Walmart's Strategic Management: Performance Evaluation and Planning

This report provides a comprehensive strategic analysis of Walmart, evaluating its performance, competitive strengths, and market position. It examines Walmart's strategic plan, including its vision, mission, core values, long-term goals, and action plan. The report also includes a SWOT analysis, identifying the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The analysis explores areas where Walmart may need to improve, such as innovation, and offers insights into the retail giant's strategic view. The report concludes with a reflection on the learning experience and highlights the application of strategic management principles in a real-world business context. The report also includes references to academic sources, demonstrating the student's understanding of the subject matter and research skills.

Assessment 2
Strategic management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Critically evaluate the performance of your selected company..................................................1
Strategic Plan for Walmart:.........................................................................................................2
strategic view of organisations:...................................................................................................5
REFLECTION.................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Strategic management refers to the analysis of all the factors of the organization such
analysis of competitive environment, analysis the internal and external factors, ensuring the all
management roles and responsibilities of the organization. Strategic environment analysis helps
the organization in proper arrangement of resources and improvement of market strategies of the
company. In this report Walmart, is selected organization is one of the largest retail organization
of US, company was established in 1962 by Sam Walton. (Amason, and Ward, 2020)Walmart
has 11,510 stores and clubs in 27 counties. It is world largest organization by revenues. This
report includes the evaluation of the performance of respective company, competitive strength,
market position and areas where the company needs improvement. It also include strategic plan
of selected company. In the last it includes various recommendation and learnings from the
report.
MAIN BODY
Critically evaluate the performance of your selected company.
Competitive strengths: One of the most useful strategy of Walmart is to control
expenses so that they can provide product and services at lower price than market. Every day
low price is best strategy that helps the company to gain competitive advantages, the company is
focused on making huge customers base that help them to increase the profit and growth of the
company. Every day low cost is also an strategy by which company gain competitive
advantages, the products price is very low from the market price so the customers of the
Walmart build an trust on the organization. Walmart pickup it an strategy by which the
customers of the company can online place the order and than pickup it from the nearest store.
This is one of the most strong point of the company that help them to gain competitive edges
advantages. Money back guarantee, from this option the company makes suers the freshness of
their products and quality of vegetables and fruits, if they aren't the (.Bianchi, Mingo, and
Fernandez, 2019) Walmart give 100 percent cash back to the customers, it help the organization
to gain customer loyalty and improve the level of satisfaction.
Market position: Walmart is multinational retail corporation that operates in many
countries, the organization provide various products and services by which Walmart become
largest organization revenues in the world. Company effectively compete all the competitors in
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the market. It is one of largest firm that provide largest employment in the world, there are 2.2
million people working with the company that make an brand image of Walmart in national and
international business. The primery focus of the company to provide product at low price that
help them to make strong customer base.
Areas where improvement across the value chain may be required in Walmart:
The Walmart is already established and successful organization with large revenues and
strong customers base. But the company should focus on the investment in innovation that helps
them to improve its operations in most effective way. Organization is competing with all the
competitors but for the future they can get though competitions form the local supermarkets, it
could not possible in the future to provide the products at lowest prices because of high level of
operational expenses and maintenance of the infrastructure(Cescon, Costantini, and Grassetti,
2019) of all the stores. Maintain low piece could be difficult in the future so that company should
focus on new marketing strategy that can help them to make innovation in the market and
continuous growth.
Strategic Plan for Walmart:
Strategic plan is an document that reflect the current and future plans of the company to
make their business grow. The process of developing strategic plan helps the mangers of the
company to understand the competition and opportunities in the industry. There are several
elements of strategic plan in the context of Walmart.
 Vision statement: The vision statement of the company is “Be the destination for
customers to save money, no matter how they want to shop”
 Mission statement: The mission statement of the company is “To save people's money
and time so that they can live better” this statement reflect the idea of the company to
make more customers and make them loyal customer of the company. Save money and
live better is the marketing strategy of Walmart to provide product at lower price so that
they can attract maximum customers.
 Core values : The values of the Walmart (Dzwigol, 2020) is they think about the point
of view of the customers so that they can provide them better product and quality. The
customer want everything such as products at lowest price, guaranteed satisfaction,
friendly knowledge and services, convenient hours, pleasant, shopping experience etc.
the company think about all the perspectives of the customers and make them happy
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customers. The core value of Walmart is they ensure the future safety of their employees
so that they can feel free within an organization.
 Long term goals: The long term goal of Walmart Is to create economic opportunities for
the individuals working with the organization. They also want to increase sustainability
of their operations and the supply chain of the company. They also focus on more
innovativeness in their organization so that it could help them in more sustainable
growth and profit. Walmart (Ketchen and Craighead, 2020)stayed focused on new
opportunities that helps them in more growth and profit for the long term.
 Action plan: The action plan of the company refers to the detail description of the
various steps company take in order to increase profit and sell of the company. The
Walmart make the list of various steps that company take in order to make their
organization grow. They make an significant budget plan for the company that helps in
proper arrangement of resources and increase the profit of the company. It is important
for the Walmart to make the list of all the future planes that they have to complete in
order to make their organization worlds largest company.
 Yearly objectives: The yearly objective of the company is to make more customer base
and increase the loyalty of the customers towards the brand. They also aim to make
maximum profit while giving the best experience to their customers.
SWOT analysis: This analysis helps the company to know about internal and external
factors that have an impact on its performance. These analysis provide an insight about the
strength and weaknesses that are internal factors and opportunities threats that are external
factors. Below is detail study of SWOT analysis in the context of Walmart.
 Strength: It is an internal force that help the company to increase the profitability and
growth of the organization. In the context of Walmart the company have global presence
in the market and it is one of the largest company by revenues. Organization operates its
business in multinational level and its provide the better opportunities to grow in various
country. The supply chain of the company is also have access in over all world that
increase the customers base of the company and provide better success in the retail
industry. The effective supply chain of(Kools, and George, 2020) Walmart improve the
level of productivity and better services to the customers. Thus company's global reach
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and effective supply chain increase the level of profit and improve the customer
satisfaction.
 Weaknesses: It is an internal force of the company that become challenge for the
operation of the business. This are the factors that inside the organization have an impact
on its performance. In the context of Walmart the profit margin of the company is very
low, that could impact the business of respective company. The company is not using
innovative marketing strategy their product and services can easily copied by the other
competitors. It could impact the business of Walmart to deal with these weaknesses
company can improve the innovativeness of the operation system of the organization.
There are high level of competition in retail industry for the Walmart it could impact the
business of the company and increase the level of competition disadvantages in the
industry.
 Opportunities: It is an external force that helps the business to understand the external
environment and current and future opportunities for the business. There are various
opportunities for the Walmart (Teece, 2019) because of high growth of population and
increasing rate of customer base in the retail industry. Company have the opportunity to
expand its business in developing countries, based on the high growth of economy of
these countries. They also have the opportunity to improve the human resource practices
to attract higher skilled and capable employees in the organization. It help them to gain
competitive advantages in the company. Walmart (Leiblein, and Reuer, 2019) can
increase its standard of products and services, they can focus on the healthy product that
services that is beneficial for the company and the customers. Thus there are man y
opportunities for the business of Walmart in national and international level.
 Threats: The various threats are linked with the retail industry that have an impact on the
performance of business. The threats in retail industry refers to the change in choice and
preferences of the customers. In the context of(Schilling, and Shankar, 2019) Walmart,
the healthy life trend in the market can impact the business of the company because there
are numbers of products in the company that are not healthy. There are number of new
entrance in the retail industry that could be an threat for the company. To deal with these
threats company can increase the hygiene and safety in the products so that they can
attract new customers in the market. There are also many online retailer that provide the
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order of the customers at their home. It could be an disadvantages for the company, they
can innovate new services by which the customers of the organization can increase it
interest towards the brand.
strategic view of organisations:
The Walmart is one of the largest firm of the world that operates in many country and
make high level of revenue. The strategic evaluation of the company helps in understanding the
various aspects that helps the organisation to gain profit and growth in the company. The
strategic management of the company helps them to understand the various factors that can
impact the business Walmart (Simandan, 2019) in the future. Company has various competitive
strength that helps them to get more customers and increase the profit shares of the company.
Walmart use various competitive strategies to gain the competitive advantages in the industry.
The market position of the company is the most important factor that analyse the brand image in
the retail industry. But there are various areas where the Walmart needs make some changes and
improvements, the innovation in the organization needs to be more technological in order gain
competitive advantages. The strategic plan of the Walmart explained various elements that help
the business to make particular plan. The strategic plan of the company explained that there are
various subjects that involve that explain the motive and values of the company.
REFLECTION
From the above analysis I learned about the various areas of study that helped me in
increasing my academic skills. From this report I leaned how strategic management helps
company to evaluate about internal and external environment that have an impact on its
performance. I also learned about competitive strength that company use to gain competitive
advantages. This helped me to grow my market analysis skills and have insight about the
external environment of business. This helped me to improve my time management skills so that
I can achieve my goals and targets in future. Swot analysis helped me to gain knowledge about
all the internal and external factors that can have impact on the performance of company and this
improve my knowledge and information. This also helped me to gather all the information by
myself so that it can improve my capabilities and abilities to done my work by my own. Thus
this project helped me in enhancement of my skills and abilities and improve my career path.
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CONCLUSION
From the above information it can be conclude that strategic management help the
company to make future plan for the company and develop various strategies that help them to
gain competitive advantages. There are various competitive strategies that company can use in
order to gain more profit and competitive advantages in the industry. The market position of the
company helps in understanding the brand image of the company and what are the various
competitors of the organisation. Different areas of the business that needs some improvement in
order to gain more profit in the company. The strategic plan of the company explain various
current and future objective of the company. SWOT analysis helps the company helps to
understand the internal and external factors that have an impact on the performance of the
company.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Amason, A.C. and Ward, A., 2020. Strategic management: From theory to practice. Routledge.
Bianchi, C., Mingo, S. and Fernandez, V., 2019. Strategic management in Latin America:
Challenges in a changing world. Journal of Business Research, 105, pp.306-309.
Cescon, F., Costantini, A. and Grassetti, L., 2019. Strategic choices and strategic management
accounting in large manufacturing firms. Journal of Management and Governance, 23(3),
pp.605-636.
Dzwigol, H., 2020. Methodological and Empirical Platform of Triangulation in Strategic
Management. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 19(4), pp.1-8.
Ketchen Jr, D.J. and Craighead, C.W., 2020. Research at the Intersection of Entrepreneurship,
Supply Chain Management, and Strategic Management: Opportunities Highlighted by
COVID-19. Journal of Management, 46(8), pp.1330-1341.
Kools, M. and George, B., 2020. Debate: The learning organization—a key construct linking
strategic planning and strategic management. Public Money & Management, 40(4), pp.262-
264.
Leiblein, M.J. and Reuer, J., 2019. Foundations and futures of strategic management. Available
at SSRN 3396754.
Schilling, M.A. and Shankar, R., 2019. Strategic management of technological innovation.
McGraw-Hill Education.
Simandan, D., 2019. Iterative lagged asymmetric responses in strategic management and long-
range planning. Time & Society, 28(4), pp.1363-1381.
Teece, D.J., 2019. A capability theory of the firm: an economics and (strategic) management
perspective. New Zealand Economic Papers, 53(1), pp.1-43.
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