Walmart Corporation: A Comprehensive Business Analysis Report

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RESEARCH & ANALYSIS PAPER

Table of Contents
ORGANIZATION SUMMARY......................................................................................................3
CUSTOMER BASE......................................................................................................................4
MISSION AND CORE VALUES....................................................................................................5
VISION...................................................................................................................................... 6
CORPORATE LEVEL STRATEGIES...............................................................................................7
BUSINESS LEVEL STRATEGIES...................................................................................................7
SWOT ANALYSIS....................................................................................................................... 8
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................... 11
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Walmart Logo...........................................................................................................3
Figure 2: Attribution for Whole Foods’ New Customers.........................................................4
Figure 3: American Attitudes towards E-Commerce...............................................................4
Figure 4: Change in income and number of Households........................................................5
Figure 5: Walmart Vision Center.............................................................................................6
Figure 6: SWOT Analysis..........................................................................................................8
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ORGANIZATION SUMMARY
Walmart Corporation is a multinational retail corporation of America which is the largest
retailer in the world. The company is known for its hypermarkets, discount department
stores, and grocery stores. Walmart Corporation was founded in the year 1962 by Sam
Walton who has gained his retailing experience in Newport. Main products of Walmart
Corporation includes Electronics, Movies and music, Home and furniture, Clothing,
Footwear, Home improvement, Jewellery, Toys, Health and beauty, Pet supplies, Sporting
goods and fitness, Auto, Photofinishing, Craft supplies, Party supplies, and grocery. The
company is serving successfully its customer over a period of 56 years. Bentonville,
Arkansas, U.S. are three of its main headquarters. Walmart Corporation is considered to be
the largest retailing company in terms of its revenues which are around US$500 billion.
Figure 1: Walmart Logo
[Source: Giardina, 2012]
Along with revenue, the company is also considered as the largest private employer which
employs more than 2.3 million employees under it. Up to 65 percent of the company’s sales
which is around US$510.329 billion come from its U.S. operations. Along with various types
of products the company also provide different services to its customers such as Walmart
pay, Walmart-2-Walmart, Walmart money card, Pick up Today, and Walmart.com. Walmart
Corporation is a public listed company which is registered on the New York Stock
Exchange in the year 1972 (Walmart, 2018).
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CUSTOMER BASE
Figure 2: Attribution for Whole Foods’ New Customers
[Source: Taylor, 2017]
Walmart Corporation has around 11300 stores in more than 27 countries and through e-
commerce websites in around 10 countries of the world. The company has a large customer
base of around 275 million of satisfied customers. The target customers of the company are
mainly the wealthier and younger group who are largely urban customers (Howland, 2016).
According to a survey of 2015, it has been found that out of the total customers of Walmart,
more than 4,000 consumers by consulting firm Kantar Retail, is a white, 50-year-old woman
with an annual household income of $53,125.
Figure 3: American Attitudes towards E-Commerce
[Source: Smith, 2014]
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The company is serving 100 million customers every week through 5900 retail stores with 55
banners in 26 countries and more than 700,000 associates working outside U.S. According
to Kanter Retail, the average customers of Walmart has income level up to $56,482 and so
its core customer base which was from lower-to-middle income consumers are losing
ground to higher-income consumers due to higher spending on the part of higher income
group customers and increasing in their expectation level (Danziger, 2018).
Figure 4: Change in income and number of Households
[Source: Danziger, 2018]
MISSION AND CORE VALUES
The mission and core values of Walmart Corporation is based on the slogan “Save people
money so they can live better." The statement clearly defines the strategies of the company
which is based on the price of products. The marketing mix strategy of a company involves a
low pricing strategy to attract more and more customers. “Save people money” was used as
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a mission statement of the company by Sam Walmart (Farfan, 2018). Besides missions,
there are some of the core value of the company which is discussed below:
 Customers are the first priority.
 Every individual must be respected and the opinion of every associate is considered.
 Innovation is key to improve day to day operations.
 Work as a team to help each other.
 Strive for excellence by providing exceptional satisfaction to the customers.
 Discuss daily goals and review sales.
 Promoting healthy communication in the workplace.
 Work with integrity.
 Ensure fair dealings with stakeholders, suppliers, and associates.
VISION
Walmart Inc.’s corporate has “Be THE destination for customers to save money, no matter
how they want to shop” as a vision statement. This vision statement is recently articulated in
the year 2017 which is an improvement of its previous vision statement that was “To be the
best retailer in the hearts and minds of consumers and employees.” The change in the
corporate vision is made in the response to changes in the conditions of the retail industry
and due to the other competitive factors.
Figure 5: Walmart Vision Center
[Source: Pickering, 2015]
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The company has the vision to become a top retail company in the industry all over the
world. In the year 2018, the company is striving for better services to its customers along
with laying emphasis on business flexibility. Providing goods at low prices to the customers
and build responsible manufacturing environment in the company is the vision of Walmart
Inc.’s corporate. Providing the areas of continuous growth by improving operations and
achieving excellence in each and every part of the business (Ferguson, 2019).
CORPORATE LEVEL STRATEGIES
There are various strategies made by the organization in order to conduct its operations
successfully. Walmart Corporation is focused on providing quality services to its customers
and its strategies are based on the same. The company follows cost leadership which aims
at providing better quality to the customers at lower prices as compared to the prices of its
competitors. In order to achieve this goal, the company has organized long term supply
chain in the industry. This supply chain has the benefit of making the products available to
the customers at any time whenever they need. Human resource policies are aligned with
the corporate level strategies of the company.
BUSINESS LEVEL STRATEGIES
Walmart is known for its quality products and availability of products with convenience to
the customers. The company serves its customers all over the world with its offline and
online stores. The business strategies of the company focus on improving customer services
by investing a huge amount of capital in U.S. hourly associates in order to conduct their
training programmes for improving their efficiency and to provide them higher wages.
Walmart is the leading grocery selling company which has another business strategy of
improving groceries for the customers. In today health-conscious world, it becomes
important for the companies to improve their products by using organic raw materials.
Walmart has another business strategy of serving organic goods to its customers and
increases the range of its fresh produce. The company is actively taking participate in an
integrated market and strategically communicating its message of providing quality goods to
the customers (Dudovskiy, 2016).
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SWOT ANALYSIS
The SWOT analysis is a powerful tool which analyses the internal and external environment
of the company in order to develop business strategies (Parsons, 2018). The SWOT analysis
is the combination of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the company
which are analyzed for making different strategies (Wroblewski, 2018). Following are the
SWOT analysis of Walmart Corporation which focuses mainly on its prices:
Figure 6: SWOT Analysis
[Source: Lincoln, 2018]
Strengths
The main strength of Walmart is that the company is very popular all over the world which
is serving its customers over 56 years. It is the largest retailer of the world in terms of
revenues and the largest employment generating company with 2.3 million associates and
staffs in the world. The company has core competencies in informational technology which
support the logistics system of its companies in the international markets. The acquisition of
ADSA, a leading retailer of United Kingdom helps the company is expanding its operations
and profitability. The lower prices of its products give the company a competitive advantage
over its rivals. The company purchase products in bulk which help it in availing discounts
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and thus lowering the production cost, it sells products at a lower price to its customers
(Jurevicius, 2019).
Weaknesses
Although Walmart has purchased ASDA the leading retailer of the United Kingdom, still the
expansion of the company is limited to a few countries worldwide. Further, the company
has faced many controversies related to its inappropriate treatment to its employees. The
company is facing a huge level of competition in North America where competitors have
made small niche market against Walmart. The main competitors of Walmart in North
America include Kmart, Target, Family Dollar and Dollar General Stores. Controlling is
another issue faced by Walmart when it comes to focusing on various online and offline
stores by the company.
Opportunities
Walmart has many opportunities in the expansion of the business in international markets
such as Latin America and China. Today customers are becoming more health-conscious
which brings another opportunity for the company. Walmart should focus on providing
more and more organic and fresh products to its customer to retain its global position and
to expand its popularity. Partnership with complementary service providers such as health
insurance, coffee stores, and travel agencies will help the company to dominate the industry
without establishing new stores into new locations. Mergers, acquisitions and other
strategic alliances will assist the company in becoming the world's top retailer.
Threats
The employees of Walmart are not satisfied with the work environment of the company
which demands overtime from the employees without pay. This hinders image of the
company in the market. The company is believed to ignore the problems and crises of its
workforce and increased the use of self-checkout machines. Another major threat of the
company is increasing competition which provides products with quality higher than
Walmart. Target is one such competitor of Walmart which offers services better than the
company. Due to conducting its operations in various countries of the world, Walmart is
exposed to various political issues of different countries. Although Walmart is investing
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more and more funds in the online stores there is a possibility that the company will not be
able to gain possible returns of its investments (Frue, 2018).
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REFERENCES
Danziger, P.N., (2018). Can Walmart Attract Affluent Customers?. (Online) Available at:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2018/06/04/can-walmart-make-its-up-market-
move-work/#22b87fe678fe (Accessed on 25th February 2019).
Dudovskiy, J., (2016). Walmart Business Strategy and Competitive Advantage. (Online)
Available at: https://research-methodology.net/walmart-business-strategy/ (Accessed on
25th February 2019).
Farfan, B., (2018). Overview of Walmart's History and Mission Statement. (Online) Available
at: https://www.thebalancesmb.com/history-of-walmart-and-mission-statement-4139760
(Accessed on 25th February 2019).
Ferguson, E., (2019). Walmart’s Mission Statement & Vision Statement, Generic & Intensive
Strategies. (Online) Available at: http://panmore.com/walmart-vision-mission-statement-
intensive-generic-strategies (Accessed on 25th February 2019).
Frue, K., (2018). SWOT Analysis of Walmart. (Online) Available at:
https://pestleanalysis.com/swot-analysis-of-walmart/ (Accessed on 25th February 2019).
Giardina, C., (2012). Walmart Launches Disc-to-Digital Service. (Online) Available at:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/walmart-launches-disc-digital-service-299164
(Accessed on 25th February 2019).
Howland, D., (2016). Who is the new Wal-Mart customer? (Online) Available at:
https://www.retaildive.com/news/who-is-the-new-wal-mart-customer/412078/ (Accessed
on 25th February 2019).
Jurevicius, O., (2019). A SWOT analysis of Walmart (5 Key Strengths in 2019). (Online)
Available at: https://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/walmart-swot-
analysis.html (Accessed on 25th February 2019).
Lincoln, J.E., (2018). THE RIGHT WAY TO CONDUCT A SWOT ANALYSIS. (Online) Available at:
https://ignitevisibility.com/right-way-conduct-swot-analysis/ (Accessed on 25th February
2019).
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