PPM ASSIGNMENT ON WAL-MART BRAND SCAVANGING

Efforts By: Aditya Jain MBA 1C

WAL-MART is the world's third largest public corporation, according to the Fortune Global 500 list in 2012. Walmart has 8,500 stores in 15 countries, under 55 different names. The company operates under the Walmart name in the United States, including the 50 states and Puerto Rico. It operates in Mexico as Walmex, in the United Kingdom as Asda, in Japan as Seiyu, and in India as Best Price. At some point Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, made the decision to achieve higher sales volumes by keeping sales prices lower than his competitors by reducing his profit margin. Mission Statement "We save people's money so they can live better." In addition to this mission statement, the company focuses on the following If we work together, well lower the cost of living for everyonewell give the world an opportunity to see what its like to save and have a better life. According to me company is able to meet its Mission statement as Wal-mart has good negotiating power and it is able to offer products to the public at very low prices. This is one of the main reason that people are attracted to purchase from here. Wal-mart is also offering many employment opportunities to the general public.

A SWOT Analysis of Wal-Mart.

Here is a simple SWOT analysis of Wal mart: Strengths In one store they offer a huge number of goods at very competitive, they are offering the best prices to the general public ,Because of their size they can get huge discounts from suppliers and so pass these savings on to the customers. They manufacture their own branded goods as well as supply goods from local suppliers and other major brands. Their size and buying power is a great strength. They also are very careful with how they spend their money and manage their resources.

Weaknesses Just controlling such a huge organisation is a very difficult task to manage the huge number of employees. Suppliers are always under pressure with regard to price and their ability to supply when required. Because of the low prices customers often question and are concerned at the quality of the goods. This is offset to some extent by the satisfaction guarantees offered.

Opportunities Expansion into other countries and forming partnerships to enter these countries is probably the main opportunity. Taking over companies overseas is also possible. e.g. ASDA in the UK. It joined hands with Bharti to enter Indian market. Home delivery of orders placed through the internet is a big opportunity. Creation of Wal-Mart convenience stores is a strong possibility. This overcomes local objections and increased travel costs. Threats Local competing vendors hate the possible arrival of Wal-Mart and a lot opposition is likely. Also competition from local convenience stores is likely to increase as travel costs to Wal-Mart increase. In Europe the expansion of the German retailers, Aldi and Lidl, is growing fast. These companies offer limited stock but are local and are cheap. ALDI is the Southwest Airlines of the grocery business, with efficiency being the name of the game with only 1000 or so stock items against the normal 20,000 to 30,000 items in Wal-Mart. Although Wal-Mart is huge, competition from similar companies is also likely. Being successful, they are open to attack on any ethical stance - low pay and poor work conditions, supply of goods from 'poor' cheap labour countries, and environmental issues.

Wal-Mart PESTLE Analysis

The PESTLE Analysis is a strategic planning tool used by corporations to analyze the various external forces that would affect corporations operations when entering new markets. The PESTLE categorizes those elements into six different forces, which are the political, economical, social, technological, legal, and environmental forces.

Political Forces
Wal-Mart has become a symbol of the American culture and it will become a target for any political faction that opposes the political views of the United States. This factor could severely limit the company's' growth in certain region of the world. Economical Forces When discussing economic forces in the PESTLE analysis, we refer to how different states of an economy such as an economic surge or a depression would influence multinational corporations and their business within that specific economy. Wal-Mart is always sensitive towards this aspect, their sales model which depends on low margins of profit and a high volume of sales, could alter relatively fast. In an economic surge their selling point of low prices would be of less importance to customers, on the contrary, during a time of recession/depression their goal of high volume of sales would be threatened. As a result of the previously mentioned points, Wal-Mart should conduct a thorough study before entering an unbalanced economy. Social Forces This aspect defines the characteristic of the social forces when analyzing a foreign market and the society in which it is present in. These social forces can cripple a corporations' business if they were left unchecked. In regards to Wal-Mart, this element could prove to be crucial, due to the fact that Wal-Marts model was tailored to suit the American society and their attitudes towards retail shopping. That mentality would inevitably clash with the attitudes of clients in foreign countries fueled by social differences. As a result, Wal-Mart would have to make changes to its model in order to adapt to the requirements of other cultures, this would present a cost that would limit the companys' growth. Technological Forces The Technological forces refer to the changes and innovations in technologies and the extent to which it affects companies' processes. It is well known that technology changes all the time and people are always creating better, faster, and more efficient

ways of doing things. Companies that can integrate those changes the fastest would have an edge over those who cannot. Wal-Mart has always been a leader in implementing and integrating new technologies to improve its efficiency. However, when venturing to other countries, those systems are sometimes unusable. Change could take a different amount of time to reach different countries, and companies would have to take that into consideration before venturing into a new market. That means that Wal-Marts growth would be limited to the countries that can support those technologies. Legal Forces The legal factor that could affect organizations willing to enter foreign markets is the different laws, and corporations are forced to abide by those laws should they enter a foreign market. This is a powerful force due to the various implications it creates, companies could venture into other countries for the sole purpose of taking advantage of certain laws in those countries, for example, companies would usually go to a developing country with a less developed legal systems, and set operations to avoid more strict laws in their home countries (Labor laws, environmental laws, safety laws). Wal-Mart has received criticism that it uses this loophole to keep its prices low. Environmental Forces The environment is a major concern for multinational corporations; this is because large corporations are accused of destroying the environment and the exhaustion of natural resources on a regular basis. Wal-Mart has had an environmental issue before; they sold furniture that was produced from using wood from a natural reserve. They were heavily criticized and were eventually pushed into dropping the product line completely. As a result of that issue, their growth in that field was halted.

Conclusion
Wal-mart is one of the largest brand in the world and its is still growing to cover the the world market as it is strategically entering various countries like India.