Strategic Business Planning: An Analysis of Wal-Mart's Strategies

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Wal-Mart's business strategy. It begins with an introduction to strategic planning, discussing how missions, visions, objectives, goals, and core competencies inform the process. The report then delves into an organizational audit of Wal-Mart, assessing its strategic positioning. An environmental audit is conducted using PESTEL and Porter's five forces analysis to evaluate external factors. The role of stakeholder analysis in formulating new strategies is also examined. The report explores alternative strategies, analyzing their appropriateness, and justifies the chosen strategy for Wal-Mart. It further discusses the roles and responsibilities of personnel in strategy implementation, analyzes resource requirements, and highlights the contribution of SMART targets. The report emphasizes Wal-Mart's cost leadership strategy, its mission to save people money, and the importance of effective strategic planning for success in the retail industry. The analysis covers various techniques, including SWOT, PESTEL, STEER, and EPISTEL analyses, to provide a complete overview of Wal-Mart's strategic approach.

Business Strategy

Business Strategy........................................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1...................................................................................................................................................3
1.1 How business missions, visions, objectives, goals and core competencies inform strategic
planning...............................................................................................................................................3
1.2 Factors that organization need to consider when formulating strategic plans................................4
1.3 Techniques used when developing strategic business plans...........................................................4
TASK 2...................................................................................................................................................5
2.1 Strategic positioning of Wal-Mart by carrying out an organizational audit...................................5
2.2 Environmental audit for Wal-Mart using PESTEL and Porter’s five forces analysis.....................5
2.3 Role of stakeholder analysis in formulating new strategies for organization.................................6
TASK 3...................................................................................................................................................7
3.1 Alternative strategies and analysis of appropriateness of any one strategy....................................7
3.2Justification of chosen strategy for Wal-Mart in detail...................................................................7
TASK 4...................................................................................................................................................8
4.1 Roles and responsibilities of personnel who are responsible for implementation of a strategy......8
4.2 Analysis of resource requirements for implementing new strategy................................................8
4.3 Contribution of SMART targets to the achievement of strategy implementation..........................9
Conclusions.................................................................................................................................................9
References.................................................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
A business strategy is the complete pre-planning of business in order to achieve the
desired objectives for the success of organization. For a firm like Wal-Mart Stores which is a
leading name in retail business it is crucial to have effective strategies to attain the success and
that is why Wal-Mart generic strategies are based on Porter’s Model of cost leadership. Thus, the
firm focuses on low prices of products. This study provide with the opportunity to demonstrate
the understanding of strategic planning of learners. Further, this study answers how business
missions, visions, goals and core competencies inform strategic plan. Moreover, implementation
of appropriate strategy in context to the Wal-Mart Stores will be evaluated.
TASK 1
1.1 How business missions, visions, objectives, goals and core competencies inform strategic
planning
For making effective strategy, it is essential to have a mission to work effectively
and on the success path. Mission keeps organization encouraged and motivated for
attaining growth. It the basic aim of an organization (Grover, and Kohli, 2013). Wal-
Mart’s mission statement is-“Saving people money so they can live better”. Company’s
slogan also says the same thing “Save money. Live better.” And the low price of product
proves the first part of this slogan perfectly. However, competitors always claimed their
low price products to be cheap and also, there are criticism on Wal-Mart’s very low
wages that are barely enough for employees to make ends meet.
Vision statements are created on the basis of long time organizational aims and
future functioning. Wal-Mart’s vision statement is-“To be the best retailer in the hearts
and minds of consumers and employees.” Wal-Mart proved the half of its vision
statement by becoming the best retailers in hearts and minds of consumers but the low
wages to employees is still a factor to work on.
Most of the people are confuse between goals and objective and take them both
equally but they are measurably different to each other as objective is the measure of
progress of organization where as a goal is the details of position. Objectives are the steps
of attaining goal (Mithas, Tafti, and Mitchell, 2013).
A Core competency is one of the most crucial parts of organizational growth and
success, as it gives competitiveness over other companies. Healthy competitions lead to
rapid success (Hoffman and Woody, 2013). It acts as cross functional business process
which measures cost, time, quality and results.

1.2 Factors that organization need to consider when formulating strategic plans
Strategic planning is very important for an organization to attain success as it shows the
correct and effective path of growth to the organization. But there are some issues associated
with proper strategic planning and these issues must be resolve properly.
It is necessary for an organization to consider every employee’s opinion in decision-
making process to avoid rising of ego issues among workforce of the organization. High
level authorities should involve lower level workforce in company’s strategies. Also, the
internal and external environment of the company should be scanned by organization, and
resolves the issues, if any (Al-Mudimigh, 2015). They should figure out why these issues are
important and what will be their positive and negative impact over the organization. It is also
necessary to find out the priority of raised issues to be solved and strategic planning should
be done to resolve them according to the priorities.
1.3 Techniques used when developing strategic business plans
There are different techniques for effective business planning and these techniques
enhance the growth rate of company and thus, success will be achieved (Peteraf, Gamble, and
Thompson Jr 2014). Depending on the various theories there are number of planning techniques
and some of them are explained below:
1. SWOT Analysis- This analyses the strength, weakness, opportunities and threat
factors of organization. These factors are really helpful to a greater extent for
effective business planning. As with the complete knowledge of SWOT any
organization can find where it is standing and on which factors it should work. Also,
it determines the growth opportunities coming to the organization and how to pick
them wisely.
2. PESTEL Analysis- This technique involves various factors affecting the organization
and how to deal with them properly can be determined easily with the help of
PESTEL analysis. This analysis includes the political, economical, social, ecological
and legal factors associated with the organizational growth.
3. STEER Analysis- This involves analysis of socio-cultural, technological, economic,
ecological and regulatory factors of organization.
4. EPISTEL Analysis- EPISTEL analyzes environment, political, informatics, social,
technological, economical and legal factors associated with firm.
All of the above techniques of strategic planning are very helpful in development
of organization. These techniques give the entire idea of organization’s operation and
functioning.

TASK 2
2.1 Strategic positioning of Wal-Mart by carrying out an organizational audit
Wal-Mart is founded in year 1962 in Arkansas and in current scenario, it is fastest
growing retail organization in the world and at present time, it is at top in retail business. They
are really doing a profitable business. In terms of revenue too, Wal-Mart is largest retailer in the
world. Wal-Mart’s annual revenues have exceeded $485 billion in the fiscal year ending in 2015.
The credit of this success goes to the effective vision and mission strategies of firm. Also, by
keeping the price of products low, Wal-Mart becomes successful in maintaining its place in
customers’ hearts.
Wal-Mart is getting popularity day by day for its low prices and good quality of product.
The present internal and external environmental factors of the organization at the present time
are quite up to the mark. The supply chain management system, financial status, economical
condition and availability of Wal-Mart are quite impressive. Wal-Mart has become great brand
image in retail business because of its low price products. Their main aim is to provide quality
with low price to chase all the competitive companies. They majorly aim on product
development and innovation. The effective strategies of mission and vision and their completion
make them a leading name in retail business. Also, the good relations between high level
authority and employees help in attaining those strategies. These strategies are spread by
managers among all employees to attain the goals by working together to achieve organizational
success (Rothaermel, 2015).
2.2 Environmental audit for Wal-Mart using PESTEL and Porter’s five forces analysis
There are many internal and external factors which influence the working of an
organization. The environmental audit of Wal-Mart can be done using PESTEL analysis or
Porter’s five forces analysis.
PESTEL Analysis- It is a strategic analytic tool and the acronym stands for political, economic,
social, technological, environmental and legal factors. These factors impact the long-term growth
prospects. These factors role on Wal-Mart is as follows:
Political Factors- Wal-Mart is a large organization, hence it is important for the US economy and
consequently Wal-Mart has been observed to interfere with politics a number of times. In 2013
government stated that Wal-Mart is convincing its employees to make political contributions to
republicans to support pro-business conservatives like Cruz and Boehner. Wal-Mart’s political
spending is vastly increased since last two decades. Also, it spends in various government
campaigns and lobbying activities. Wal-Mart also took part in some political debates. Wal-Mart
also influenced political stability of its existing places.
Economic Factors- Direct and indirect economic factors highly influenced the revenues and
profits. In case of Wal-Mart, its sales are increased to 2.4 per cent in year 2015. Also, revenues
largely depend on cost of labor and Wal-Mart has been criticized for low wages.

Social Factors- This factor highly influence the consumer perception. Wal-Mart gives
opportunity to healthy lifestyle. Also, the company can increase its array of healthful products.
Further, increase in variety of products will be helpful to fulfill the increasing customer demand.
Technological Factors- Wal-Mart needs to apply new technological trends. These technologies
will increase the opportunity of business automation. Also by increasing mobile device usage
among customers will help in boosting up of business by boosting its online presence and this
will enhance the Wal-Mart’s revenue.
Environmental Factors- Environmental conservation is now a popular principle to be followed by
each and every organization. Sustainability is all that which is required nowadays and to attain
this operational efficiency should be improved (Higgins, Omer and Phillips,2015).
Legal Factors- Legal external factors in Wal-Mart’s macro environment are: food safety
regulations, employment regulations, tax law reform and etc.
Porter’s five forces analysis: Wal-Mart needs to develop strategies to deal with external
environmental factors like bargaining power of suppliers and buyers. Effective strategies to deal
with different threats oriented with business should be made. And to ensure long-term viability
Porter’s five force analysis is applied. Threats of Wal-Mart based on five force analysis of
Porter:
 Strong competitions or rivalry
 Weak bargaining power of buyers
 Weak bargaining power of suppliers
 Threat of substitution
 Threat of new entrants
2.3 Role of stakeholder analysis in formulating new strategies for organization
Stakeholder can be a person or an organization and both can reflect positive or negative
attitude. This analysis states the attitude of stakeholder towards something. This analysis takes
place in preparation phase of a project to analyze the attitudes of the workforce. This should be
done time to time to assess the attitude of the stakeholders. The attitude of stakeholders has great
impact over an organization and on government too. There are different types of stakeholder
which impact the strategies of a organization (Blackburn, Hart, and Wainwright, 2013). The
crucial objective of this analysis is to develop co-ordination among the operational team and
stakeholders to attain successful outcomes. Before predicting any outcome and before starting a
new project it is essential to develop cooperation between teams and stakeholders. For attaining
success it is important to have idea of all the stakeholders.

TASK 3
3.1 Alternative strategies and analysis of appropriateness of any one strategy
For attaining the desired goals in order to achieve success there are various alternative
strategies any by following these strategies goals can be achieved. These alternative strategies
are limited growth strategy, substantive growth strategy and retrenchment (Scholes,2015).
1. Limited Growth- Market penetration, market development and product development are
the main factors of limited growth strategy and by maintaining these factors limited
growth of an organization can be achieved. Combination of various limited growth
strategies is effective for growth of organization.
2. Substantive Growth- Substantive growth is often applied through acquisition, merger or
joint venture. This section looks the entire vertical and horizontal integrations. There are
following substantive growth strategies- franchising, horizontal integration, and vertical
integration and out of them franchising is widely exercised strategy for Wal-
Mart(Woerner and Wixom, 2015).
3. Retrenchment- Because of some unsuccessful phase in business companies have to
suppress their scale of business and area of the business activities, this cutting down of
market scale is retrenchment. This generally occurs due to economic recession, market
reduction, unsuccessful takeovers and poor competitions.
The most appropriate strategy in context o Wal-Mart is limited growth strategy as
the all Wal-Mart need is effective market penetration and market development to assess
the success.
3.2Justification of chosen strategy for Wal-Mart in detail
Wal-Mart is doing great in retail business but is not up to the company’s expectations. Their
growth rate is good but not tremendous thus they need to recheck their business policies. Here,
the appropriate strategy for Wal-Mart should be limited growth and the main emphasis is given
on market penetration and market development. With the help of these strategies Wal-Mart can
concentrate on both competitors and customers. Also the cost efficient products of Wal-Mart are
setting a new level of popularity among the customers. The demand of Wal-Mart products
between customers is increasing rapidly and to meet their needs limited growth strategy should
be effective (Powell, 2014). The main factors of limited growth strategies which states that this is
the most appropriate strategy for development of Wal-Mart are following-
Market Penetration- It is main intensive strategy used by Wal-Mart for growth. This involves
selling more products and services to the present target. Wal-Mart is successful in this market
penetration step by selling more products by using tools like promotions, special packages, and
offers on packages. For example- Low price for wholesale selling.

Market Development- The secondary tool used by Wal-Mart for its growth is market
development. In this method, development of market is done for increasing the sale of their
business. For example- opening new stores to tap customers everywhere.
Product Development- Wal-Mart should concentrate on product development. In this strategy,
the focus is on offering new products to the market, but Wal-Mart lags in this their main aim is
on sales and marketing.
Working on these strategies would make their business approach more focused and goal-
oriented.
TASK 4
4.1 Roles and responsibilities of personnel who are responsible for implementation of a strategy
Wal-Mart should provide experienced employees with the responsibility to implement such
strategies. It is highly required that the priority should be given to the old employees. The major
responsibility of personnel is proper communication between and within the departments related to the
implementation of strategies ( Lecocq, Warnier, and Strategy,2015). All the strategies must be clear
with the employees so that they can explain them well to the operational team. The proper and effective
communication will be helpful to a larger extent to attain the mission and vision of organization. Also,
high level authorities should ensure the involvement of all employees in strategy implementation. This
involvement would also lead to better communication between the organizations. Further, the roles and
responsibilities include the proper management of resources that are helpful in implementation of
strategy. Management of resources includes allocation and distribution of resources. Also, it is necessary
for personnel to ensure continuous monitoring of strategy implementation by tracking the entire business
activities which will help in choosing appropriate and effective strategy (Bentley, Omer and
Sharp,2013). Thus, these are the roles and responsibilities which a personnel should consider while
implementing a strategy.
4.2 Analysis of resource requirements for implementing new strategy
Market development and product development strategies could need certain resources that are
essential for maintain the fluidity of business activities (Verbeke, 2013). Effective strategic
implementation is not possible without adequacy of resources. Some basic resources for implementation
of new strategy are-
Raw Material- It is the basic resource required in any business. Without raw materials Wal-Mart cannot
produce certain products, thus, the availability of raw material should be adequate.
Technological resources- Technological resources should be highly advanced to maintain the
manufacturing class and to save money and time. Thus, the investment must be made on updated
technologies.
Financial Resources- This is needed to acquire all the resources. This is important in buying of new
machineries, paying the salaries of employees. Maintenance expenditures, etc. Without financial

resources it is impossible to implement any strategy. Further, financial resources bring stability in
business operations.
Human Resources- Human resources are the most significant resource in any organization. Human
resource must be innovative. They are expected to keep positive attitude and should be well disciplined.
Effective human resource is the key of rapid business growth. Wal-Mart can attain high level of success
with the help of effective human resources.
Thus, these were certain required resources which are essential for implementation of new
strategy effectively.
4.3 Contribution of SMART targets to the achievement of strategy implementation
SMART targets could help in achieving the objectives in planned manner. The SMART targets
ensure the correct direction of movement of organization (Bharadwaj, El Sawy, and et. al, 2013). The
description of SMART targets is as follows- ‘S’ stands for specific targets. These targets are related to the
increment in market share and assuring profitability. ‘M’ stands for measurable targets. It denotes the
increment of shares which are measurable in numerical terms. ‘A’ stands for the targets which are
achievable and it is clear that if the above strategy is implemented in effective way than this target could
be achieved. Wal-Mart can attain the desired results by applying these strategies. ‘R’ stands for realistic
target. It is crystal clear from the set objectives of Wal-Mart that they are realistic. ‘T’ stands for the time
bound approach of the Wal-Mart with relevance to SMART targets. This time band approach helps in
completion of assessment on time and thus, effectiveness of work is maintained.
Conclusions
Business strategy is very crucial in affecting the future growth rate of business. Business
strategies are helpful in determining the opportunities coming to the organization. The main aim of this
study is learning various factors which must be considerable in strategic planning. Further, the mission,
vision, goals, etc. are explained in this learning. Also, various techniques used in strategic planning,
issues in strategic planning, alternative strategies for effective working, impact of these strategies on
business, etc. are explained in this study in context to Wal-Mart organization. Further, various essential
resources in implementing a strategy and implementation of SMART targets to achieve strategy have also
become clear. Also, the roles and responsibilities of persons associated with Wal-Mart is stated in the
above study.

References
Books and Journals
Scholes, M.S., 2015. Taxes and business strategy. Prentice Hall.
Bharadwaj, A., El Sawy, and et. al, 2013. Digital business strategy: toward a next generation of
insights.
Verbeke, A., 2013. International business strategy. Cambridge University
Fréry, F., Lecocq, X., Warnier, V. and Strategy, B.M., 2015. Competing with ordinary
resources. MIT Sloan Management Review.56(3).pp.69-77.
Powell, C., 2014. Everything I Needed to Learn about Business Strategy I Learned... from Shark
Tank.
Peteraf, M., Gamble, J. and Thompson Jr, A., 2014. Essentials of strategic management: The
quest for competitive advantage. McGraw-Hill Education.
Rothaermel, F.T., 2015. Strategic management. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Woerner, S. and Wixom, B.H., 2015. Big data: extending the business strategy toolbox.
Blackburn, R.A., Hart, M. and Wainwright, T., 2013. Small business performance: business,
strategy and owner-manager characteristics. Journal of small business and enterprise
development.20(1).pp.8-27.
Mithas, S., Tafti, A. and Mitchell, W., 2013. How a Firm's Competitive Environment and Digital
Strategic Posture Influence Digital Business Strategy. Mis Quarterly.37(2). pp.511-536.
Hoffman, A.J. and Woody, J.G., 2013. Climate change: what's your business strategy?. Harvard
Business Press.
Al-Mudimigh, A.S., 2015. E-business strategy in an online banking services: a case study. The
Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce, 2007.
Bentley, K.A., Omer, T.C. and Sharp, N.Y., 2013. Business strategy, financial reporting
irregularities, and audit effort. Contemporary Accounting Research.30(2).pp.780-817.

Higgins, D., Omer, T.C. and Phillips, J.D., 2015. The influence of a firm's business strategy on
its tax aggressiveness. Contemporary Accounting Research.32(2).pp.674-702.
Grover, V. and Kohli, R., 2013. REVEALING YOUR HAND: CAVEATS IN
IMPLEMENTING DIGITAL BUSINESS STRATEGY.