Walmart around the World
Walmart around the World
Question 1.
We assume you have already been familiar with Walmart's sources of competitive advantage in other classes or references. Could you summarize Walmart's competitive advantages in U.S. and its business model? We have studied before the supply chain of Walmart and how it led the success in America. We believe Walmart's success accounts its greatest portion for its excellent operational management, which is in other sense its competitive advantage. First of all, the business strategy of Walmart is "Every Day Low Price (EDLP strategy)", which attracts customers by offering the products with the lowest price. Its fuctional strategies are exceptionally well-aligned to EDLP. Thus their strategies are strategically fit. In terms of the supply chain, Walmart shows an efficient supply chain. It has relatively little variety of products (less customized), longer production lead-times, high set-up costs, and larger batch sizes that allow the firms to supply at a low unit cost. The six major drivers (facility, inventory, transportation, information, sourcing, and pricing) and their roles are also critical in creating this characteristic. For instance, Walmart has purchased and been operating its own logistics system (transportation driver), and could take advantages in terms of inventory costs. All the supply chain factors of Walmart mesh perfectly well together to lower its supply costs and thus enable the EDLP strategy.
Question 2.
Evaluate Walmart's globalization strategy over the last two decades. Where did Walmart struggle? Where did it do well? Can location characteristics explain the differences in Walmart performance? What are the location characteristics that affect its performance? Our team has summarized whether Walmart has struggled or succeeded in different countries (we scored them in a 5 points scale), and the characteristics of these locations on the table below. Some explanations are also followed by.
Question 1.
We assume you have already been familiar with Walmart's sources of competitive advantage in other classes or references. Could you summarize Walmart's competitive advantages in U.S. and its business model? We have studied before the supply chain of Walmart and how it led the success in America. We believe Walmart's success accounts its greatest portion for its excellent operational management, which is in other sense its competitive advantage. First of all, the business strategy of Walmart is "Every Day Low Price (EDLP strategy)", which attracts customers by offering the products with the lowest price. Its fuctional strategies are exceptionally well-aligned to EDLP. Thus their strategies are strategically fit. In terms of the supply chain, Walmart shows an efficient supply chain. It has relatively little variety of products (less customized), longer production lead-times, high set-up costs, and larger batch sizes that allow the firms to supply at a low unit cost. The six major drivers (facility, inventory, transportation, information, sourcing, and pricing) and their roles are also critical in creating this characteristic. For instance, Walmart has purchased and been operating its own logistics system (transportation driver), and could take advantages in terms of inventory costs. All the supply chain factors of Walmart mesh perfectly well together to lower its supply costs and thus enable the EDLP strategy.
Question 2.
Evaluate Walmart's globalization strategy over the last two decades. Where did Walmart struggle? Where did it do well? Can location characteristics explain the differences in Walmart performance? What are the location characteristics that affect its performance? Our team has summarized whether Walmart has struggled or succeeded in different countries (we scored them in a 5 points scale), and the characteristics of these locations on the table below. Some explanations are also followed by.