and turnover. For the purpose of this research, productivity, absenteeism, quality, and staff turnover are important.
Measuring the above aspects is essential for the assessment of the performance of the project. When staff members are better engaged, they consider themselves the heads of the research projects (Richard et al., 2009, p.828). Hence, incidences of absenteeism reduce, with the quality of the data analysis increasing while the probability of success of the research rises.
Appraisal for Potential Needs of Demand Forecast, Labor Supply Forecasts, and Reconciliation of Supply and Demand
The selection of the staff members is based on the professionalism and ability to deliver results. This implies that their chance of successful recruitment to form the research team is limited by the fixed demand of 50 persons even if the supply of such research professionals may be high. Where the number of people qualifying for the research job exceeds the demand, requirements will be reviewed upwards until a reconciliation of demand and supply occurs. This approach helps to make the research opportunities accessible to all interested persons without discrimination and/or prejudice.
Training Areas that may help to improve Performance, Quality, and General Efficiency of this Project
Several training areas are important for the success of the research project in terms of performance, quality, and general efficiency. One of such areas is on the mechanism of resolution of the differences between employees of Wal-Mart and the research staff. The employees of Wal-Mart have existing differences with the organization. This means that asking queries on subject areas, which have resulted in the animosity showcased by the employees often leading to the filing of lawsuits against the organization, may arouse emotional charge. Training on conflict management and anger management forms the essential elements of training requirements for the staff in the effort to obtain reliable and quality data from the respondents.
Team Structures
Types of Teams Forming Part of the Project
Persons forming part of the project team needs to possess the ability to work effectively in a team environment. The goal is to ensure that decisions made by a given workgroup do not depend on the thoughts of one individual. Rather, they need to incorporate different perspectives of different people for them to produce positive impacts on the success of the project. The work teams are made of small workgroups. According to DeChurch and Mesmer-Magnus, the primary advantage of using small groups and teams is to expand the pool of the available information thereby enabling the groups to reach higher quality solutions than they could be reached by any one individual (2009, p.535). The workgroups are also organized such that they are composed of persons having different diversities. The team should also facilitate information sharing through the process of the project execution.
How to Manage Conflicts with Individuals in a Group and/or Teams Working in Conjunction with Other Teams Within Wal-Mart
Work teams taking part in the project are composed of members of different genders, cultural backgrounds, and professional diversities. Wal-Marts workplace faces many dynamics that must be maintained under control to ensure that the project work teams realize the objectives and goals of the research. Work team diversities often create points of departure of the capacity of the group to arrive at a single decision anonymously. Thus, control of the teams diversities together with Wal-Marts employee diversities is important in the management of conflicts. Group performance is a function of the capacity to strike common grounds while making decisions based on the opinions among different members of the workgroup (DeChurch & Mesmer-Magnus, 2009, p.544). Using this approach to manage conflicts implies that a decision by team members is satisfying to all members if every member of the group is satisfied that his or her inputs are incorporated in the final research analysis process and findings.
Professional diversities create perceptions of the needs of the work team members to fight for their fragmented professional recognitions. For the project teams, professional accreditation and reward is based on the performance of people in their respective areas of specialization. This provides an opportunity for work team members to put efforts to ensure that the research is not halted due to problems that could be traced in their specialties. However, this issue is a challenge since professionalism diversity may hinder information sharing in the effort to preserve the intellectual property of all different group members (DeChurch & Mesmer-Magnus, 2009, p.544). Management of such conflicts requires changing the mentality of the team members to appreciate that they have collective roles as a team to achieve the success of the project. To realize this goal, it is crucial for some of the bureaucratic procedures used to monitor the project to change. In particular, a change of the procedure requiring reward for the performance of the project team members is based on individual performance. Achieving this goal is expected to be effective in helping to contribute to a better team performance since all team members will work towards fostering the recognition of the teams contributions to the success of the project.
How to Build Effective Teams
All team members of the entire project will make decisions, which affect the performance of the project. Thus, it is important for all group members to consider themselves leaders as opposed to looking upon a single individual in the team to take up the responsibility of leading others. This means that the teams should change from considering themselves as composed of research professionals. Rather, they should consider themselves composed of leading professionals. The argument here is that changing the teams leadership approaches is directly correlated with the effectiveness of the work teams.
Communication
Fostering Effective Communication
The success of any project in the realization of its goals aims and objectives requires an effective communication plan. The plan needs to be aligned with the goal of the project by delivering reliable and quality research findings that can help Wal-Mart to remain as the market leader in the retail industry. This move is perhaps important upon bearing in mind that the profitability of the company had been on a downward trend from 2007 (Ingram, Qingyuan, & Hayagreeva, 2010, p.55). Fostering effective communication among all work team members requires a democratic communication strategy. This means that the communication will be from top to down and from down to the bottom.
Examples of Ways to Improve Both Interpersonal and Organizational Communication
Communication is an important aspect of organizations and projects. One way of gaining a competitive advantage is by discovering and implementing a communication strategy that supports a companys business objectives for its customers, workforce, and partners (Perry & Bodkin, 2000, p.89). For a project, good interpersonal and organizational communication strategies have multiple benefits ranging from enhancing work team motivations to retention of the most talented persons until completion of the project.
Operational Management
6-Sigma Toolset and Its Use the in Project
The goal of the research is to establish the causes for dwindling employee satisfaction at Wal-Mart. This means that there are variables creating the dissatisfaction of employees as evidenced by incidences of lawsuits and the high labor turnover averaging at 70 percent annually (Ingram, Qingyuan, & Hayagreeva, 2010, p.53). Six sigma tools can form an essential tool for the analysis of the research project problem. Since the aim is to evaluate the cause-and-effect relationships so that the factors contributing to the experienced employees behavior at Wal-Mart can be determined, the fish-borne diagram is an important six-sigma tool for use in this research. The utilization of this tool will be based on the responses made by the respondents as recorded in the questionnaires.
The main problem of concern is identified first (head). It is then followed by the identification of the spine components. These are the reasons cited by the respondent for why they are dissatisfied by Wal-Mart as depicted in the fishbone diagram pictorially in terms of the percentages of the respondents citing each reason. Upon listing of all possible variables in the various categories, DMAIC research experts who are the analysts in the case of this project identify three of the most significant factors accounting for the employees dissatisfaction with Wal-Mart.
Schematic and/or Chart for Fish-Bone Diagram
The schematic diagram shown in fig.3 shows the fish-bone model used in the research project.
Fig.3: Fish-bone Schematic Diagram
Merging Lean and Six-sigma Transformational Systems
Merging Lean and six-sigma transformational systems in the project is important. As argued before, this research project has constraints of financial resources and time. Hence, while six-sigma in the development of the fish-bone DMAIC model used in the project, Leans concepts facilitate the reduction of wastes in the projects. Such wastes include the utilization of time in unnecessary tasks, which do not contribute to the achievement of the objectives, aims, and goals of the research project, and financial resource wastages.
Wal-Mart Categorization
Wal-Mart is a retail organization dealing with consumable products. Hence, it is a product-based company. However, in the process of conducting its business, it also sells services. The employees of the organization attend to customers. The nature and quality of services and products delivered to determine the contribution of employees in enhancing the competitive advantage of the organization. This argument implies that Wal-Mart is both a service and a product-oriented organization. In the service sector organizations, quality is enhanced through the deployment of strategies for enhancing customer satisfaction with services, the utility of services, and the speed of service delivery (Yelkur, 2006, p.110). For Wal-Mart, this includes the speed of customer service at the teller counters. In the product-based organizations, quality is a function of the utility of the product. If a product is capable of satisfying the needs of the consumers precisely, the quality of the product is high.
Use of Benchmarking in the Completion of This Assignment
Before initiating a project, it is crucial to evaluate the chances or sources of failure. Since the project has not been conducted at Wal-Mart before, useful sources of benchmarks constitute the other contexts in which a similar research was done. Once the identification of such contexts is done, the effort is then made to find out the challenges and success factors of such projects. A comparison is made for the current project and the benchmarks while considering the differences in project implementation contexts.
Monitoring Process
Financial Control Worksheets Related to the Project
The proposed project does not seek to sell products or services. This means that balance sheets, profit and loss statements, and financial ratios and such returns on investment among others do not apply to the project plan. However, a financial budget sheet is important since the execution of the research project requires finance to cater for the various experiences. The financial budget sheet is shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Financial budget sheet
Item
Cost in U.S Dollars
Transportation of staff
10,000
Training and recruitment of staff
12,230
Stationery
5,123
Printing of questionnaires
6,790
Data analysis software
5,017
Salaries and wages
65,000
Staff and respondents refreshments
2,780
Data analysis hardware
25,980
Miscellaneous expenses
11,000
Total cost
143,920
Bureaucratic Controls to Monitor the Project
Bureaucracy hinders innovation and creativity in organizations. However, for a project plan with specified goals and procedures of executing research, it is useful for various reasons. Bureaucracy helps in emphasizing objectives (Hall, 1999, p.37). In the context of the research, this focus is geared towards enhancing the realization of the vision and mission statements of the project plan. A project is characterized by standard operating procedures formalized in the form of research methodologies. Using bureaucracy to enhance conformance to these methodologies enables the project plan to deliver the proposed aims and objectives.
A project is constrained by time and monetary resources. Hence, bureaucracy is crucial in ensuring that time and financial resources spent by all team members are consistent with the financial project plan to avoid the risk of poor financial accountability and/or the situation where the project runs out of time. Consequently, bureaucratic controls to monitor the project in the form of standard rules and procedures help to save time since no critical decisions are required before starting the next procedure in the line of the project plan execution.
Reference List
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Brockbank, W. (2003). If HR Were Really Strategically Proactive: Present and Future Directions in HRs Contribution to Competitive Advantage. Human resource management, 38 (4), 337-352
DeChurch, L., & Mesmer-Magnus, J. (2009). Information Sharing and Team Performance: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(2), 535546.
Hall, R. (1999). The concept of bureaucracy: an empirical assessment. The American Journal of Sociology, 69(1), 32-40.
Harris, E. (2011, May 17). Wal-Mart skips council hearings as impact of stores assailed. New York Times, pp. 17-18.
Hill, T., & Westbrook, R. (1997). SWOT Analysis: Its Time for a Product Recall. Long Range Planning, 30 (1), 4652.
Ingram, P., Qingyuan, L., & Hayagreeva, R. (2010). Trouble in Store: Probes, Protests, and Store Openings by WalMart. American Journal of Sociology, 116(1), 5392.
Keil, S., & Spector, L. (2005). The Impact of Wal-Mart on Income and Unemployment Differentials in Alabama. Review of Regional Studies, 35(3), 336-355.
Perry, M., & Bodkin, C. (2000). Content analysis of Fortune 100 company web sites. Corporate Communications. An International Journal, 5(2), 87-97.
Richard, P., Devinney, M., Yip, S., & Johnson, G. (2009). Measuring business-unit level: Integrating administrative mechanisms with strategy. Academy of Management Journal, 31 (4), 826-853.
Simon, H. (2007). Rational decision making in business organizations. American Economic Review, 3(4), 123-129.
Yelkur, R. (2006). Customer satisfaction and service marketing mix. Journal of professional services marketing, 21(1), 105-115.
The company selected for the current assignment is Walmart Inc. that is based in the United States but operates in the global market. Walmart Inc. is included in the list of Fortune Global 500 companies.
Walmart Inc. Overview
Walmart Inc. is a retail company that has a chain of discount department stores, grocery stores, and hypermarkets in 28 countries. The headquarters of the company is in Bentonville, Arkansas. Walmart has 11,718 stores in different cities of the US, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and Chile, etc. The main products of Walmart are grocery items, household products, movies, music, grocery, footwear, clothing, and home appliances, etc. The services offered by the company include Pickup Today, Walmart Pay, and MoneyCard, etc. Walmarts four main divisions are Walmart International, Walmart US, Sams Club, and Global E-commerce (Walmart Inc., 2018).
There are 2.3 million employees currently working worldwide, out of which 1.4 million are working in the US. Walmart Inc. is one of the largest retail companies in the world that have operations in different regions. The company has various strengths, including high brand recognition, strong financial support, and specialization in providing high-quality services. The efficiency of its operational team and proficient finance managers have enabled the company to become a leader in the global retail industry.
Stock Symbol and Selling Price
The stock symbol of Walmart Inc. is WMT that is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The current share price of Walmart Inc. is $85.93. The share price is not fixed and varies according to the economic and stock market conditions of the US and other markets where the company operates. The beta value of 0.4 indicates that the companys stock is less volatile than the market index ( Walmart Inc, 2018). Therefore, it can be said that there is a low impact of market conditions on the stock prices of Walmart Inc.
SEC Filings Available
The recent SEC filings of Walmart are available for the last 10 years on its website. The financial statements of the company include Consolidated Statements of Income, Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income, Consolidated Balance Sheets, Consolidated Statements of Shareholders Equity, and Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows along with Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements. Analysts or investors can assess the performance of the companys shares by reviewing its financial performance in the last three years ( Walmart Inc, 2018). The review of the financial performance and its comparison with competitors is the most effective way to assess the ability of a companys stock to generate a positive return on investment.
Every public company is required to publish its financial statements at least once a year. Moreover, companies also public quarterly reports, addendum, and proxy statements periodically. The annual report is the most credible source for collecting the relevant business and financial data of a company. The non-financial information presented in the annual report also helps investors in decision-making (Shim, 2016). However, the information on different stock websites, including Yahoo! Finance, Bloomberg, and Morning Star, also includes analyst reports that assist investors in predicting the future performance of a companys stocks.
Most Recent Filing
The most recent filing of Walmart is for the year ended on January 31, 2018, with comparative results for the year ended on January 31, 2017 (Walmart Inc., 2018). Therefore, the most recent financial information of Walmart pertains to the 12-month period that ended on this date. The past performance of a company is essential to review its decisions and their impact on its market value. The stock performance is also necessary to check whether there is high or low volatility in its price in the last few years.
References
Shim, J. K. (2016). Accounting and finance for the nonfinancial executive: an integrated resource management guide for the 21stcentury. London, UK: CRC Press.
Walmart Inc. (2018). 2017 global responsibility report. Web.
Wal-Mart is the leading retail chain in the US and the global retail industry. It is also the largest employer in the US private sector. Despite its financial success over the years, the company has been accused on several occasions of engaging in unethical practices in order to achieve its business targets.
It has been particularly accused of engaging in unethical labor practices some of which violates the rights of its employees (Fishman, 2006, pp. 6-25). The government through the labor laws expects all employers to focus on ethical labor practices in order to enhance the welfare of the employees.
This paper analyzes the labor practices at Wal-Mart. The analysis will be done with the aid of three ethical principles of global business standard codex namely, the principle of fairness, reliability principle and the transparency principle (Carol and Buchholty, 2008, p. 45).
Employment Practices at Wal-Mart
Low Wages
Research conducted on wage rate in the retail industry indicates that Wal-Mart pays the least wage rate. Compared to the national average wage rate for the same job categories in the retail industry, Wal-Marts wage rate is less by between 26%-37% (Rao and Cynthia, 2007, pp. 27-33).
The companys average wage rate per hour is $ 10.84. Thus a fulltime employee working for 34 hours in a week will be entitled to an annual income of about $ 19,200 (Rao and Cynthia, 2007, pp. 27-33). However, according to the federal governments definition of poverty, this amount is not sufficient for a family of four in the US.
The amount is considered to be less by at least $ 10,000 for a family of two (Christopherson and Lillie, 2005, pp. 1919-1938). This means that the workers of the company are not able to support themselves financially and live decent lives.
This is support by the fact that most of Wal-Marts associates partly depend on state welfare support programs. Wal-Mart assesses the performance of its store managers based on their ability to reduce costs associated with labor. The employees who are paid more are expected to be highly productive.
The companys management on the other hand defends its wage rate and claims that it is comparable to the industry rate (Hemphill, 2008, pp. 26-29). The management further claims that its investment in employee training and automation provides more opportunities to the employees and this account for the low wages.
Paying low wages is considered an unethical practice since it is against the welfare of the employees (Heineman, 2008, p. 78). This is also against the ethical principle of fairness which advocates of fair compensation for employees services (Heineman, 2008, p. 78).
According to the fairness principle, a company is considered to engage in unethical practice if its wage rate is below the industry average. According to the principle of transparency, Wal-Mart engages in unethical behavior through deception. This is because the use of automated systems or regular training of its employees is not a justification for its low wages.
The firm must offer competitive or fair remuneration packages for it to be considered ethical. According to the reliability principle, Wal-Mart is not committed to improving the welfare of its employees through better pay (Heineman, 2008, p. 79).
For example, in 2006, the firm announced plans to raise the wage rate by 6% for the newly recruited associates. However, the company placed a wage cap on the salaries of its veteran staffs (Rao and Cynthia, 2007, pp. 27-33). The wage cap was meant to compensate for the 6% pay rise. This is considered an unethical practice since it only focuses on the interest of the firm at the expense of the employees.
Gender Discrimination
The firm has been accused of gender discrimination at the workplace (Tilly, 2007, pp. 1805-1823). The male employees are entitled to better treatment as compared to their female counterparts at Wal-Mart.
During the recruitment process, the company gives first priority to the male applicants (Rao and Cynthia, 2007, pp. 27-33). This means that the female applicants do not have a fair chance of being employed by the firm. Gender discrimination is also depicted in the firms pay structure.
The male associates are normally paid higher wages as compared to their female colleagues. In cases whereby the male and female associates with similar qualifications do the same job, the male associates salary has been found to be higher by at least $1(Rao and Cynthia, 2007, pp. 27-33).
The differences in wages have led to law suits as female employees demand equal pay (Spangler, Britt and Parks, 2008, pp. 14-25). The company has failed to ensure fairness in the process of rewarding its employees through promotions. The female employees have low chances of being promoted to managerial positions.
This is based on the fact that most managerial positions at Wal-Mart are held by male employees. Due to the high criticism elicited by the acts of gender discrimination and the resulting law suits, the company is exploring ways of ensuring fairness to all employees.
Gender discrimination at the workplace is not only unethical but also illegal since it infringes the employees right to fair treatment. According to the principle of fairness, gender discrimination at Wal-Mart is considered unethical since the firm does not focus on fair treatment for all its employees (Carol and Buchholty, 2008, p. 47).
Besides, the principle demands that a firm must provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified citizens for it to be considered ethical (Carol and Buchholty, 2008, p. 48). However, Wal-Mart has failed this test by favoring the male employees.
The firm has failed to ensure fair competition among its employees for higher positions especially at the management level. According to the principle of transparency, a firm engaged in ethical practices must allow objection to its policies (Carol and Buchholty, 2008, p. 49).
However, Wal-Mart has consistently failed to take into account the plea of its female staffs for fair treatment. Consequently, the employment disputes between the firm and its female employees have always been settled at the court. This further confirms the firms inability to focus on ethical labor practices.
Diversity
Wal-Mart being a multi-national corporation employs workers from different socio-cultural backgrounds. All major ethnic or racial groups are represented in the firms workforce (Christopherson and Lillie, 2005, pp. 1919-1938).
The firm has also introduced an elaborate diversity program which promotes corporation and teamwork among employees from different walks of live. Besides, the representatives of various groups such as African-Americans are normally involved in the companys recruitment exercise in order to ensure fairness.
The firm has since been rewarded through various awards for its efforts to promote diversity. According to the principle of fairness, the diversity program is considered ethical since it offers fair employment opportunity or treatment for various ethnic or racial groups (Carol and Buchholty, 2008, p. 47).
However, an analysis of the firms diverse workforce reveals that the African-Americans and the Hispanics are the majority (Christopherson and Lillie, 2005, pp. 1919-1938). Critics of the firm attribute this to the firms commitment to paying low wages (Christopherson and Lillie, 2005, pp. 1919-1938).
The African-Americans and the Hispanics are likely to accept low wages due to their social economic statuses. Besides, the firm has been found to employ illegal immigrants through its partners. According to the transparency principle, this is an unethical behavior since the firm failed to disclose its partners criminal acts of employing illegal immigrants.
Conclusion
The above discussion reveals that the labor practices at Wal-Mart are unethical since they do not conform to the ethical principles of global business standard codex (Carol and Buchholty, 2008, p. 46). The firm has been found to engage in gender discrimination as well as paying low wages.
These practices are not consistent with the ethical principles of transparency, fairness and reliability as discussed above. The diversity program is an ethical practice since it offers equal employment opportunities to all ethnic groups (Carol and Buchholty, 2008, p. 47).
However, employing illegal immigrants either directly or indirectly is unethical as discussed above. The law suits resulting from the unethical practices are associated with negative effects on the image of the firm (Christopherson and Lillie, 2005, pp. 1919-1938).
This is because it lowers the reputation of the firm in the community it operates in. Thus in order to protect its image, the firm should engage in ethical practices that conform to the accepted ethical principles.
References
Carol, A. and Buchholty, A. 2008. Business and society: ethics and stakeholder management. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Christopherson, S. and Lillie, N. 2005. Neither global nor standard corporate strategies in the new era of global standards. Environment and Planning. 37(11), pp. 1919-1938.
Fishman, C. 2006. The Wal-Mart effect and a decent society: who knew shopping was so important? Academy of Management Perspectives. 1(1), pp. 6-25.
Heineman, B. 2008. High performance with high integrity. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hemphill, T. 2008. Demonizing Wal-Mart: what do the facts tell us? Journal of Corporate Citizenship. 31(1), pp. 26-29.
Rao, S. and Cynthia, O. 2007. Business practices of Wal-Mart in Northwest Indiana. Journal of applied Management and Entrepreneurship. 10(2), pp. 27-33.
Spangler, A., Britt, M. and Pars, H. 2008. Wal-Mart and women: good business practice or gamesmanship? Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship. 13(2), pp. 14-25.
Tilly, C. 2007. Wal-Mart and its workers: not the same all over the world. Connecticut Law Review. 39(4), pp. 1805-1823.
In strategic management and planning examination of the internal and external factors is very important. These factors are categories in the SWOT analysis, which involves the analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
The strengths and the weaknesses are the internal factors while the opportunities and threats from the internal factors. Through SWOT analysis a strategy can be developed and used in the marketing of the firm (Bohm 2). It can also be used in avoiding any weaknesses thus enabling it benefit from any opportunities in the future regardless of expected threats.
According to Boham (2) SWOT analysis is responsible for the offering of vital information that enables evaluation of the capabilities and resources of a firm against competitive background it operates from. This is used in strategy formulation as well as enhancing competition in the market. The paper gives a SWOT analysis of Wal-Mart stores, one of the leading retail stores in the world.
Background
Wal-Mart is the leading retail store in the United States of America. It has several stores in the North America region that it solely owns and operates. It has its headquarters in Bentonville; Arkansas becoming the largest company that privately employs people (Blair 262).
It has 8,500 stores in 15 different countries. It operates under fifty five different store names although in the USA it operates on its own. In Mexico it operates as Walmex, in India as best price, in UK as ASDA, under its name in Puerto Rico, and as Seiyu in Japan. In Brazil, Argentina, Canada, UK and Puerto Rico it fully owns the operations.
Outside North America the investments had mixed results (Blair 262). It pulled out from Germany when its operations were rendered unsuccessful while in china the operations have been successful. During the 2010 financial year the company recorded $258 billion that translates to total sales of 63.8%. The competitors of Wal-Mart stores are many in the respective countries where it has the different stores
SWOT Analysis
According to Kneer (2) when the Wal-Mart stores was founded in 1962 by Sam Walton the core values of the company were respect for individual, service to the customers and striving for excellence . All these core values have the objective of satisfying customers and believing that customers are important to the company.
Over the years the company has been operation with profits even in times of economic crisis because of its belief in customer satisfaction. The following is the SWOT analysis of the Wal-Mart stores where each are broken down and discussed in detail. They comprise the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats which are the internal and external factors respectively.
Strengths
These forms the resources of a company as well as capabilities applied in the market so as to develop the market competitive advantage. Wal-Mart stores phenomenal success has been as a result of the following strengths. It has dominated the American retail market (Kneer 2) because of its brand that is powerful.
The sale of huge merchandise in US and a market share of more than 30% of health and beauty aids demonstrate dominance of Wal-Mart (Pahl and Richter 21). It provides a variety of goods under one store making it convenient to many American families (Pahl and Richter 21).
The services offered by the company are worth the value of the money the consumers pay. The branding which is strong is based on a pricing strategy where prices are low with the aim of attracting and retaining a huge customer base. Kneer (2) observes that through the use of advanced technology the company is able to offer low prices because it has the strength to reduce operational cost.
Through the automated distribution links the chain store is able to control its expenses ensuring that low price offer is maintained. Deliveries in the Wal-Mart stores are faster because the technological system is interlinked thus ensuring time saving and efficiency (Kneer 2).The technological advancement and embracement has enable the company regulate the procurement and logistics department reducing any form of goods theft.
This is because the system can observe and monitor the movement of goods in and outside the stores. This has reduced the expenses of unnecessary losses. Over the years the company has over grown experiencing global expansion (Pahl and Richter 21). For example it has stores in the UK, Brazil, Argentina, and Puerto Rico as well as in china. Wal-Mart believes in human management and their development. This can be explained by the training it offers to its employees and having faith in them. This has boosted the performance of the employees making it a world class retail store.
Weaknesses
These are viewed as the companys problems that are internally manifested. Being the largest retail store in the world and in several countries it is faced with the weakness of controlling all the chains and branches. This is because technology has failures and cannot be 100% effective.
The IT might not be always efficient and because its management is technologically driven and controlled, the slightest failure may cause problems in service provision. Wal-Mart sells variety of products under one roof making is likeable, but it may lack flexibility that some of the competitors operate using (Pahl and Richter 22).
Lack of focus can be seen as a weakness that is embraced by the Wal-Mart chain stores. Although Wal-Mart has stores in many countries it is not globally recognized. According to Kneer (3) competitors of the Wal-Mart may take the advantage of globalization and go internationally thus giving the company a global challenge. Its presence in few countries is the biggest weakness the company has.
Wal-Mart has the capacity of manufacturing goods, of which this can be seen as strength. However when the huge manufacturing investment hinders quick response to changes availed by environmental strategy can be seen as a weakness. This is because competitors can use this to their advantage affecting the Wal-Mart operations in the short run. Pahl and Richter (24) note that Wal-Mart dominance has negative effects in its operations.
For example, the supercenters that are to be opened will be closely located, this would allow internal completion that it impossible for some to gain enough balance costs. The issue of lowering prices to chase competitors saw a failure of 25% of the Wal-Mart stores in delivering the core values to its consumers (Pahl and Richter 22).
Opportunities
These are the environmental external factors that a company may experience allowing them to grow as they make profits. According to Kneer (2) Wal-Mart has the opportunity of forming strategic alliances through merges with global retailers.
For example it can focus on the ready markets of Europe, India and china which have not been fully utilized (Pahl and Richter 22). Other than forming mergers or alliances there is possibility of opening stores in the emerging world economies like India and china which have large population hence large consumer base. These are opportunities that can see Wal-Mart expand its capital base as well as profits and growth.
This can exploit new markets through diversification by opening super centers, and malls. Opening of new stores gives Wal-Mart the opportunity to create employment thus reducing inflation because dependence ration is reduced. This changes the lives of many citizens who may not be necessarily Americans.
With the embrace of technology, Wal-Mart can take advantage of internet shopping that can reach a large populations clientele. Pahl and Richter (22) note that Wal-Mart has the potential of retaining its customers through low pricing. This creates customers loyalty which is important in development of a retail store like Wal-Mart.
Threats
These are caused by the unexpected or foreseen change in the external environmental factors which are threatening to the firms operations and productivity. Wal-Mart is the number one retail store meaning that it is seen as the target by competitors (Kneer, 2), who can be globally or locally.
Competition reduces the market share and any slightest mistake in customer satisfaction may be the start of a downfall. The retail store also faces the threat of price competition from other operators in the retail industry. This is because all the retail may decide to operate under a low price that the Wal-Marts and according to factors that determine demand price is one.
When the prices are low the demand increases and vice versa. The retail store faces the threat of being targeted by political enemies. This is being a globally recognized store political problems exposure are high (Pahl and Richter 24). The political woes and economic inflation and tax wars are huge threat to Wal-Mart.
This may affect the operations of the store hence failing in some countries. In low regions outsourcing is applied this reduces the cost of production. This according to Kneer (3) has led to price competition causing price deflation which is a threat to the operations of Wal-Mart.
It faces threat of innovation that other retailers may adopt before it does. Currently strategic planning and management are based on the idea of globalization and technological prowess. However Wal-Mart still operates under the old and outdated strategies that are not applicable in the 21st century.
This is a huge threat to the operations and future expansions of Wal-Mart. Pahl and Richter (24) note that Wal-Mart lack transitional strategy which makes it hard to adapt in locally based markets, have economies of scale, improve knowledge flow and locate its operations in locations that optimal. It faces the challenge of growing and establishing stores in foreign countries (Pahl and Richter 24). This was what led to fall of its stores in Germany.
Conclusion
SWOT analysis deals with the external and internal environmental factors responsible for strategic planning. They also help in marketing and knowing the competiveness and capability of a company. The SWOT analysis of Wal-Mart stores is well explained in depth where different environment factors both internal and external have been examined. Although it has great and much strength the weaknesses and threats are also great.
