Ye Myint Tun
California Mirama University
Case Study 1: Globalization of Wal-Mart
Please refer to the Mini-Case 9.1, “The Globalization of Wal-Mart” on page 251 and answer the following questions:
1. Why has Wal-Mart viewed international expansion as a critical part of its strategy?
International expansion is different from the domestic expansion because geography areas, culture, tradition, behaviors and characteristics of the consumers are not similar, thus the management, concepts and strategies will be different in the expansion of international markets. The strategy will have to be careful according to the culture, geography and behaviors of the customers. Wal-Mart has taken this expansion as critical part of its strategy to achieve the goal in its targeted markets. The strategies should be drawn out with serious consideration and discussion to be fit into targeted geographic areas. Since they are taken as critical part, it is not surprising that Wal-Mart has been working on the right path of strategies and concepts to reach to the succeed.
2. What did Wal-Mart do to enable the company to achieve success in Canada and Latin America? Why did Wal-Mart fail to achieve similar success in Europe?
Wal-Mart is able to reach its goal in Canada and Latin America rather than in Europe. Canada and Latin America are the neighbor countries of the United States of America and regarding to culture and geographic area, the individuals have the similar behaviors and characteristics rather than different culture and geographic distant areas. Besides, neighbor countries will have better opportunities for the market situation and the size of population. The resources for organizational, managerial and financial could be pursed in these regions rather than in the European countries. In European countries, the size of market is large but it will be hard to get market share from the already existing competitors and corporations. To go