Swot Analysis of Wal-Mart
In 1962, Sam Walton founded Wal-Mart by opening the first Wal-Mart in Rogers, Arkansas. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. was incorporated October 31, 1969. By the end of the 1960s, Wal-Mart had grown to 276 stores in 11 states, and Wal-Mart went public in 1972. In 1991, Wal-Mart opened its first international store in Mexico City and has never looked back. As of this year, Wal-Mart has 8,446 store and club locations in 15 countries that serve more than 176 million customers every year (walmartstores.com)
Every company, even one as large as Wal-Mart, has strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Some of Wal-Mart’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, identified using information from their website, walmartstores.com, are the following:
Strengths
• Is a powerful retail brand. It has a reputation for value for money, convenience and a wide range of products all in one store. It has an established name brand that is identified with reasonable to cheap pricing and bargain pricing. Wal-Mart deals in all types of goods from clothing to electrical items, from jewelry to garden equipment and therefore caters to a wide range of individuals. Plus, it has a wide network of stores which makes it accessible to all types of individuals.
• Has grown substantially over recent years, and has experienced global expansion (for example its purchase of the United Kingdom based retailer ASDA).
• Has a core competence involving its use of information technology to support its international logistics system. For example, it can see how individual products are performing country-wide, store-by-store at a glance. IT also supports Wal-Mart 's efficient procurement.
• Has a focused strategy in place for human resource management and development. People are key to Wal-Mart 's business and it invests time and money in training people, and retaining and developing them. It also gives its people a stock ownership and profit sharing plan.
• Is able to buy in bulk and gain huge
Every company, even one as large as Wal-Mart, has strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Some of Wal-Mart’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, identified using information from their website, walmartstores.com, are the following:
Strengths
• Is a powerful retail brand. It has a reputation for value for money, convenience and a wide range of products all in one store. It has an established name brand that is identified with reasonable to cheap pricing and bargain pricing. Wal-Mart deals in all types of goods from clothing to electrical items, from jewelry to garden equipment and therefore caters to a wide range of individuals. Plus, it has a wide network of stores which makes it accessible to all types of individuals.
• Has grown substantially over recent years, and has experienced global expansion (for example its purchase of the United Kingdom based retailer ASDA).
• Has a core competence involving its use of information technology to support its international logistics system. For example, it can see how individual products are performing country-wide, store-by-store at a glance. IT also supports Wal-Mart 's efficient procurement.
• Has a focused strategy in place for human resource management and development. People are key to Wal-Mart 's business and it invests time and money in training people, and retaining and developing them. It also gives its people a stock ownership and profit sharing plan.
• Is able to buy in bulk and gain huge