Today, I'll touch on some of the resources and capabilities Wal-mart uses to be successful.
Tangible Resources
Real Estate - The company owns all of its buildings, and most of the surrounding storefronts next to it. This is a departure from normal commercial practice, as most retailers lease. The company now purchases and develops its new locations, refurbishes old ones, and resells unused locations.(Read more here)
Intangible Resources
Experience -The company knows how manage a large retail chain. This is evidenced by its domination of the U.S. market. The company has tried to use its domestic strategy overseas, literally building new Wal-Marts. However, the company was not successful in early attempts at "forcing" the market to succumb to its style of doing business (more here). It learned from those mistakes, and has modified its strategy. Instead of trying to introduce the Wal-Mart brand when entering a foreign market, the company buys one of the largest players and then applies general proprietary strategies to the domestic retail chain. It's working so well, other U.S. retailers are attempting to repeat Wal-Mart's success when entering new markets. (more here)
Company Culture - One of the primary facets of the culture is to embrace change. In my orientation class, I was told "The one constant thing about Wal-Mart is change." This willingness to alter has allowed the company to adapt to changes in the external environment. Wal-Mart has lost market share over the last couple of years to companies like Dollar General and Family Dollar, which use small stores built for convenience shopping. Wal-Mart already operates Neighborhood Market stores, stores smaller than regular and supercenter ones, and has now created a smaller platform - Wal-Mart Express. This store is about one-tenth the size of a supercenter, and is being used to compete with the small discount retail chains. And apparently, the company is succeeding.
Capabilities
Logistics - Already touched on in a previous post.
Homework Help Writing Services One of the primary facets of the culture is to embrace change. In my orientation class, I was told "The one constant thing about Wal-Mart is change." This willingness to alter has allowed the company to adapt to changes in the external environment.
ReplyDelete