Stakeholder Analysis of Walmart: Internal and External Factors

This report offers a detailed stakeholder analysis of Walmart, examining its functional areas, including human resource management, finance, operations, marketing, legal, and information technology. It identifies and differentiates between internal stakeholders (board members, employees) and external stakeholders (customers, investors, suppliers, competitors, government), outlining their respective roles and degrees of influence on the company's performance. The report explores the nature and implications of stakeholders' interests, particularly in cases of conflicting priorities, and provides a stakeholder matrix to visualize these relationships. It also includes a comparison of Walmart with other industries. The analysis underscores the importance of understanding stakeholder dynamics for effective business management and strategic decision-making within the competitive retail landscape. The report concludes with the importance of understanding the stakeholders for effective business management and strategic decision making.

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Functional Areas of Walmart...........................................................................................................1
Internal and External Stakeholders..................................................................................................3
Roles............................................................................................................................................3
Nature and degree of main stakeholders’ interests, and implications of conflicting interests.....4
Level of Main Stakeholder’s Influence.......................................................................................5
Stakeholder Matrix......................................................................................................................6
Comparison of two Industries..........................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The purpose of this report is to guide the reader regarding the details about the company
Walmart. The company Walmart is an American multinational retail organization that operates
its business in hypermarkets, grocery stores and discount departments as well. The company is
headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. The organization was found in the year 1962 by Sam
Walton and incorporated in the year 1969. The company is present in the retail sector and serve
its products and services to the complete world. Further, it should be noted that the retail industry
is one of largest industry present in the world as the industry serve goods and services that are
required by the people on a regular basis. This industry serves consumer goods to the people that
are required by them regularly (Obeng, 2019). The below mentioned report details the viewers
about the stakeholder analysis of the company Walmart. Functional areas of the company along
with the details about the external and internal stakeholders are discussed in the paper. Further,
the roles, nature and level of influence of these stakeholders on the performance of the company
in explained in the report. The stakeholder matrix and the comparison with other industry is
conducted so as to provide a view of difference in stakeholders of both the industries (Gulati, R.,
Mayo, & Nohria, 2016). Further, more details about the stakeholders of the company Walmart
are mentioned below:
Functional Areas of Walmart
A business is nothing without its departments and appropriate functions conducted in the
environment. The key elements that a business requires to grow in the environment involve the
functional areas. These are the areas that work together to make the organization successful in
the external environment (Zahller, & Beranek, 2017). The company has various organizational
functions like human resource management, finance, operations, marketing, legal and
information technology. Below mentioned is the further elaboration of these departments of the
company Walmart:
Human Resource Management: The Company Walmart works with more than 2.2 million people
in the worldwide market under which more than 1.5 million people are employed in US and rest
are placed in different parts of the world. The company manages the interest of employees in an

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efficient manner because they have millions of employees spread in the world who work to
achieve the objectives of Walmart (Frynas, & Mellahi, 2015). Walmart is one of the biggest
organizations present in world in terms of organizational size and financial performance. The
organization focuses on its internal activities and how they affect the satisfaction of employees in
the environment so that growth is effectively achieved. The business address the job design of
the employees and analyse how they contribute in increasing the performance of the employees.
The company believes that the employees are the biggest asset of the company who help the
business to organize other functions and effectively achieve profitability as well. Thus, it is
important for the business to conduct activities that maintain their level of satisfaction in the
environment (Ng, & Thosuwanchot, 2019).
Finance: The company earned a net income of US$6.67 billion in the first fiscal year of 2019.
The international operations of Walmart accounted $120.824 billion, so it can be assumed that
the company operate large scale financial transactions in the environment. The company operates
the functions in finance department by crunching massive ratios and amounts with the help of
appropriate strategies in the environment. Mitigation of risk is one of the major focuses on the
finance department of the company. This department of the company helps the organization give
action to the strategies by investing in the production and other activities of the company (Le,
Stathopoulos, Van Woensel, & Ukkusuri, 2019).
Operations: The operations management activities of the company focuses on various
approaches in the environment of managing and supporting the supply chain and inventory
system of the company. The success of Walmart is partially based on the effective performance
strategies of operations management of the company. There are total ten decision on which the
company focuses so as to attain complete grip on the operating functions of the company
Walmart. The top 10 decision making area are, design of the products and services, design of the
process and capacity analysis, quality management of goods, location strategy, human resource
and job analysis, layout design and strategy, inventory management, supply chain management,
maintenance and lastly scheduling. These are the top ten decision making areas present in the
operations system of the Walmart company on the basis of which productivity is attained to the
business (Gibson, 2017).

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Marketing: as the company is the powerhouse of the business, so the marketing activities of the
company are mostly important to attain sales in the environment. The company survives in the
competitive environment using efficient marketing strategies in the environment. The company
provide various promotions to attract the customers in different season. The company is
associated with the slogan of ‘save money, live better’ and ‘lowest price store’ etc. These
activities of the company make it competitive in the business market. E-commerce activities of
the company increase the work pressure of the employees and productivity of the company as
well (Weiss, 2016).
Legal: As it is known, that Walmart is spread in different parts of the world, so it requires the
intellectual property right at different locations. Therefore, it should be noted that this
department of the company focuses on different laws and regulations of different countries that
Walmart need to follow in order to sustain their business in international environment.
Information Technology: Apart from the physical store, the company attain major sales from the
online website of the company as well. Thus, this department of the organization manages the
website and makes it more efficient for the people to use it (Jenkins, & Williamson, 2015).
Internal and External Stakeholders
Stakeholder is an individual who has a keen interest in the operating functions and position of the
company because they are affected by it. These are the people who have invested their resources
in the company so as to attain a share of the profitability of the company (Clark, Feiner, & Viehs,
2015). There are two types of stakeholders of the company that are internal as well as external
stakeholders; the role and other functions of these stakeholders are mentioned below:
Roles
The internal stakeholders of the company include board members, employees and the donors.
These are the people who are internally connected with the operations of the company. The
company Walmart focuses on increasing the profitability of the business satisfying the people in
the environment. Thus, the role that internal stakeholders of the company play is that they make
the organization take decision that not only bring profitability in the external environment but
also bring peace in the internal environment of the company as well. The internal stakeholders of

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the company hold the power to change the policies and programs of the company so as to
increase the job security of people. However, it should be noted that the internal stakeholders
plays the partial role in addressing the decisions of the company and changing them in the
environment. Other after of the decisions of the company is monitored by the external
stakeholders of the company (Sadler, & Evans, 2016).
Considering the role of external stakeholders in the business environment, it should be noted that
these are the customers and investors as well. These stakeholders of the company focus on
maintaining the high degree of profitability from the environment. The investors are only
concerned with the reduction in the costs and increase in productivity of the company. The
external stakeholders provide a pressure to the employees of the company and make them work
to achieve growth as well. The external stakeholders are the first party whom the company
promises to provide optimum benefits in the environment. Resulting in which, the role of this
party is convince the business that the decision taken by the management will not act in favour of
them and the management will change it (Crane, Matten, Glozer, & Spence, 2019).
Nature and degree of main stakeholders’ interests, and implications of
conflicting interests
The stakeholders of the company are the most interested people of the organization. The nature
of these stakeholder can be varied on the basis of their interest in the business. Below mentioned
is the details about the nature, degree of interest and implication of these stakeholders in the
business Walmart:
Customers: As per the vision of the company, the management organize functions considering
the interest of customers in the business. The customers hold the power to change the brand
image of the company in the business environment. This segment of the stakeholder group is
important because they initiate sales of business. The activities in the business are always
conducted considering their level of satisfaction in the market (Garcia‐Castro, & Aguilera,
2015).
Government: The interest of the government is to analyse that whether the organization is
fulfilling all the compliances without facing defaulters. This segment is influenced by the new

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decisions of the business and the level of profitability as high profitability means high tax
amount for the government.
Shareholders: These are another crucial people of the company who might attain conflict of
interest with the customers of the company. These are the people who have invested in the
organization so it becomes responsibility of the organization to pay them interest in the form of
dividends. The decisions that satisfy the customers might not satisfy the shareholders because
they believe in taking fewer risks while Walmart cannot attract more people by not taking risks
in the environment (Silvestre, Monteiro, Viana, & de Sousa-Filho, 2018).
Suppliers: The Company is present in the retail industry so they need to tie up with several
organizations so as to attain products from them and serve it to the customers through their retail
stores. The suppliers of the Walmart hold comparatively less power vested in their hands against
the company because there are more suppliers than the large scale retail segments in the market.
However, Walmart makes sure that they create a long lasting relationship with the suppliers in
the environment (Epstein, 2018).
Competitors: These are the people who are strongly affected by the decisions of Walmart.
Continuous increase the level of competition has raised threats for the company in the market.
Resulting in which, it has become crucial for the company to invest in attaining different in the
environment so as to eliminate the implication of competitor’s activities in the market (Harrison,
2019).
Level of Main Stakeholder’s Influence
The key stakeholders of the company are customers, investors and the employees for whom the
company works. All the three stakeholders largely influence the interest of company in the
business environment. The investors are the top level priority of the company forwarded by the
customers as the second priority and employees as the third priority. The investors hold major
power to influence the decision making process in the organization because they have given their
personal saving to the company so that Walmart can operate their functions in the environment.
So, it becomes the responsibility of the company to perform actions that satisfy them and
increase their profitability as well (Tan, Yan, Chen, & Liu, 2018). Secondly, the power is vested
in the hands of customers because they are the people who provide revenue to the company. So,

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the decision of the company are influenced on the basis of likes and dislikes of these people in
the environment. Thirdly, the manpower of the company get things done in an organization, they
are the people who work to satisfy both first and second major stakeholders of the company. So,
it is crucial to satisfy the employees otherwise the both the other stakeholders will also get
dissatisfied from the organization. Thus, it is important the organization to consider the facts that
attract all the three stakeholder together then only they would be able to work on their objectives
at the marketplace (Martínez, Galván, & Alam, 2017).
Stakeholder Matrix
Governments
Investors
Customers
Competitors
Employees
Manager
Low Interest, Low Power
Suppliers
High Power, High Interest
High Interest, Low Power
High Power, Low Interest
ManagementMedia
Distributors
P
o
w
er
Interest

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Comparison of two Industries
In comparison of the retail organization Walmart with e-commerce company Amazon, it should
be noted that both the companies stand out in their respective segments. The Amazon Company
present in the e-commerce industry provides products to the customers using their online
application whereas Walmart provide products to the customers through their online website as
well as offline physical store. The government obligations for both the companies are different,
as Amazon does not hold physical store in the countries due to which they do not need to attain
IPR for that area. However, the company needs to attain several permission in order to supply
their products online. The company needs to take care of adequate security of the employees and
the customers of the company by employing security cameras and guards. However for a e-
commerce business like Amazon, the company does not need this type of security instead they
need to keep the data of the customers private and do not breach the ethical and professional
rules and guidelines (Kull, Mena, & Korschun, 2016).
Both the companies are similar at one case that is, they focus on implementing strategies that
increase the satisfaction of the customers. In addition, it should be noted that Walmart also
operates its business functions in the online markets so it is somehow present in both the
industry. Point of sales is implemented in the Walmart Company which means that the customers
instantly purchase the products by paying at the store. Whereas, in case of Amazon company, the
products are delivered to the customers within two to three days of the purchase of the products.
Amazon holds the responsibility of the product until it is delivered to the doorstep or the picked
up by the customer. Lastly, it should be noted that both the companies are the market leaders in
their respective industries and works by collaborating with other suppliers in the environment.
Thus, both the organizations require building a solid relationship with the suppliers so as to
manage the actions effectively in the target market (Kim, & Peterson, 2017).
Conclusion
Thus, in the limelight of above mentioned events, the fact should be noted that the paper
represented detail about the company Walmart. Stakeholder analysis of the company is
conducted in the business environment so as to enlighten the reader about the key stakeholders of
the company and their impact on business environment. The nature of the stakeholders and their

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role in the company while making crucial decisions are discussed in the paper. The stakeholder
metrics describes the power and interest of the stakeholders vested in the company. Further, it
should be noted that stakeholders are the key players affecting the decision making process of
the company. The company satisfies the key stakeholders to the maximum extent due to which
they gain the opportunity to attract revenue from the environment.

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