Business Policy and Strategy

Business Policy and Strategy

Wal-Mart store is one of the major American corporations. It was founded by Sam Walton in May 1950s. It has a corporate headquarters located at Bentonville in Arkansas. It is one of the top retail industries specializing in general merchandise with diverse stores distributed in America. The first store bearing the name Wal-Mart was first opened in 1962 at Rogers in Arkansas and it was mostly financed by Walton. This company has a slogan that identifies their products in advertisements. The company grew in 1967 with 24 stores in Arkansas states. It was ranked among the Fortune 500 companies in the year 2008 in the America business magazines.

A Review and Analysis of the Vision and Mission Statement of the Organization

The mission statement of the company is to help people save their money so that they can live better. The company aims to integrate their suppliers’ diversity programs into their procurement practices and to advocate for the minority. Their mission aim is to help the individuals not to waste money but rather save them through providing them with low prices of the products. They outline their vision as an organization of the future. Their vision aims in improving the future lifestyle of their customers and members thus provides better services at lower prices to enable their customers save for the future (Allard, 2011).

Is the company following the stated vision and mission?

Wal-Mart is following its vision and mission statement because they nowadays value their mission as more important to their customers and members globally. They work hard in their market everyday in order to deliver this promise. In addition, they operate with integrity and respect their mission, which Walton formulated when he opened this organization. They have values and cultures that incorporate together with their mission thus continues to make them difference from other companies. Walton encouraged people within the company to work together as a team in order to lower the cost of living to all individuals. They follow this mission by giving the world an opportunity to observe what it would be like when they save and have a better future. Thus, lowering of prices to their customers is what matters thus provides them with the best prices of products that their customer needs in order to match their lifestyles.

An external assessment, utilizing Porter’s model for a competitive analysis

            Michael porter’s model requires the adjusted risk return rates to be constant across all the organization. The external assessment of Wal-mart includes:

Competitors

• Innovative products required for the supplier in order to attract more customers.
• One complementor should not complement the company through provision of the same products in the form of wholesale.
• Grocers should not join the retail side.
• The company has absolute cost advantage more than their entrants do.

Substitute products

• Customers have the choice to purchase the desired products from diverse stores but they would not find the low price of products
• Not many substitutes in the market will provide convenience and low price of products
• Online shopping is different and customers will enjoy low price advantage

Evaluation of the organization’s Intensive Strategy, in the areas of Market Penetration, Market Development and Product Development

Intensive strategy is the expansion under which the organization’s growth is achieved through expanding the operational scale (Jeffs, 2008). Therefore, Wal-Mart uses the following strategies in order to enable it expand their operational scale including, first, market operation. This strategy seeks to increase the present sales of products in the market by providing promotion and distribution of products to all clients. Wal-Mart tries to enter deeper into the market by increasing their market shares. They spend a lot of money in advertising and product promotion in order to increase the volume of sales. Secondly, market development is another strategy that Wal-Mart uses in order to increase the volume of their sales through selling the current products in the new markets. They push the existing products into new marketplace though differentiating their products by use of new brand names and unique packaging. Lastly, product development is the strategy under which Wal-Mart Company seeks to expand their business through manufacturing improved products for the current markets. Their new products may be replaced with the existing ones thus attracting the attention of their customers.

SWOT analysis for the organization.

SWOT analysis is a tool used for auditing any organization and its surroundings. It stands for strengths, weaknesses that are the internal factors and opportunities, threats that are the external factors (David, 2009).

• Strengths

• Wal-Mart is a dominant retail trademark and has a variety of products in the store
• It has good competitive value that involves use of technology system
• It has focused strategies such as product development, market development and market operation

• Weaknesses

• Does not have flexibility of some of their focused competitors
• It has liquidity and stable financial ratio issues

• Opportunities

• It has diverse locations to exploit market developments
• It takes over certain form of strategic alliances with other retailer shops globally such as Europe and China region

• Threats

• It is targeted locally and globally in competition because it is the leading company
• It is exposed to political issues where it operates in
• It is usually affected by the exchange rates

A Review of my research and based on my conclusions, what corporate strategy would I recommend for the next five years of operations?

            In conclusion, I will recommend Wal-Mart to enter into the new market by selling their commodities via cell phones in the next five years. This will enable them to get more clients because not all people who can afford computers and televisions to get their advertisements. This will enable this organization to increase their sales thus becomes the leading among the Fortune 500 companies in America. In addition, I will recommend them to stabilize their exchange rates through adopting policies and exchange rate modes. This will enable them to overcome the problems of financial crisis even in the next five years.

References

Allard, J. (June, 06, 2011). 350 Wal-Mart Express Stores to Solve Falling Sales. Retrieved from http://independentretailer.com/2011/06/06/350-walmart-express-stores-to-solve-falling-sales/

David, F.R. (2009). Strategic management concepts (12th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ:

Prentice Hall.

Jeffs, C. (2008). Strategic management. Los Angeles: SAGE publishers.