Portfolio of Strategic Planning and Personal Reflection

This portfolio explores the concept of strategic planning and personal reflection. It discusses the performance evaluation and strategic plan of Walmart, a leading retail company. It also highlights the importance of strategic planning in achieving company goals and objectives. Additionally, it provides insights for career development in the field of entrepreneurship.

Portfolio of Strategic
planning and
personal reflection

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...........................................................................................................................................3
Performance evaluation for Walmart:...............................................................................................3
Strategic plan of the company...........................................................................................................5
Learning from the report and career development...........................................................................8
CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................................8
REFRENCES............................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Strategic planning is one of the important tools for reaching vision of a
company. These are the long term plans which frame outlines or a roadmap for a
company to achieve its mission in alignment with values. These are the
guidelines which provide direction to accomplish goals and objectives. Strategic
planning is a process of framing long term goals and setting of objectives to
reach the desired destination of a company in 5 years and more (Austin and
Pinkleton, 2015). Thus, it helps in filling gap between actual positions to the
desired position of a company. Also, it helps in formulating various short term
goals and action plans as well as functional goals which help in achieving
common goal of a company. It helps in allocating resources and strengthens
operation which leads to identify competitive advantage for a company. Walmart
is an American multinational corporation in retail industry which operates
different chains across the world. It serves vast number of products in different
categories of consumer goods. This report includes the evaluation of company’s
performance and strategic plan for competitive advantage and value chain.
MAIN BODY
Performance evaluation for Walmart:
Walmart is one of the largest company in retail sector in the world which
leads the industry with its core price leadership strategy. It has been working on
various costs and pricing strategy to provide low price products which helps
customers in saving money. It has a dominating market position in the consumer
retail industry. It has various competitive strengths which help in differentiating
with its competitors. It works on integrating e-commerce platforms with its retail
stores to provide customer centric experience. This is achieved by implementing
innovative strategies and creating unique customer experience. It serves large
number of customers in different countries with vast number of stores and e-
commerce websites. Company focuses on leading its services with quality
assortment of goods to earn valuable trust and loyalty from customers. It
provides accessibility and availability of retail goods with the help of robust
supply and distribution channels (Barati-Stec, 2015) . It has been operating
different stores to serve customers in most convenient and efficient manner.
These stores include hypermarkets, discount department chains and grocery
stores in various countries. Thus, company operates with excellent and robust

value chain which helps in providing quality goods and assortment. It uses value
chain activities such as primary and support which further helps the company to
increase its profit margins. These activities are core in achieving revenue, profits
and overall performance of the company. These are consist of following major
activities-
Primary activities- These are the fundamental foundation activities of a
company which helps in serving customers and creating value. These include
inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and
services etc. These are essential activities which includes primary operational
activities for serving customers in effective manner. It also helps in attracting
customers and promoting activities for spreading information. Following are the
activities included in developing value:
Inbound Logistics- These are internal logistic activities which further
helps in creating value for goods and services (Berger, 2020). It includes
suppliers, procurement of raw materials, storage, billing and maintaining of
accounts etc. The company incurs very low cost which is half of industry
average.
Operations- In this operation timing is included which provides
availability of services and employability of working hours. The company
operates all the weeks with 9 to 9 working hours. This helps in accessibility of
goods to its customers and developing trustworthy image in the minds of
customers.
Outbound Logistics- In this all the external activities are involved such
as agents, distributors and transportation of goods etc. These outbound logistics
have helped the company in building strong presence of distribution centres.
Also, it helps customers to experience great satisfaction level with savings from
discounted centres. Company operates in providing low cost products at
delivering great value.
Marketing sales- In this company uses marketing tools and techniques
to build strategies for attracting large number of customers. Company generates
profits from economies of scale which helps in earning small profit margin on
selling large number of goods. It works on everyday low price philosophy or
always low price, cash and curry etc.
Service- It provides customers quick services in resolving their queries
and provides no question asked policy on exchange or returning of goods. Thus,
it helps company to maintain customer loyalty by serving effectively.

Strategic plan of the company
Strategic plan includes the formulation and implementation of the major
goals and initiatives taken by the company’s top management on behalf of the
owner of the company. And that plan help the other peer members of the
company to achieve the objective easily. Walmart is one of the largest retailer
company in terms of revenue and market sharing in US (Carpenter, 2019). With
the millions of employees, the company set the appropriate example by the
company to effective human resource management. From its foundation to now
the company set a standard with good financial strategies to achieve its current
financial positions.
Mission and Vision of the company
Walmart’s company mission and vision is define the general principal of
the company. It means company’s success is linked with its mission and
objective. In the way which company follow the strategic policies it will take to
the growth of the company in such a short period of time? Its mission is “to save
the customers money so that they can live a better life”. For completing this
mission they adopted lowest pricing strategies in the market.
SMART Objective
Its smart objective is to expand their business at global level within
upcoming financial year and hold up the global market at approx. 40% from the
targeted customers (Ginter, Duncan and Swayne, 2018).
Also they are approaching to the sustainability mission to enhance the
operations by reducing greenhouse gas emission in the market by producing less
pollution and also help in reducing the waste from the production house and
reuse the waste in again in the production line.
Porter’s five forces
Walmart are the leading company in the US retail industry with their
lowest price strategies and large assortment of merchandise and services. While
the US retail companies are marked up by the heavy market competitors, digital
growth and better economic activities in the country (Mosadeghrad, Ebneshahidi

and Abdolmohammadi, 2018) .For further analysis of porter’s five forces are
explained below:
 Bargaining Power of suppliers: The Bargaining power of the suppliers
in the US is very low. As the big brands like Walmart are purchasing the
raw material in the bulk and they are able to compress the supplier for
lower the price. So the suppliers bargaining power is very low as supplier
do not hold the any major clot with any company in US. There are more
than one lakh small and big business which are the actual suppliers of
Walmart. Furthermore the suppliers are follow the rules which are set by
the companies.
 Bargaining power of buyers: In the 21st century the control of the
market is in the hand of the buyers. And retail brands are doing everything
which can satisfied the customers with happy mind. Apart from the lower
price strategies the company like Walmart also give efforts on better
customer’s services and leveraging technology to provide a better service
to the customers and personalised the experience. Well after all these
there are some factors which can affect the business of US are brand
image, low prices, quality products and services that provides the higher
level of customers service and this may affect the business of Walmart.
Threats of substitute Products: The threats of the substitute products
are very high for the company like Walmart (Moutinho and Vargas-Sanchez,
2018). This may moderate in the case of Walmart as they have their own brand
image in the customers, and the company can easily enjoy the competitive
advantage from the competitors of the company.
 Threats of the new market: The threats of the new entrant is moderate
in the US market as they are actually not required the large amount of
capital for a new company to enter in the industry. However, in the case of
bigger brand like Walmart, the threat is too low, because the high level of
the loyalty that the company is enjoyed with the international presence.
So it can be concluded that overall threat is moderate for the company.
Level of competitive rivalry: The level of competitive rivalry is very
high as there are lots of influencer and financially strong players who can easily
influence the customer’s decision in the market. The companies like Kroger’s,
amazon etc. are the appropriate examples of the competitive rivalry in the US

market (Oliveira, 2016). The overall competitive rivalry is highly intense in the
terms of retail markets.
Walmart’s long term objective
One of the important long term objective of Walmart is to make 20
sustainable commodities by 2025. By accomplishing zero waste production,
continue working with the reusing of the waste and work with the suppliers
and customers to prevent the products and material so that it can help in
more circular motion in the economy.
Walmart’s generic strategy and intensive strategies
In the context of porter’s generic strategies Walmart use the cost
leadership strategy. This help the company to minimize the cost of the
company to achieve the financial advantage of the company. These include
the profit maximisation and attractive selling price of the company in the
context of retailer markets. However the company need to apply the different
measures to reduce the cost and effective application of the company plan
and its implementation. Walmart’s generic models directly affect the business
mission and vision statements in term of the using low price and becoming
the shopping destination for the customers and completing their basic needs.
In the context of Ansoff’s growth matrix, Walmart main intensive
technique is market penetration. In the growing market demand this help in
selling more products to consumers in accordance with the company’s current
market Other intensive strategy is the market penetration which have the most
significant influencer for the company’s growth in the overall market industry. All
these strategies are clear and concise in the term of customers and company’s
management team (Terziev, Georgiev and Georgiev, 2017). For example:
Walmart’s main objective is to selling more goods to the consumers who are
using online goods. The company strategies to grow its revenue through online
sales, considering e-commerce environment at their priority. And a positive way
to enlarging its mission by taking the measureable information regarding its
stakeholders, such as CEO, Employees, Government, Valuable customers and
other shareholders of the company. So for following the recommendation aims
and mission must be holistic.

Learning from the report and career development
From this report on portfolio of strategic planning, I have come across to
various insights for enhancing core learning in strategic planning of Walmart. It
has helped in developing and building strategies for achieving goals aligned with
mission and vision of a company. In framing strategies it is necessary to
establish various goals and objectives of a company with long term view. It is
important to analyse the internal and external market of a company. In this I
have develop and gain knowledge of various e learning platforms and student
interactive activities which has contributed in completing this project. I have
developed an outlook on how large companies manage their operations on a
large scale. It has helped me in developing my career in entrepreneurship
involving various activities (Vecchiato, 2015). Thus, it can be said that I have
personally reflected various areas in operating a successful business. It is
achieved with the core analysis of various models and tools which help in
understanding value creation activities. Also, it has helped me in developing
insights for planning process with the usage of various models, analysis and tools
etc. I have enhanced my knowledge in core strategic planning which will help me
in developing my own career and choosing the right business area.
CONCLUSION
From this report it can be concluded that strategic planning plays an
important role in achieving overall success by the company. Portfolio
development for strategic planning helps in providing an overview and directing
all the other activities in a company. It helps in developing guidance and a path
to achieve desired destination by the company. Thus, strategic planning is a long
term futuristic view aligned with the mission, vision and values of a company. It
has helped in developing personal reflection by gaining insights from
development of strategic plan for Walmart.

REFRENCES
Books and Journals
Austin, E. W. and Pinkleton, B. E., 2015. Strategic public relations management:
Planning and managing effective communication campaigns. Routledge.
Barati-Stec, I., 2015. Strategic planning in Hungarian
municipalities. Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences. 11(SI).
pp.5-14.
Berger, C. R., 2020. Planning strategic interaction: Attaining goals through
communicative action. Routledge.
Carpenter, R. A., 2019. The Effects of Executive Leadership on Higher Education
Strategic Planning (Doctoral dissertation, University of South Alabama).
Ginter, P. M., Duncan, W. J. and Swayne, L. E., 2018. The strategic management
of health care organizations. John Wiley & Sons.
Mosadeghrad, A. M., Ebneshahidi, A. and Abdolmohammadi, N., 2018. The
impact of strategic planning on hospital efficiency: A case study. Journal
of Health Based Research. 4(3). pp.317-334.
Moutinho, L. and Vargas-Sanchez, A. eds., 2018. Strategic Management in
Tourism, CABI Tourism Texts. Cabi.
Oliveira, E., 2016. Place branding as a strategic spatial planning
instrument. Journal of Place Management and Development.
Terziev, V. K., Georgiev, G.A. and Georgiev, M.P., 2017. Strategic concept of the
company. In World scientific expanse (pp. 329-335).
Vecchiato, R., 2015. Creating value through foresight: First mover advantages
and strategic agility. Technological Forecasting and Social Change. 101.
pp.25-36.