Walmart Strategies for Achieving Competitive Advantage

Wal-Mart Strategies for Achieving Competitive Advantage

by

Veola Bryant-Wallace

Business Operations: System Perspectives in Global Organizations

Walden University

July 24, 2016

Wal-Mart Strategies for Achieving Competitive Advantage

        Wal-Mart is largest retailer in the world as well as the largest corporation in the world they are bigger than France’s Carrefour SA. They generate more than three times their competition revenue with over 2.2 million workers, which make them the largest non-government employer in the United States. They have over 1,478 Wal-Mart discount stores and over 650 Sam’s Clubs strategically located in 50 states. They are the fasting developing global division with more than 28 percent sales internationally. Wal-Mart is the main retailer in Canada and Mexico. They have stores in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America (Wal-Mart, 2016). Walmart’s biggest competitors are Target Corporation, Costco Wholesale Corporation, and Carrefour. Riding a rising six-year pattern, retail juggernaut Wal-Mart reported nets of $486 billion in the financial year that finished in January 2015, an expansion of practically $10 billion from monetary 2014.

That is up from $408 billion in the course of recent years, as per the Wall Street Journal’s Marketwatch (“Wal-Mart: Keys to Successful Supply Chain Management”, 2016). That income was created by more than 4,500 stores in the U. S. alone, and bolstered by a sprawling supply chain, which moved from number 14 to number 13. Wal-Mart has held a spot among Gartner’s main twenty supply chains for a large portion of ten years (“Wal-Mart: Keys to Successful Supply Chain Management”, 2016). Wal-Mart revenues occur from the offer of food, consumables, over-the-counter and apparel and in 2016 (“Wal-Mart Annual Report”, 2014). They currently offer gas but most of service by another company, soon Wal-Mart will offer gas stations at more Wal-Mart’s own and operated by them with hope of driving more traffic and sales (Kieler, 2016).

Global Supply Chain

        Supply chain management (SCM) is the oversight of materials, data, and finances as they move in a procedure from supplier to maker to wholesaler to retailer to buyer. SCM includes organizing and incorporating streams both inside and among organizations (Mentzer, Myers, Stank, 2007). SCM is progressively being perceived as the reconciliation of key business forms over the supply chain. Now that organizations have actualized forms inside the organization, they have to incorporate them between firms: Streamlining cross-organization procedures great for lessening costs, upgrading quality, and speeding operations. It is the place this current decade’s profitability wars will be fought. The victors will be those organizations that can take another way to deal with business, working intimately with accomplices to outline and oversee forms that stretch out crosswise over customary corporate limits (Croxton, Garcia-Dastugue, Lambert, & Douglas, 2001).  

The focus of SCM is simply to be competitive and to have the advantage a company will need to be competitive can only happen by implementing a more well-organized process and improve quality product for their consumers. The observation and dependability of the buyer decides the achievement of client driver associations (Mentzer et al., 2007). Information, knowledge, and experience are key to having an upper hand (Mentzer et al., 2007). In creating a competitive advantage, businesses may look for pleasant and affable organizations that produce buyer unwaveringness. Through joining, forces businesses can participate to satisfy the clients want for customization, availability, and moderateness (Mentzer et al., 2007).

The effect of data and correspondence innovation in-store network is unarguable with a specific end goal to increase upper hand. In addition, the principle advantages which organizations can plan to secure are; fast responsive store network, productive client’s administrations, less process cost, short process duration, and new intends to extend merchandise (Maqbool, Rafiq, Imran, Qadeer, & Abbas, 2014). More importantly to be competitive is to ensure as a business you reinvent your products on a continuous basis and you are offering customers your best (Mentzer, el at, 2007).

        David Robert and Darrell Hammer of Adamsville, Alabama are the Store Manager and Shipping and Receiving Manager. John is responsible directing the management team in the day to operations and communication with both management and hourly associates. John says that he not just responsible for managing the store but he responsible for driving sales and how the store performs financially. How well the store performs and the revenue they bring in ultimately lands in Johns lap (D. Robert, personal communication, July 19, 2016).  A very important role at Wal-Mart is shipping and receiving. They are responsible for ensuring all incoming and outgoing shipping activities are accurate and completeness and they are in good conditions (D. Hammer, personal communication, July 20, 2016).  

In an interview with Darrell Hammer, shipping and receiving are the ones that get the product out so the customer can purchase to improve revenue. Few people know the role or how important the role of shipping and receiving is to any business. The workflow needs to be on point to ensure the staging of items is in place for easy accessibility. As a supervisor, it is my job to put people that flow well with each other together to make sure all products are available for restocking at all times. Not all people work well together and not all understanding how hard this job is and how at the same time it is important to ensure products are available for selling. On the other end of the paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork is just as important. All packing slips, packing material, and any item that came with the product is just as important so a file clerk in a necessity. This person must understand that a missing document can and will most time cause the company money if not available when the store manager needs the document (personal communications, July 20, 2016).  

In an interview with David Robert, Wal-Mart is a legend when it comes to logistic and operations. Being a store manager over the largest chain store in the world means a lot. We did not get there overnight and we got there by ensuring Wal-Mart had the latest and greatest of everything from clothing to food to pharmacy, eye care and now gas. As for global supply chain management having what the customers needs whenever they need it pretty much takes care of that portion of our business. Wal-Mart is now working on cost and making sure we are competitive in our market with our competitors. The quickest way to lose is to believe you are there when this war is only beginning. One of the biggest ways we save money in the supply chain management is we deal directly most time with our distributors. That helps a lot believe it or not (personal communication, July 19, 2016).