Strategic Planning Report: Wal-Mart's Market Strategies

This report provides a detailed analysis of Wal-Mart's strategic planning, examining its evolution as a low-cost retail giant. It begins with a summarization of Wal-Mart's business model, highlighting its focus on 'Everyday Low Prices' and its expansion across numerous countries. The report then delves into the competitive landscape, identifying key rivals like Costco and Target and the challenges Wal-Mart faces in maintaining its market share. The core of the report focuses on strategic planning, proposing modifications to store layouts, the adoption of advanced promotional strategies, and operational improvements such as Activity Based Costing (ABC) to eliminate non-value-added activities. The conclusion emphasizes the need for Wal-Mart to adapt and evolve its strategies to counter external threats and maintain its competitive advantage in the retail market. The report also provides references to support the analysis.

Running head: STRATEGIC PLANNING
Strategic Planning
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Summarization of the Case Scenario...............................................................................................2
Strategic Planning for Wal-Mart to capture more market...............................................................4
Other Strategies...............................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
The structured strategic planning of the business develops the sustainable future with the
development of the more advanced work functionalities. The concept of strategic planning
develops the understanding regarding the systematic approaches for the suitable functions1. The
study would explore the case scenario of Wal-Mart strategic planning process. The obtained idea
from the case study summarization would provide the insights of the more effective strategic
planning of the company in future. The preferable recommendations based on the fruitful
strategy development would be discussed in this study.
Summarization of the Case Scenario
Wal-Mart is the largest low cost retail company that has been offering the high quality
retail products at a reasonable price. Starting from the establishment in the year of 1962, the
company has been widely focusing on the continuous growth by maintaining their mantra
“Everyday Low Prices”. The company has gained almost $475 billion revenues by establishing
11,000 stores in almost 27 countries. Associated with almost 2.2 million employees, the
company is establishing the future vision of developing sustainable future in the competitive
business scenario. Wal-Mart has been facing direct competition with Costco and Target, which
already gained almost 11.8% and 11% market share respectively. Sam Walton, founder of the
company, has set the vision to generate more revenues to secure the competitive edge. The
company continued providing discounts on sales in small towns in rural America to make the
stores accessible to the people living in these areas. The people with lower income rate can also
1 Porter, Michael E., and Mark R. Kramer. "Creating shared value." Managing Sustainable Business. Springer,
Dordrecht, 2019. 327-350.

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afford the retail products to the extreme lower price. Wal-Mart established the competitive edge
by offering the people considerable discounts to the people in small towns and gathering
adequate supports, which helped in establishing the larger customer base. Furthermore, the
company concentrated on bringing innovation in the information system, human resource, and
logistics process. This innovation based functions established within the internal management of
Wal-Mart resulted higher profitability with a lower cost in compare to the rivals. In fact, the
company is using the most advanced technology called bar-code, which helps in keeping the
track of the business operations.
In signifying the development in the human resource process, Walton started the reward
and recognition process that would pay respects to the employees for their contribution towards
the organisation. He even established the profit sharing plan for the employees that allowed them
to purchase any product of this brand with a considerable discount price. In keeping pace with
the growth, the suppliers even received benefits from this company to keep the prices lower. It
eventually enabled the process of gaining efficiencies by configuring the production house and
increasing sales. Wal-Mart captured the largest position as the general merchandise in United
States by the year of 1990. The diversification brought to the grocery business helped in
increasing the revenue in foreign countries. However, Wal-Mart is now in countering Real limits
to ensure profitability. The company was forced to exit South Korea and Germany, which
brought many difficulties tow service on the other hand the continuous growth of the Rival
companies like Target and Costco imposing the considerable straight for the upcoming future.

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Strategic Planning for Wal-Mart to capture more market
In spite of having some of the specific strategic changes, it has been observed that Wal-
Mart needs to adopt some of the competitive strategies to established that strengthen position in
current advanced scenario. The direct competition with Costco and Target has been quite
challenging in terms of establishing the high end strategic vision2. It is true that Wal-Mart
has strengthened the competitive position by keeping the prices low and making the products
accessible to the people from middle and lower income group3. However, in order to retain the
position in the competitive market and deal with the external competitors, the company requires
adopting more efficient strategies that can help in achieving success more specifically. Firstly,
the company needs to make modifications in establishing the store layout as well as the shelves
for the apparel section. It would help the customers to identify the products as per their needs
whenever they walk through the store. The customized section would provide them the necessary
products based on their preferences.
Another segment on which the company requires focusing on is the identification of the
remarkable promotional strategy. It has been observed that the establishment of the effective
promotional strategy by using advanced technologies has become the key to success for many of
the organisations4. Wal-Mart can also adopt of such promotional strategy that can strengthen the
brand image and create the competitive edge for the longer term. It thus can be recommended
2 Seenivasan, Satheesh, and Debabrata Talukdar. "Competitive effects of Wal-Mart supercenter entry: Moderating
roles of category and brand characteristics." Journal of Retailing 92.2 (2016): 218-225.
3 Bloom, J. Dara, and C. Clare Hinrichs. "The long reach of lean retailing: Firm embeddedness and Wal-Mart’s
implementation of local produce sourcing in the US." Environment and Planning A 49.1 (2017): 168-185.
4 Carré, Françoise, Chris Tilly, and Lauren Appelbaum. "Competitive Strategies and Worker Outcomes in the US
Retail Industry." Members-only Library (2014).

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that Walmart needs to develop the eye-catching advertisements to attract larger number of
customers towards the product.
Other Strategies
Apart from such initiatives, it is essential to understand the basic needs of others
strategies, which can help the company to grow in a competitive scenario. Wal-Mart needs to
concentrate on modifying the operational process of apparel products in a more efficient way.
On the other hand, adopting a new system called Activity Based Costing (ABC) would help the
company to identify the capital, which is being wasted by developing non-value added
activities5. For example, the costs of storing raw materials as well as the cost of receiving
inventories are such non-value added activities that are needed to be reduced. It would help the
company to save the capital amount and invest into other profitable areas.
Conclusion
The study discusses about low-cost strategy maintained by Wal-Mart to become the
leading retail organisation in a competitive market. In spite of being the largest the low-cost
retailer in market, the company requires identifying the external threats receiving from the
market competitors like Costco and Target. It is important for the company to identify the major
operational areas that need more modifications to strengthen the sustainable position for a longer
period. On the other hand, cutting down the costs from the non value added services would help
the company to develop more profitable products that can help in achieving competitive
advantage
5 Brea‐Solís, Humberto, Ramon Casadesus‐Masanell, and Emili Grifell‐Tatjé. "Business model evaluation:
quantifying Walmart's sources of advantage." Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal 9.1 (2015): 12-33.

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References
Bloom, J. Dara, and C. Clare Hinrichs. "The long reach of lean retailing: Firm embeddedness
and Wal-Mart’s implementation of local produce sourcing in the US." Environment and
Planning A 49.1 (2017): 168-185.
Brea‐Solís, Humberto, Ramon Casadesus‐Masanell, and Emili Grifell‐Tatjé. "Business model
evaluation: quantifying Walmart's sources of advantage." Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal 9.1
(2015): 12-33.
Carey, Michael Lawrence, et al. "Personal Merchandise Cataloguing System with Item Tracking
and Social Network Functionality." U.S. Patent Application No. 13/962,081.
Carré, Françoise, Chris Tilly, and Lauren Appelbaum. "Competitive Strategies and Worker
Outcomes in the US Retail Industry." Members-only Library (2014).
Foster, Lucia, et al. "The evolution of national retail chains: how we got here." (2015).
Nagle, Thomas T., John Hogan, and Joseph Zale. The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: New
International Edition. Routledge, 2016.
Porter, Michael E., and Mark R. Kramer. "Creating shared value." Managing Sustainable
Business. Springer, Dordrecht, 2019. 327-350.

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Seenivasan, Satheesh, and Debabrata Talukdar. "Competitive effects of Wal-Mart supercenter
entry: Moderating roles of category and brand characteristics." Journal of Retailing 92.2 (2016):
218-225.