...branded as Walmart, is an American multinational retail corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's third largest public corporation, according to the Fortune Global 500 list in 2012, the biggest private employer in the world with over two million employees, and is the largest retailer in the world. Walmart remains a family-owned business, as the company is controlled by the Walton family, who own a 48 percent stake in Walmart. It is also one of the world's most valuable companies. The company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, incorporated on October 31, 1969, and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. It is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. Walmart is also the largest grocery retailer in the United States. In 2009, it generated 51 percent of its US$258 billion sales in the U.S. from grocery business. It also owns and operates the Sam's Club retail warehouses in North America. Walmart has 8,500 stores in 15 countries, under 55 different names. The company operates under the Walmart name in the United States, including the 50 states and Puerto Rico. It operates in Mexico as Walmex, in the United Kingdom as Asda, in Japan as Seiyu, and in India as Best Price. It has wholly owned operations in Argentina, Brazil, and Canada. Walmart's investments outside North America have had mixed results: its operations in the United Kingdom, South America, and China are highly successful, whereas ventures...
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...contrast to International Human Resource strategies. One goal of globalization is to be able to do business across borders without stress. Similarly, as companies grow customer bases, it is important to have strategic business units in areas local to the customer base. It is what is required to successfully build a successful global presence. This analysis will attempt to highlight potential issues faced by Walmart when they opened up for business in China in 1996. This analysis will also provide a set of recommendations that may have helped to avert the issues that Wal-Mart faced. Background Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. started when Sam Walton set out on an ambitious mission to have a store with the lowest prices anytime, anywhere. In 1962 Sam Walton opened the very first Wal-Mart in Rogers, Arkansas. By 1967, they owned 24 stores and continued to rapid expanding. In 1983, they added to their portfolio by starting a wholesale/bulk retailer called “Sam’s Club” and by 1988, they started a hybrid of general merchandise stores and supermarkets and aptly called them “Super Centers.” In 1990 Wal-Mart became USA’s number-one retailer. In 1991, Wal-Mart opened its first global store in Mexico City, Mexico. In 1994, it rapidly expanded throughout Canada by purchasing of 100 Woolco stores and converting them to the Wal-mart brand. In 1996, Wal-Mart aspired to be the first retailer to open up a chain of stores in China (Walmart) but was facing a lot of resistance; and that’s where this case...
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...Wal-Mart is one of the world’s largest retailers in the world. They strive themselves in saving people money so they can live better. Sam Walton founded Wal-Mart in 1962, he believed that leadership through service was what it took for a business to be successful. It was that mentality that made Wal-Mart’s working environment revolves around good customer service and great value. The first Wal-Mart store opened on July 2, 1962 in Rogers, Ark. By 1967, the Walton family owned 24 stores, and gaining 12.7million in sales. By 1969, Sam Walton realized that Wal-Mart was going to be much bigger than he anticipated and he officially incorporated as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (Walmart). In was not long after he incorporated the company that Sam or Mr.Sam as many called him, decided to take Wal-Mart national. His vision’s widespread appeal was so successful among Americas that by 1972, Wal-Mart was listed on the New York Stock Exchange as WMT. At this point Wal-Mart was growing so fast and being so successful that by 1990, Wal-Mart had officially became the nation’s number-one retailer. Their focus was still to provide its customers with a one-stop shopping supermarket that had every day low prices (walmart). Wal-Mart had become so successful in America due to its size, power, and low prices that globalizing was just a matter of time and money. At first, Wal-Mart considered entering Europe, Asia, and other countries in the western hemisphere. However, they realized that they did not have...
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...Expansion 1.How does expanding internationally benefit walmart? Wal-Mart needed international expansion critically to remain a successful company. The main reason Wal-Mart needed to go global was because they could no longer achieve the growth needed in the US. This market was saturated. The United States represents only four percent of the world’s population, which meant Wal-Mart was missing out on ninety-six percent of the world’s potential customers. (Govindarajan, par. 7) Also, Wal-Mart needed to continue to make their US employees satisfied. With Wal-Mart’s aggressive stock purchasing programs, this meant that employee satisfaction was directly correlated to their stock prices. Walmart also realized that there were many emerging markets with lower levels of disposable income, which offered a large potential for discount retailers. (Govindarajan, par. 7) Therefore, Wal-Mart’s only option to achieve the growth needed was to enter the global environment. After its beginning in 1962 Walmart ever since had constant growth rates and successfully gained market share in the merchandise and food retailing markets. “By 1990, however, Walmart realized that its opportunities for growth in the United States were becoming more limited”. To keep steady growth rates and profits the company decided to expand globally. The core competency of Walmart is the price. Selling merchandise and food for low prices made them earn market shares and continue the growth rates. Going global...
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...Wal-Mart: Global Market Strengths and Weaknesses Option C Donnitia Decembly Rodney Emery Lynne Johnson Central Michigan University MSA 601: Organizational Behavior Introduction According to CNN Money, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., is a Fortune 500 and has topping the list for many years. It is the largest retail company Wal-Mart is a worldwide corporation with stores in all U.S. states and in 15 other countries (The New York Times, 2013). The company started with one small store in Arkansas and has since blown up into the biggest-earning corporation in the world. It has the most employees of any non-government company in the world. It has made its reputation and built its customer base on the basis of low prices (Business Insider, 2012). Wal-Mart is a huge, successful corporation that can serve as a useful case study for anyone who wants to build a successful business. There are a variety of factors that have impacted Wal-Mart’s international success. In order to properly understand this success, it is useful to perform a competitive analysis that looks at the firm's successes and weaknesses globally. Mexico Market Adapting to cultural differences in countries like Mexico has opened up a very prosperous international venture for Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart hired locals to manage their stores, let manager’s control the merchandise strategy, made sure that the merchandise they carried reflected the local surroundings, and built smaller stores in local neighborhoods to accommodate...
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...Suggestions Walmart needs to adjust to the Chinese market, while leveraging its source of competitive advantage. This requires a delicate balance. At the US, the brand Walmart is associated with low price rather than quality. In China, where everyone is going for low prices and providing low quality to do so, Walmart’s own brand could be an assurance for low prices but with quality by making the Walmart name about more than just retailing. The suggested strategy in the 2008 Walmart supplier meetings shows that it’s heading in that direction (Business Week). This also follows Gome’s strategy of renaming its suppliers to their own brand (Business Week), but goes beyond it as the foreign brand in China is already associated with higher reliability and quality assurance. This actually holds true in China were retailers do a better job of enforcing supplier quality than the local regulations. With that, Walmart is still able to use its expertise and knowledge in supplier negotiation and distribution system to keep costs down. Although Walmart is a Joint-Venture, the sources do not mention any attempt to leverage the local partner to meet the local market, which seems the opposite to some other joint ventures discussed like Danone and Wahaha. Working together with the local partner to understand where and how the local regulations can be used or adjusted for Walmart’s success and gaining a stronger hold of the potential customer’s heart might help Walmart’s growth and dominance in...
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...The latest Coca cola’s super bowl commercial stirred up resentment among various sections of people. The conservatives were outraged by the fact that the song “America is Beautiful” was sung in eight different languages and inclusion of gay couple in the ad. However there were others who supported the idea and inundated social media with note of support for the company and few others who probably didn’t get involved. This is a reflection of today’s modern and segmented society. Globalization and technology have taken front seat in merging cultures and creating a world where communities interact more closely than ever. According to United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) there are about 63,000 multinational companies (MNCs) in the world and they have 700000 branches in other countries. Looking at the enormous reach of these global entities, one can only agree how critical it is to understand the cultural perspective of different societies. As a global business, it was an attempt by Coca Cola Company to embrace the diversity of multicultural world -- both in the marketplace and in the workplace. Evidently because societal culture has major influence on businesses. Global businesses have to deal with customers/clients, distributors, strategic partners, employees with different background and cultural mindsets. How organizations make decisions, implement policies, recruit workforce or even make strategic choices are affected by these cultural forces, both...
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...Management Across Cultures 1 March 2015 Abstract Walmart is one of the world’s largest and most well-known retailers in the world today. It has achieved great success in areas like Mexico and Canada; however it has also seen failures in other areas like Germany and Hong Kong. This paper will discuss a brief history of Walmart’s global expansions and the strategies it chose to enter these markets. It will answer the following specific questions: When did Walmart enter the global expansion? What international markets did Walmart enter? What cultural challenges has Walmart faced? How did Walmart overcome these challenges? Where future expansions and opportunities are possible? To answer these questions, this paper will have four basic sections: A brief history of Walmart’s global expansion, what was their strategy with each expansion, cultural differences they faced, and where is Walmart going in the future. This paper will attempt to examine the strategies of its global expansion and how it used the challenges to continue success in future expansions. Walmart is the most well-known and largest retailer in the world today; with sales worth more than $200 billion, $35 billion of that from Walmart’s International Division. The company grew incredibly fast both in the United States and abroad. By tweaking entry modes, and studying the cultural differences and local threats, the core business strategies Walmart chose to build its business on in America would...
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...Aircraft Manufacturing Industry Outsourcing in a Global Market Aircraft Manufacturing Industry Outsourcing in a Global Market Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 Abstract 2 Introduction 3 Growth of Outsourcing 5 Benefits of Outsourcing 6 Disadvantages of Outsourcing 8 The Global Market and Aircraft Manufacturing 9 Conclusion 12 Bibliography 13 Abstract The aircraft manufacturing industry is dominated by a few key players: Bombardier, Boeing, and Airbus being the most prominent. It is in a constant struggle to deliver ever more intricate machinery that are safe and reliable - while maintaining a competitive cost structure. With countries such as China and India becoming more commercialized, air travel will continue to grow at a consistent rate; however, steady growth is not without its challenges: rising fuel prices and mounting material costs have forced aircraft manufacturers to look for other ways of maintaining a competitive structure. One way of maintaining a competitive cost structure is through outsourcing of non-fundamental core jobs. This practice has become so prominent with some of the world’s major aircraft manufacturers that the parts used to build planes today come from all over the world. The airline industry is a fairly resilient industry, even with slow economic times the need for people to travel for business and pleasure is still present. Outsourcing of non-core jobs may be the answer for cost efficiencies but can have serious...
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...College of Business University of Hawai´i at Mānoa Vietnam MBA Program Fall 2011 BUS 632—Business Strategy Dates of Course: Oct. 20 - 29 Professor James Richardson BusAd C501f Office Phone: 956-7270 Email: jamesr@hawaii.edu Course Outline and Objectives: BUS 632 covers strategic management as an integrating paradigm for your business knowledge. The aim is to develop an understanding of the strategic challenges facing managers in competitive markets. Globalization, foreign competition, and rapidly changing technology have sharply increased the intensity of competition in most industries. We will learn how leading firms have devised strategies, structured, and managed their organizations to achieve competitive advantage in this challenging environment. Strategic management deals with uncertainty and unstructured situations. You will learn tools and concepts for putting some structure into your analysis of strategic issues. But most strategic choices require judgment. Case studies enable us to test our judgment and learn vicariously from successful and unsuccessful managers in a variety of situations. Hence, class discussion of the cases is a central part of your learning experience. Methods: We will combine cases, lectures, individual and group papers and presentations. Pre-requisites: First semester of Core. Textbook: Jay Barney, Gaining and Sustaining Competitive Advantage, Fourth Edition. Case Packet will be available. Assignments and Grading: 1. Participation: (15%) Attendance...
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...having to enter foreign markets is for many companies natural, while for other it is a new challenge that they have to face. This challenge, known as market entry, consists of three major decisions: where to enter, when to enter and how to enter different markets. Some companies are forced to internationalize in the early stages of their life due to small saturated home markets, while other companies choose to go abroad because of the great opportunities new markets might bring (Peng, 2006). Once deciding to go abroad and choosing the target market and timing, companies' need to consider the choice of entry modes. Generally, to choose international firm there are six different entry modes: exporting, turnkey projects, licensing, franchising, joint ventures, wholly owned subsidiary (Hill, 2004). Each entry mode its distinctive characteristics (see, e.g., Hill, 2004; Hill, et al, 1990; Hill and kim, 1988; Anderson and Gatignon, 1986; Madhok, 1997; Brouthers and Brouthers, 2000; Bishop 2006. Selecting a suitable entry mode is a difficult decision for firms interested in entering a foreign market (Agarwal and Ramaswami, 1992). Sometimes, an international firm may use more than one entry mode simultaneously (bishop, 2006). According to Wei et al (2005) there are many factors affecting the entry modes, such as host country factors, resources commitment and cultural distance. In this era, the forces of globalization derive firms to go to international market. When a firm thinks to expand...
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...Walmart Walmart, one of the great stories in American history but, how does it compare to other retail stores like Target or K-mart, but, it also has a history of discrimination toward women and minorities. Mr. Sam Walton, a military man, a captain in World War II could not have imagined that his business would grow into one of most productive retail stores in modern history. Even today, with Walmarts, overseas, Walmart has cornered the retail market by storm. But, it also has a bad image, over its business deals against women and minorities and especially not giving equal pay for equal work, or denying workers the opportunities for advancements that are offered to white males in his business. I guess this wouldn’t be Mr. Walton, but his board of governors should be held accountable. Everyday people file law suits against the company, how long will the company last? Next, they have become so large that they can afford to move overseas, and hire workers that will work for less than the average American will, now, that will be exactly what was needed for the company,(globalization.) Walmart has stores in countries that the common American has never heard of. In the 1940’s, a young man named Sam Walton, of Newport, Arkansas, was using another stores business model, and that was, get products at a reasonable price, and they had to be American made. His idea was so simple anybody could have done it, but anyway, his idea was to look for bargain deals from suppliers and sell them...
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...& Mark C Green Chapter 02 The Global Economic Environment Presentation adapted by Alfred Lowey-Ball For (International) Marketing management course Fall semester 2014 UBI-BA2 Brussels Chapter 02 Outline (The Global Economic Environment) 2-0 2-1 2-2 2-3 2-4 2-5 2-6 Introduction The world economy—an overview Economic Growth stars Classification of countries by income Market opportunities in DCs World population trends Dealing with currency risks 2 2-0 Introduction • The level of economic development in the target country is a major determinant of global market potential and opportunities • Globalization and forms of freemarket capitalism prevail almost everywhere today • Since the 2008 financial crisis, however, much uncertainty has crept in. 2-3 2-1 The World Economy—An Overview • The world economy has changed profoundly since WWII: in the western world, trade boomed and GDP rose constantly at a 2-3% rate… • Globalization (economic integration) was estimated to be 10%; today it is 50% (by some measures) and still rising • Global companies have arisen to respond to global market demands and opportunities, global competitors have displaced local ones 2-4 Growth of world GDP Figure 1.1 Growth of Real World GDP, 1975–2005 500 – 450 – 400 – 350 – Volume 300 – 250 – World GDP ~$70 Trillion today World population 7,1 Billion 200 – 150 – 100 – 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 World GDP 2000 2005 Countries by annual GDP growth ...
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...UNETHICAL BUSINESS PRACTICES OF WALLMART AND NIKE INTRODUCTION Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., branded as Walmart is an American multinational retail corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's second largest public corporation, according to the Fortune Global 500 list in 2013, the biggest private employer in the world with over two million employees, and is the largest retailer in the world. Walmart remains a family-owned business, as the company is controlled by the Walton family, who own a 48 percent stake in Walmart. It is also one of the world’s most valuable companies. The company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, incorporated on October 31, 1969, and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. It is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. Walmart is also the largest grocery retailer in the United States. In 2009, it generated 51 percent of its US$258 billion sales in the U.S. from grocery business. It also owns and operates the Sam's Club retail warehouses in North America. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the company rose from a regional to national giant. By 1988, Wal-Mart was the most profitable retailer in the US and by October 1989 it had become the largest in terms of revenue. Geographically limited to the South and Lower Midwest up to the mid 1980s,...
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...dynamic markets. Today’s consumers are a formidable bunch. Armed with more information than ever thanks to technology, they shop anytime, anywhere and with anyone they choose. Moreover, choice, convenience and service mean just as much to them as price. Evolving customer demands are driving retailers to tailor their offerings, expand into new business segments and enhance customer touch points. At the same time, competition— always fierce in retail—is intensifying. Only the fittest or luckiest retailers have survived the global downturn, and investors are demanding ever better performance from them. Already-lean retailers are searching for new ways to achieve structural and operational efficiencies in a bid to outpace competitors. Furthermore, new players from other retail segments and industries are ramping up their retail presence. For example, big-name manufacturers including Apple, P&G and Nike are now bypassing traditional retailers and reaching consumers directly through multiple channels. Growing numbers of retailers are going international—and small wonder. Home markets are saturated, but markets near and far, particularly in emerging economies, still offer white space (see Figure 1). The world’s largest retailers are entering more and more countries (see Figure 2). 2 Figure 1. A billion new consumers1 Consumer spending in the G6 and B6 (real US$ billions, at Purchasing Power Parity) B6 2009 2030F CAGR 6.4% G6 2009 2030F CAGR 1.8% Top 15 conumer markets in 2025...
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