MKT00720 Assignment: Analyzing Marketing Strategies of Two Companies

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the marketing strategies employed by Wal-Mart and Wesfarmers, two prominent companies in the retail sector. The introduction establishes the importance of marketing and its impact on business success, setting the stage for an examination of competitive advantages and marketing processes. The report analyzes Wal-Mart's strategies, including its 4 P's of marketing (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion) and its competitive advantages such as low pricing, Omni-channel knowledge and customer-centric approach. Furthermore, the report examines Wesfarmers' strategies, highlighting its cost leadership and differentiation leadership approaches. The analysis includes segmentation, targeting, and positioning strategies, emphasizing customer convenience, variety, and discounts. Both case studies provide insights into how these companies leverage marketing to achieve and maintain their market positions, with a focus on customer-centric approaches and competitive advantages. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the importance of customer-focused strategies for business success.

Marketing
Marketing
Student’s name
8/5/2019

Marketing 1
Introduction
Marketing, it is one of the techniques, which every businessperson adopts in order to engage and
attract more and more of customers. Other than this, it also helps the organization or the
companies to maintain their reputation in the market, an effective relationship in formed in
between the business and its customers. Not only this, it also helps the organization in boosting
sales and helps the business to grow at the faster pace. In other words, it is one of the easiest way
which carries various different ways through which business attract and gain from their
customers. Marketing also helps in educating current and the potential customers about the
business doings and how do they serve (Sutton-Brady, Taylor, & Kamvounias, 2017).
Case1
Wal-Mart, one of the well-known Australian companies who mainly operates a chain of
hypermarket, grocery stores, and the discounted departmental stores. By gaining success, now it
has become of the world’s largest company with the revenue over US$500 billion. Around 2.2
million employees’ works in the organization. Moreover, Wal-Mart always maintains its highest
position with its efficiency, strong logistic and supply chain management. The main aspect
behind its success is low pricing and thus, uses customer-centric approach to continue to be the
market leader (Courtemanche, Carden, Zhou, & Ndirangu, 2018) Hence, it is publicly traded
family-owned business. When considering marketing process and listing about the competitive
advantage Wal-Mart can be further explained through 4 P’s of marketing.
Product- Wal-Mart is a multi-brand store, which comprises of various products such as
electronics, furniture, movies, books, clothing’s, household materials, pharmacy, beauty, sports
and party. They also have departments according to the party seasons such as Halloween party
dresses and much more. Therefore, stores full of all those things under one roof which a
customer wants (Hisrich, & Ramadani, 2017).
Price- Wal-Mart product and it price is selected very competitively. They produce the product s
in a large quantity al around the world and hence to settle the customer base for the longer time,
keeps the prices low than its competitors. Almost around 15% less than the competitors price is

Marketing 2
one of the key strategy which Wal-Mart follows. Other than this, they also follow various other
pricing strategies depending on the buyers buying behavior (Galvin, 2017).
Place- Wal-Mart having 11500+ retail units in the world in around 28 nations, the distribution
approach includes the direct transfer to supplies. Other than this, Wal-Mart also uses hub and
spoke technique wherein the possessions are centrally well-ordered and then the products are
directly to the distinct stores. Wal-Mart, also comes up with new stores such as discounted
stores, Wal-Mart super centers, express stores and much more (Hisrich, & Ramadani, 2017).
Promotion- Wal-Mart promotion mix is composed through advertisements, sales promotion,
personal selling and public relations. The also promote in newspapers, televisions and websites.
The also apply discounted technique in order to attract more and more customers. Other than
this, in personal selling they hire sale personnel to persuade customer to try out new package and
deals. Thus, such technique of promotion helps Wal-Mart, improves the ability to attract
customers, and builds the companies brand reputation at large (Galvin, 2017).
Reason for competitive advantage, which leads to the success of the organization are-
Wal-Mart is one of the largest stores, and face the rivalry from amazon and the other stores, Wal-
Mart has prolonged its Omni- channel knowledge with online assembling and in store pickup.
Moreover, Wal-Mart also having low prices of the product, it also provides one stop
convenience, brand assortment, and additional services. Other than, this, Wal-Mart also having
broad financial services offerings in which it compromises the broadest groups of consumers’
monetary facilities as compared to the other major dealers in the same field. Lastly, Wal-Mart is
having a larger base of customers, which mainly buys the pet products in this they not only find
the pet product advantage but also is benefited in pricing aspect, opportuneness and brand
assortment were top concerns for customers (Alvarez-Milán, et al, 2018).
Case 2
Another company is we farmers which is one of the well-known company of Australia. It was
founded in 1917 and majorly deals in providing services and merchandise to the western
Australian farmers. It carries the diverse business operation such as supermarkets, liquor, hotels,
convenience stores, departmental stores and safety product and more. Hence, it is one of the

Marketing 3
Australia’s largest private stores in which around 220000 employees’ works within and
shareholders base is around 500000. The main aim behind this company is that they want to
contribute to the growth and the prosperity of the country by seeking many opportunities for
expansion and satisfying the customers’ needs by focusing on the competitive and professional
basis. Moreover, giving a strong emphasis over the protection of the environment and dealing
with honesty and dignity within and outside the company (Campbell, 2017).
Company competitive advantage in the marketing strategy of the Wes farmers-
As with the time, competition is increasing day by day for organization, hence, on this basis,
Wes farmers set their clear differentiation, which can provide edge against the rivals. By majorly
focusing on the unique selling propositions such as maintaining the highest quality, lower cost of
the products, and unique ideas for further success. Wesfarmers set a competitive advantage based
on cost leadership and differentiation leadership (Beaton-Wells, & Paul-Taylor, 2017).
Cost based competitive advantage- some aspects highlights that wesfarmers has already
developed the various capabilities in order to reduce the cost below the industry average and
finally leads to the achievement of the economies of scale and hence, this defines the success of
the wesfarmers.
They have also developed the strong and effective distribution channels, access the latest
technologies tools and helping the production department to carrying out the smooth workings.
Moreover, they are also using lean production methods and strong bargaining position when it
talks about the negotiation with their ultimate suppliers. Hence, all these aspects majorly
highlights about how wesfarmers maintaining it cost leadership by focusing on success (Jie, &
Gengatharen, 2019).
Differentiation based competitive advantage aspects highlights that wesfarmers majorly
focuses on maintaining the brand loyalty within the mind of the customers while offering the
premium products. Moreover, they also focus on reliability, durability, developing the brand
recognition and lastly by increasing applying marketing efforts like celebrity endorsements and
sponsorships. Hence, through this, wesfarmers set to achieve more competitive advantage by
focusing, more on service, customers, quality and innovation (Kilroy, & Schneider, 2017)

Marketing 4
Segmentation, targeting and positioning of wesfarmers- highlights that wesfarmers has
segmented itself in many stores, grocery shops, shoppers of automotive parts, shoppers of homes
and lifestyle products. All these are the source of being different in the market and leads to the
competitive advantage as compared to the other retail industries.
In targeting aspect, wesfarmers mainly target the customers who mainly seek convenience,
variety in the products, discounts and the services. As they want to serve various shoppers who
mainly seek for convenience, the company also targets those clienteles who mainly wait for the
heavy discounts, and other complementary services. Hence, this also highlights the competitive
advantage of the company as they mainly think for the customers benefits. Hence, such factors
highlights that wesfarmers is the customer centric.
Positioning- It is seen that wesfarmers deals in the various diverse products. Hence, the strength
related to this company highlights that they provide the customers the needed convenience while
shopping in an store. They also provide after sale services to the ultimate customers who visits
them on the regular basis. Other than this, the company is also famous for its performance and its
quality, which they deliver to their ultimate customers. Hence, such aspect generates the good
reputation in the minds of the customers regarding the product, which the company deals in, and
other benefits, which they provide to the customers (Bayne, Schepis, & Purchase, 2017).
Conclusion-
From the above report we can conclude that every companies success lies in the hands of the
company’s set competitive advantage technique. This report mainly highlights about the two
cases one of Wal-Mart and another is wesfarmers. Wal-Mart competitive advantage aspect
highlights that they apply Omni channel knowledge with online ordering and in store pickup.
They also have low pricing strategy and curbside services, which attracts more of customers, and
retain them for the longer period.
Other than this, wesfarmers is also one of the famous retail brands, which also applies the cost
leadership and the differentiated leadership aspects to attract more of customers such as in cost
they well bargain and negotiate with its suppliers and set margins for customers. In addition, in
differentiate leadership strategy they majorly focus on durability, reliability and quality of the

Marketing 5
product in order to target and attract more customers. Hence, both the companies make efforts to
retain their customers by applies various customer centric strategies.
References
Alvarez-Milán, A., Felix, R., Rauschnabel, P. A., & Hinsch, C. (2018) Strategic customer
engagement marketing: A decision making framework. Journal of Business Research, 92, 61-70.
Bayne, L., Schepis, D., & Purchase, S. (2017) A framework for understanding strategic network
performance: Exploring efficiency and effectiveness at the network level. Industrial Marketing
Management, 67, 134-147.
Beaton-Wells, C., & Paul-Taylor, J. (2017) Problematising supermarket–supplier relations: dual
perspectives of competition and fairness. Griffith Law Review, 26(1), 28-64.
Campbell, J. (2017). Insights from the company monitor: Wesfarmers. Equity, 31(8), 16.
Courtemanche, C., Carden, A., Zhou, X., & Ndirangu, M. (2018) Do Walmart supercenters
improve food security?. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 41(2), 177-198.
Galvin, D. (2017) Ibm and walmart: Blockchain for food safety. PowerPoint presentation.
Hisrich, R. D., & Ramadani, V. (2017) Entrepreneurial Marketing Mix. In Effective
Entrepreneurial Management (pp. 75-99). Springer, Cham.
Jie, F., & Gengatharen, D. (2019) Australian food retail supply chain analysis. Business Process
Management Journal, 25(2), 271-287.
Kilroy, D., & Schneider, M. (2017) Valuing the Current Strategy. In Customer Value,
Shareholder Wealth, Community Wellbeing (pp. 109-141). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Sutton-Brady, C., Taylor, T., & Kamvounias, P. (2017) Private label brands: a relationship
perspective. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 32(8), 1051-1061.