Strategic Management of Walmart: BUS3005 Assignment 2 Analysis Report

This report provides a comprehensive strategic analysis of Walmart, evaluating its performance, competitive strengths, market position, and areas for improvement across its value chain. The analysis begins with an introduction to strategic management and its importance in a global context, followed by a detailed examination of Walmart's competitive advantages, including its vast store network, efficient operations, and low-cost pricing strategy. The report also explores Walmart's market position and identifies key competitors. Furthermore, the report delves into Walmart's strategic planning, discussing the application of tools like OKR and AWS to enhance its operations, particularly in logistics and supply chain management. The impact of the 2020 pandemic on Walmart's sales and operations is also considered. Finally, the report includes a reflection on the 'Strategic Management' module, highlighting the development of communication, research, and decision-making skills, and concludes by emphasizing Walmart's strategic plan for maintaining its global business.

BUS3005 Strategic Management 04 Assignment 2
Student Name:
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Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Part A(1)......................................................................................................................................................5
Critically evaluating the performance of Netflix and highlighting competitive strengths, market
position and areas for improvement across the value chain.....................................................................5
Part A(2) 3..................................................................................................................................................7
Strategic plan for the Netflix company using appropriate tools to explaining and justifying strategic
choices.....................................................................................................................................................7
Part B.........................................................................................................................................................10
Reflection on the strategy process model...............................................................................................10
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................11
References.................................................................................................................................................12

Introduction
Strategic management plays a significant role in the smooth running of organizational activities.
It is even more critical that organizations operating globally are managing their corporation in
strategic manner which is very effective and efficient. In this essay, the user of this paper will be
able to understand properly the core activities of Walmart smoothly that is creating a
competitive advantage (Ansoff, 2018). Strategic management helps to improve the market
position and improve the quality discipline of the organization. This essay will discuss Walmart's
various types of strategic planning and management. The essay also contains a reflective
paragraph that incorporates the trends of this module. Reflection creates some learning aspects to
be part of the knowledge and skills acquisition module.
Part A(1)

Critically evaluating the performance of Walmart and highlighting competitive strengths, market
position and areas for improvement across the value chain
Walmart is one of the largest retailers in the world in the last 50 years. It started from small with
the simple idea of single discount stores and selling more at lower prices by far the largest
retailers. Sam Walton is the founder of Walmart at Rogers near Arkansas in 1962. About 225
million customers and shoppers regularly visit e-commerce websites under 44 banners, and
11,500 shoppers also visit their stores in nearly 23 countries around the world. Walmart tops the
list in terms of quality, quality, sustainability, corporate generosity and employment. It plays an
important role as well as creating opportunities for customers and communities around the world.
Figure 01: Walmart logo(Bettis,2013).
Performance and market position of Walmart
Dealing with all types of competitors, Walmart has a lot of competitive strength to become the
leading company in its division using new techniques. It has markets in about 23 countries
around the world. Walmart has grossed more than 50 billion in 2019 and has grown at more than
25-40% billion in recent years. It has more than 3 million employees worldwide.

Figure 02: Net income of Walmart(Bracker,2017).
One can see from the graph that a significant amount of revenue has been steadily increasing in
stages since the business was started. Walmart has established itself as the world's leading
retailer by maintaining its performance and market position.
Competitive Strength
The main competitors of this company are Amazon, Costco, Walgreens, Kroger, Home Depot,
Lowe’s, and Best Buy. Despite all these competitors with the company, Walmart retailers have
grown faster than all the other companies. Prices aren't the only reason most Americans like to
shop at Walmart. This vast store offers a wide range of services to most customers, such as
location benefits, 24 working day benefits, various products, low prices, high quality of products
and services and other convenient offers. It has the fastest and most efficient store of 130 million
more products, almost three times more than its nearest competitor Best Buy. Walmart’s third-
party vendors included in its business model market their products and thus increase market
competition. Walmart adopts new strategies, speed and efficiency is an essential part that its
competitors do not understand in any way. In addition to offering a variety of benefits to
Walmart offline, online site capability is another great feature that helps him run the company
smoothly. Walmart offers a variety of services to a society where, each year, they provide
millions to charities, schools and the American community, support the country's soldiers and

their families, and provide disaster relief(Burgelman,2019). Every business has to make a
significant contribution to corporate social responsibility, which Walmart ensures every year.
Improvement Across Value Chain
Wal-Mart focuses on the competitive strength of brand loyalty and the products of different
brands. Their strengths are low cost and quality products that can lead to competition with a
large company in the retail industry. The Walmart Value Chain is already one of the most
sophisticated and high-quality chains globally that can hold millions of products every year. It
transmits the raw materials involved in producing and selling the brand in the price chain from
the raw material to the final sale and service.
Part A(2) 3
Strategic plan for the Netflix company using appropriate tools to explaining and justifying
strategic choices
Strategic planning is the art of creating specific business strategies for an organization's overall
long-term goals or aspirations, implementing their overall goals, and evaluating the results of
implementing the plan. It is an idea that focuses on different departments within an organization,
such as accounting and finance, marketing and human resource integration, to achieve strategic
goals. Includes control measures for strategic execution(Freeman, 2011). The strategies for
Walmart are massive as it operates globally and integrates every activity.
The 2020 epidemic has affected everything worldwide, where Walmart has received the most
significant kind of encouragement in the history of its organization. The epidemic has seen a
massive increase in sales as people have been unable to get out of their online websites.
Customers are ordering the product they need online, which has led to a massive increase in
sales. So the demand for Walmart has increased worldwide, and thus it has put a lot of pressure
on Walmart's logistics and operations which has created a big challenge for them. While people
were ordering online over the holidays, Walmart put a lot of pressure on the web services system
and increased sales to meet the growing demand for packaging and logistics. In the years to
come, Walmart will begin to develop quality discipline as part of its strategic plans. There are
some strategic plans for Walmart to explain and justify its competitive advantage. These are as
follows:

OKR is a valuable tool for detailed strategic planning for company purposes which can be
considered as one of the best tools for strategic planning for Walmart. It mainly combines
objectives and outcomes. The objectives that the organization seeks to achieve and the results are
adjusted depending on the situation. Walmart's products can be adjusted and sales strategies
adjusted as sales continue to rise during the epidemic.Also, the most essential tools for OKR are
Walmart's objectives and how it expresses a clear idea of how the company wants to improve,
envisions an ideal future and allows it to work accordingly, creating long-term strategic
objectives that are Walmart's desired goals. One of the tools to reach(Hill,2014).
AWS will enable Walmart to select the operating system, language, database, web application
platform and required assembly. This will give Walmart a virtual environment in which the
software and services as are necessary for the company's application can be uploaded. This
makes it easier for new applications when a new alternative solution is found. This could be a
landmark move for Walmart as it will reduce the damage to all the systems they need and
increase its logistics.
A significant part of Walmart and its logistics operations is that it has to do vast shipping
amounts every day.When the Pandemic was in 2020, orders came from many regions due to the
lockdown that has affected all these regions through the transport system. This is a challenge that
Walmart will have to face in the future.

Figure 03: Shipping cost of Walmart(Hossler,2016).
One can see from the graph that Walmart's shipping costs are slowly rising. As seen in 2020, it
has surpassed 60 billion US dollars. Most of the shipping chains that have been delivered now
rely heavily on automation. Automatic operations need to be faster and more efficient because of
the quicker, clockwise delivery. To meet all types of demand, suppliers need to invest in cutting
edge equipment and automation technologies. Since Walmart is dependent on its infrastructure, it
can deliver 2 hours of same-day shipments. Walmart is fully aware that relying on third-party
logistics to deliver these orders can only take time for the product to arrive. It can be seen that for
the same day or one-hour delivery options, Walmart employs most of the delivery trucks and
hires bike service for delivery in the local area and the staff. It may try to invest in such
operations in the future as demand increases. Walmart can ensure that it expands its distribution
to other countries. Since it is doing business worldwide, it should be noted that countries that do
not yet have shipping to wal-mart are troublesome to use third party suppliers in sending them
because they can ruin the product and avoid liability of this council.
Issue-based strategic planning is another essential tool that Walmart can use to develop its
institutional functions strategically. The issue-based strategy illustrates the present by looking
ahead. This is the main problem of Walmart and to accurately identify what the company is

currently in. It starts with problem-solving before it expands or changes. This is usually a short-
term, internal-only process. This will help Walmart identify any future problems and deal with
them appropriately before moving on to the next step. It can later be applied individually to
different functional units of the organization and different organizational activities. For example,
if there is a problem with Walmart's executive functioning, it must first be appropriately
identified and the best way to solve it has to be found. In this way, the company will be far ahead
of the competitors through strategic strategy.
The strategies and theory suggested above for Walmart have been applied and proven in various
other organizations.The enormity of the organization can be a threat as implementing a strategic
plan will be difficult for the organization as a whole. In this case, Walmart will be advised to
implement various strategic plans in multiple sectors, especially in the organization's quality
chain. This could change the company's shipping activities and contribute to Walmart's overall
earnings.
A competitive advantage in any organizational context is a feature that enables an organization to
outperform its competitors. Walmart needs to maintain this competitive advantage because it is
the world's leading retailer and e-commerce company. Supply chain management and strategic
planning in that sector are some of the benefits of the organization. Walmart has always been the
number one retailer in the world for competitive advantage. It is natural for Walmart to have
colossal competition(Lasserre,2017). So, if you want to gain competitive advantage in all the
running sectors, you need to implement diversified plans of different departments.
Part B
Reflection on the strategy process model
The “Strategic Management” module has helped me a lot in various academic and professional
life areas. Learning activities like classes and workshops were significant to me, and I developed
a lot through this program. These workshops have helped me develop communication skills
because they have helped me learn how to communicate and how to communicate. The

assignment also helped me to understand the research and information would be very good,
which could later be easily applied to an organizational perspective.
Altogether, it enables me to use full guidelines and references on all these topics. This has helped
me develop my academic writing skills and research in depth about various issues. Making
appropriate decisions about it is another skill that I have been able to create through this module.
Before listing this module, I was not very aware of the overall strategies of the companies. Still, I
can now identify them and analyze them well and suggest solutions through appropriate and
correct decisions. This will be vital to my career development as I will be able to accurately
identify and understand the strategies that my employer uses and add value by providing advice
that will help me become a better quality employee in the future.
Conclusion
This strategic plan has helped Walmart maintain its billion-dollar business worldwide by
effectively managing this strategic plan.This is a huge opportunity where millions of products are
delivered every day through innovative processes that help maintain inventory. Walmart follows
all these strategic plans in all these departments to make one organization run smoothly and
effectively(Rumelt, 2020). For Walmart's global dominance as a leading company, it must adopt
such innovations in strategic management.

References
Ansoff, H.I., Kipley, D., Lewis, A.O., Helm-Stevens, R. and Ansoff, R., 2018. Implanting
strategic management. Springer.
Bettis, R.A.,2013. Strategic management and the straightjacket: An editorial essay. Organization
Science, 2(3), pp.315-319.
Bracker, J.,2017. The historical development of the strategic management concept. Academy of
management review, 5(2), pp.219-224.
Burgelman, R.A., Maidique, M.A. and Wheelwright, S.C.,2019. Strategic management of
technology and innovation (Vol. 2). Chicago: Irwin.
Freeman, R.E. and McVea, J., 2011. A stakeholder approach to strategic management. The
Blackwell handbook of strategic management, pp.189-207.
Hill, C.W., Jones, G.R. and Schilling, M.A., 2014. Strategic management: theory: an integrated
approach. Cengage Learning.
Hossler, D., 2016. The Strategic Management of College Enrollments. Jossey-Bass Inc., 350
Sansome St., San Francisco, CA 94104.
Lasserre, P., 2017. Global strategic management. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Rumelt, R.P., Schendel, D. and Teece, D.J., 2020. Strategic management and economics.
Strategic management journal, 12(S2), pp.5-29.