Preview

Walmart China Case Analysis Essay Example

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1962 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Walmart China Case Analysis Essay Example
WALMART-China CASE ANALYSIS
Walmart-world’s largest retailer, is a successful as a king of retailing in US market. After this success, Wal-Mart Stores started eyeing areas beyond its home country and looking at unchartered waters in the overseas markets.
Wal-Mart’s mature discount concept and business model were ready to be exported. The management firmly believed that consumers were alike everywhere around the world in searching for quality products at great prices and desiring to be treated well. So, Walmart began its expansion strategies in the Chinese market.

The article mentions the reasons for Wal-Mart's decision to go global , discusses in detail the entry strategy and the localization strategies including procurement and store management. The corporate governance practices followed by the company in China is also discussed. We now analyze the problems the company faced in China because of the differences between the operational and cultural environment of its home market and the Chinese market. Finally, a discussion on the future prospects of the company in the Chinese market and my recommendations is presented.

Success of Walmart in US- Key factors
Strategy in US: Market Capture: Wal-Mart has aimed to serve customers who had to travel long distances to save money. It opened “one horse”, rural, backwater towns ignored by other retailers. It grew outside competitors' radar screens to a substantial size to command economies of scale. Public listing provided Wal-Mart with ample resources to finance there by leading to more rapid expansion.
Strategy to win strong customer base: It sold brand products for less by offering multiple store formats, including discount stores, supercentres, warehouse stores, and neighborhood markets. This strategy brought customers from all income levels.
Competitor Restriction: With its unique combination of culture and strategies, Wal-Mart set itself apart from its competitors. It entered the market as

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Costco vs. Wal-Mart

    • 1269 Words
    • 6 Pages

    With $401.2 billion revenues, the retailing giant, Wal-Mart, has been ranked as the 2nd place of 2009 Fortune 500 companies. This company is seen as the most successful business in the world today but also viewed as the vital indicator to observe the status of financial crisis recovery. Wal-Mart has won market share during the recession by offering customers lower prices as its successful marketing strategy. Moreover, Wal-Mart is long for expanding its kingdom all over the world. In 2005, Taiwan once was one of Wal-mart’s plans to join the overseas expansion, nevertheless, Wal-mart veered round to China at the last minute.…

    • 1269 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    During the past decade, retail markets have undergone many changes in their processes, services, and formats. The last part of distribution of the market strategy, retailing serves as a bridge between the final consumer and the mass producers of products. Retailing has reached every corner of the globe, and Wal-Mart has been eying areas where the retail market is unorganized or poorly organized. It, along with other corporations, has used liberalization, privatization, and globalization to become potential players in the commercial opportunities these areas embody. “Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. operates Wal-Mart discount stores, Supercenters, Neighborhood Markets and Sam’s Club locations in the United States. The Company operates in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom.”…

    • 1307 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    This has highlighted and broadened their need to succeed and remain at the top in the retail industry. Though closely marked by online marketers like Amazon and eBay, Wal-Mart’s marketing strategy consists of flooding the market with their presence and this is frightening for companies who find Wal-Mart’s physical presence and business practices disturbing. With such a substantial spread of many outlets, extremely reasonable pricing, and a huge market share, their marketing strategy has necessitated a global takeover of all the appropriate…

    • 4149 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Walmart vs Target

    • 824 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Since 1962 and the beginning of the discount retailer market Wal-Mart has been ahead of the retail game. By 1967 there were 24 Wal-Marts that had grossed 12.6 million dollars. In just 7 years Wal-mart had spread into 9 states. By 1979 Wal-Mart was the fastest store to reach a billion dollars in sales. In 2005 Wal-Mart has 3,800 domestic stores along with 3,800 stores internationally, and had made over 312 billion dollars. As you can see the Wal-Mart empire has grown monumentally. To move into this segment of the market would be tough.…

    • 824 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Since the opening of its first store in Bentonville, Arkansas in 1962, Wal-Mart has gradually spread from its starting point in the South and Midwest to dominate the suburban and rural retail market across the United States. Having effectively taken over these markets, Wal-Mart’s most profitable opportunities for growth are now outside the United States. However, the company has also begun to move aggressively into those more densely populated cities that have so far been off limits, either for lack of space or due to local policies, which do not allow large companies like Wal-Mart to build new stores in these areas because of its negative impact on small businesses and the local economy (Wal-Mart, 2010).…

    • 3441 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wal-Mart management embraced globalization and used it to develop a monopoly of international markets across the world. Wal-Mart has supercenters in the following countries: Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Japan, China and India. According to Glynn Davis (2008), Wal-Mart’s international market gives us a vast idea of the variety of businesses that it now operates around the world.…

    • 924 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Globalization of Wal-Mart

    • 1167 Words
    • 5 Pages

    As the world’s largest retail store in the world, Walmart wants to be in every market that they can be prosperous in. They know they rule the United States market, so why not try to expand overseas and dominate those markets as well. Now that they have reached limits on expansion here in the U.S., the next step was to test the water in other nations. As they began to go international, there were many critics saying they will never make it because their business practices and culture wouldn’t work in other countries. Yet the company’s globalization efforts progressed at a rapid pace. Its more than 4,263 international retail units employ more than 660,000 associates in 15 international markets. Their international sales have made up over 24.7 percent of the company’s total sales. This is expected to increase substantially over the next decade. (International business 13th edit, pg. 251)…

    • 1167 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The globalization of Wal-Mart began in 1991 in Mexico. The economy was starting to affect Wal-Mart’s business and they had to figure out a way to bring the profit up before business was lost. They decided to branch out and open a store in Mexico and Wal-Mart currently has stores in eleven countries (Vijay Govindarajan and Anil K. Gupta 2002). By 1999, Wal-Mart had more than 130,000 employees working in 729 facilities outside the United States (Vijay Govindarajan and Anil K. Gupta 2002). There were many factors that played into Wal-Marts decision to globalize. The first being that it had already saturated most of the domestic markets, and the United States only accounts for just over four percent of the world’s…

    • 1610 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Wal-Mart’s worldwide employments presently consist of 4,263 stores and 660,000 employees in fifteen nations externally the United States. There are completely controlled stores in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and the UK. With two.one million workers globally, the business is the gigantic independent entrepreneur in the US and Mexico, and 1 of the gigantic in Canada. In the monetary span in 2010, Wal-Mart’s worldwide departmentalizing commerce were $one hundred billion, or 24.7% of overall marketing.…

    • 1134 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Case Study 2

    • 935 Words
    • 3 Pages

    International expansion is different from the domestic expansion because geography areas, culture, tradition, behaviors and characteristics of the consumers are not similar, thus the management, concepts and strategies will be different in the expansion of international markets. The strategy will have to be careful according to the culture, geography and behaviors of the customers. Wal-Mart has taken this expansion as critical part of its strategy to achieve the goal in its targeted markets. The strategies should be drawn out with serious consideration and discussion to be fit into targeted geographic areas. Since they are taken as critical part, it is not surprising that Wal-Mart has been working on the right path of strategies and concepts to reach to the succeed.…

    • 935 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    When Wal-mart first started their business, they were clothing, small appliances, and home goods type of business. Through the years of their technology innovation, they saw how they can benefit from expanding their sales to food, pharmacy, sporting goods, and even an auto center. As they moved forward, they brought in private banks, eye care centers, nail salons, hair salons, and even a place for professional photos. Their careful…

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    To begin with, Wal-Mart’s rapid growth has led to great success for the company, but at the expense of small businesses around the nation. “Supermarkets rule the food chain” (Patel, 2011). Smaller shops and businesses have been taking huge hits in recent years. Small “mom and pop” stores have been the backbone of American society and a symbol of the American dream since the founding of the country. That being said, Wal-Mart has been in constant competition with these stores, and many say…

    • 3172 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wal-Mart Market Structure

    • 971 Words
    • 3 Pages

    This business ecosystem may be similar to what other retailers may use, such as Kmart, but Wal-Mart did not follow the norm by opening stores in the suburbs where the money was. Wal-Mart decided that it was in their best interest to stay put in rural and small-town markets. They felt that the people from the suburbs would come to them, which is exactly what ended up happening. Their simple strategy worked; one store would cater to several different towns.…

    • 971 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Case Summary WalMart

    • 395 Words
    • 2 Pages

    First, WalMart’s choice of geographic location in small town locations that were not being served by competitors allowed it to establish itself as the only discount retailer in these areas. This key strategic choice of location was completely different from what competitors had done and gave WalMart a first-mover advantage in markets that had not previously been served by discount retailers.…

    • 395 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Arkansas based company Wal-Mart had been attempting to gain a foothold in China since 1996 and has encountered a variety of problems in doing so. Initially, the company was hindered by Chinese business regulations which were saturated with layers of bureaucracy and forced the US retailer to go slowly. Meanwhile, its chief competitors were bending the rules to their advantage and making greater progress in establishing a secure foothold in the world’s largest consumer market. Wal-Mart was faced with logistical difficulties, regulatory hurdles, and an apparent need to adjust their business model to better fit the Chinese consumer culture. The result was a very challenging business environment that would put the retailer’s business model to the test.…

    • 818 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays