Case Study
Wal-Mart Case Study
Introduction
1. Brief History of Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart is “the giant chain of discount stores, the second largest company in the world, with over $400 billion in revenue and 2.1 million associates.” (Philip and Kevin, p94) Wal-Mart began its business in 1962 when Sam Walton, the owner of Wal-Mart, opened up his first discount store in Rogers, Arkansas (Philip and Kevin, p94). In the next two decades, Wal-Mart expanding its scale rapidly. Since 1990s, Wal-Mart started to opened up its store in other countries, from then, it started to become an international company. But in the first few years of 21st century, Wal-Mart met some problems in lawsuit, marketing plans, and employees. At 2007, a new marketing strategy brought Wal-Mart back to life.
As this chart showed below, it shows the situation of Wal-Mart in 2011, to make people easier understand the financial statement of recent years (Wal-Mart 2011 Annual Report: Financial Review).
2. Company situational analysis
In this part, the SWOT analysis would be the most appropriate way to analysis the company situation.
When it comes to a company’s internal capabilities, people would think about its strength and weakness. The first strength of Wal-Mart is it has advanced information technology and international logistic system. Second is its specification management system and well-trained employees. Last but not least, it is not only the second largest company in the world, but also has good reputation in the world (Wal-Mart Strategy Analysis, 2010).
Although Wal-Mart has great capabilities on management, but the large scale of the company gives the management department a big challenge to manage the world-wide company, it turned out that some department of the company may not be well-managed, this is the first weakness of Wal-Mart. Second one is Wal-Mart sell almost every categories of products, comparing with those specialized company, it may lose advantage. Another weakness is the
Introduction
1. Brief History of Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart is “the giant chain of discount stores, the second largest company in the world, with over $400 billion in revenue and 2.1 million associates.” (Philip and Kevin, p94) Wal-Mart began its business in 1962 when Sam Walton, the owner of Wal-Mart, opened up his first discount store in Rogers, Arkansas (Philip and Kevin, p94). In the next two decades, Wal-Mart expanding its scale rapidly. Since 1990s, Wal-Mart started to opened up its store in other countries, from then, it started to become an international company. But in the first few years of 21st century, Wal-Mart met some problems in lawsuit, marketing plans, and employees. At 2007, a new marketing strategy brought Wal-Mart back to life.
As this chart showed below, it shows the situation of Wal-Mart in 2011, to make people easier understand the financial statement of recent years (Wal-Mart 2011 Annual Report: Financial Review).
2. Company situational analysis
In this part, the SWOT analysis would be the most appropriate way to analysis the company situation.
When it comes to a company’s internal capabilities, people would think about its strength and weakness. The first strength of Wal-Mart is it has advanced information technology and international logistic system. Second is its specification management system and well-trained employees. Last but not least, it is not only the second largest company in the world, but also has good reputation in the world (Wal-Mart Strategy Analysis, 2010).
Although Wal-Mart has great capabilities on management, but the large scale of the company gives the management department a big challenge to manage the world-wide company, it turned out that some department of the company may not be well-managed, this is the first weakness of Wal-Mart. Second one is Wal-Mart sell almost every categories of products, comparing with those specialized company, it may lose advantage. Another weakness is the
References: Philip Kotler, Kevin Lane Keller-14th ed. Marketing Management: Developing Marketing Strategies and Plans (pp.94). Permissions Department, One Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey Wal-Mart 2011 Annual Report: Financial Review, from Wal-Mart official website http://www.walmartstores.com/sites/AnnualReport/2011/financials/2011_Financials.pdf The Analysis of Wal-Mart, Retrieved Oct 24, 2011, from Baidu Wenku website http://wenku.baidu.com/view/45eded1fa300a6c30c229f8c.html Wal-Mart Strategy Analysis, Retrieved Dec 26, 2010, from Baidu wenku website http://wenku.baidu.com/view/9a22fe65783e0912a2162a09.html Analyzing Strategic Marketing Cases, Retrieved May 30, 2012, from Doc88 website http://www.doc88.com/p-150571855677.html