Economics Assignment: Analysis of Production, Consumption, and Walmart

This economics assignment examines production and consumption through the lens of the FIFA World Cup 2018 and the Ultra-Music Festival 2017, highlighting security challenges and attendance issues. The assignment then analyzes Walmart's success, attributing it to its low-price strategy, economies of scale, and cost minimization, emphasizing the role of its founder, Sam Walton. The assignment also touches upon the challenges and successes observed in the events from a consumption perspective. The analysis explores how these factors have contributed to Walmart's competitive advantage and market dominance. The assignment uses references to support its arguments.

ECONOMICS ASSIGNMENT 1
ECONOMICS ASSIGNMENT
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ECONOMICS ASSIGNMENT 2
PRODUCTION CHALLENGES
Among many FIFA world cup events in the past 2018 event presented the event
organizers with security headaches and which were related to event participants, total number of
venues, and a chance for terrorists’ to achieve global media coverage. Security was also variable
at different venues and which called for improvised techniques other than the usual bag searches
and metal detector gates used in Russian (Pshenichnaya, Petersen, Patel, Gautret and
Schlagenhauf, 2018). The organizers were also forced to involve FSB security intelligence who
took part in inspecting supporters’ credentials and tracking people of interest from the Caucasus,
especially in Chechnya. This security challenge has been attributed to the brutal suppression of
Chechen independence by Russian and which has led to an enduring security problem in the
country.
Similar to FIFA world cup 2018 security challenge, ultra-music festival 2017 posed the
same challenge to the event organizers. This was especially due to the previous event of 2014 in
Miami which had been faced with a security challenge (Lund, and Turris, 2017, p.440). During
the event of 2014, the festival was even called to an end unexpectedly by the Miami Mayor after
ticketless crowd forced their way in through the fence and trampled the security guard who was
on duty leaving her under critical conditions. So, to prevent recurrence of such an event, the
organizers were forced to hire more security guards.
CONSUMPTION
Considering these two events from the consumption point of view, the main challenge
which faced FIFA world cup 2018 was the reduced attendance compared to the previous year’s

ECONOMICS ASSIGNMENT 3
attendance (Zeileis, Leitner and Hornik, 2018). This was attributed to the insecurity tensions in
the country. On the side of ultra-music festival 2017, the main challenge which faced the event
on consumption perspective was the low attendance. However unlike in FIFA world cup 2018,
the low turnout in this event was due to the previous year’s experiences by the consumers and
where there have not been metonymy moments and making the event to be boring (Lund, and
Turris, 2017, p.437)
PRODUCTION (WHAT DRIVES WALMART)
From its staggering phase, the current success as observed in this company can be
directly linked with the initial approach by its founder Sam Walton, who after launching the first
five dime store in the year 1950 kept his focus mainly on keeping the prices as low as possible.
This strategy has been backed up by another key factor which has enabled the organization gain
a competitive advantage: scale/ volume (Leuprecht and Sokolsky, 2015). Through the high
volumes of sales by the organization, it manages to make up for its slimmer margins compared to
the competitors. As time elapses, the organizational operation volumes have permitted it to enjoy
economies of scale and a high bargaining power that has enabled it to remake both the retail
landscape and supply sector to suit its unique schemes.
Its success has also been attributed to the minimization of operational costs as observed
from its founder Sam Walton who kept tight fist and pinched all his pennies. As it has been noted
in the history of this organization, Sam Walton did not adopt a fancy lifestyle even after the
company had begun to show success, he kept using his old pickup truck and could share low
budget hotel rooms when on business trips (Spicer and Hyatt, 2017). This culture has been kept
in this company up to date.

ECONOMICS ASSIGNMENT 4
Through this initial model of low prices, leveraging at large scale and maintaining
minimal operational costs, the company has seen wider spread of operations and which have
enabled the company to acquire more clout to provide lower prices at larger scale and also less
costs. Through this mercenary monster approach, the company has built its success.
References
Leuprecht, C. and Sokolsky, J.J., 2015. Defense Policy “Walmart Style” Canadian Lessons in
“not-so-grand” Grand Strategy. Armed Forces & Society, 41(3), pp.541-562.
Lund, A. and Turris, S., 2017. The event chain of survival in the context of music festivals: a
framework for improving outcomes at major planned events. Prehospital and disaster
medicine, 32(4), pp.437-443.
Pshenichnaya, N., Petersen, E., Patel, D., Gautret, P. and Schlagenhauf, P., 2018. Football fever
in Russia: Infectious disease risks and the FIFA world cup 2018.
Spicer, A. and Hyatt, D., 2017. Walmart’s emergent low-cost sustainable product
strategy. California Management Review, 59(2), pp.116-141.
Zeileis, A., Leitner, C. and Hornik, K., 2018. Probabilistic forecasts for the 2018 FIFA World
Cup based on the bookmaker consensus model (No. 2018-09).