Walmart's Business Policy and Strategic Management: A Detailed Report

This report delves into Walmart's functional strategy and business policy, examining how the retail giant maximizes resource productivity to achieve its corporate objectives. It highlights Walmart's commitment to low prices, customer service, and convenience, particularly through initiatives like Supercenters and Walmart Pickup. The report also addresses Walmart's response to the rise of e-commerce leaders like Amazon, including improvements to its website and mobile apps. Furthermore, it explores Walmart's impact on local economies, particularly in Arkansas, where the company's presence can significantly influence job creation and business growth. While acknowledging past issues and challenges, the report concludes that Walmart is poised to remain a world leader in the retail sector for the foreseeable future. Desklib provides access to a wide range of similar reports and solved assignments for students.

Walmart
Walmart: Business Policy and Strategic Management
Ryan Millican
Columbia Southern University
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WALMART
Walmart: Functional Strategy
Functional Strategy is the approach a functional area takes to achieve corporate business
objectives and strategies by maximizing resource productivity. Each company will work to
improve the overall performance of their production, whether it be a poultry plant, plumbing
company, or a retail company, everyone wants to push out the greatest amount of product for
least cost. Walmart is no exception to this philosophy.
Walmart works to keep their prices as low as possible to keep their customers coming
back. There are some things that make Walmart great, besides their low prices, and it’s the idea
that they pride themselves on customer service and convenience. Ever since the implementation
of the Supercenter, Walmart become known as the “One Stop Shop.” For a while, Walmart was
the been the place where you can buy back to school clothes and supplies, pet food, and
groceries, all while getting your oil changed in your car, best thing is that you never have to
leave that store.
Walmart has done quite a bit to grow their reputation over the last 50 years, and they have
built up a pretty good reputation, but now they are looking to keep their foot hold in almost every
sector of retail. E-Commerce is a big market in this day, and global leaders, like; Amazon and
Ebay are starting to overpass the retail giant. Walmart decided to answer back with an improved
website and apps for iPhone and Android. Amazon has tried to make a couple of leaps in to
selling groceries, convenience, especially with their AmazonGo stores, which they are testing out
in select markets. Walmart would answer back at this by bringing in self-checkout stations and
Walmart Pickup, which is a lot faster and more convenient than ordering something and waiting
several days for it show up.
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WALMART
Walmart has been very active in their community, which keeps them in the lime light,
especially in the state of Arkansas, where they were founded. Unfortunately, certain scandals
and the idea of turning away from Sam Walton’s original principles, in that; he would always
place his employees first, customer service is the number priority, and the past there are been
issues with the quality product for low prices. Sam Walton originally founded Walmart with the
idea that he could save people money, which people loved, obviously since they have become a
multi-billion dollar, international leader in the retail world.
In Arkansas, Walmart has the power to shift the economy in either way, because things
can usually go a few different ways. Number one; Walmart comes in to a small town and forces
small town grocery stores out of business, because they can’t compete on the same level as
Walmart. Number two; Walmart comes in to a larger town, creates jobs, and lifts the economy of
a city that may have been in a lower level. Number three; this is basically what happened with
Northwest Arkansas, Walmart establishes multiple stores, warehouses, and a corporate
headquarters, creates hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs, explodes the local economy and brings
in other larger businesses, like Tyson, Simmons Foods, JB Hunt, as well as other nation wide
companies. Number 4, Walmart signs contracts with smaller production companies, worth
millions of dollars, that production company is now able to open up another production line, hire
workers for that line, and add more to the local economy, as well as build smaller business.
There are numbers more scenarios that could happen if Walmart came to type of location, but of
course this isn’t just limited to Walmart alone, there are hundreds of other companies that could
decide to set up shop, just about anywhere, and lead to the same examples.
Walmart has been able to build up a reputation of being a leader in the world in a number
of different areas, and are still trying to build to in to other areas, where giants have stepped in
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WALMART
and took over, like Amazon. While there are still other areas that Walmart could improve, there
are many more areas where they could just work into sustaining their foothold. In other words,
Walmart will be a world leader for the foreseeable future.
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WALMART
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