Walmart (Essay Sample)

Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Task 1. A detailed description of the firm's business PAGEREF _Toc513410024 \h 21.1 What does Walmart do? PAGEREF _Toc513410025 \h 21.2 Who are Walmart? PAGEREF _Toc513410026 \h 21.3 When did Walmart start? PAGEREF _Toc513410027 \h 21.4 Where are they? PAGEREF _Toc513410028 \h 31.5 Porter’s Five Forces PAGEREF _Toc513410029 \h 41.6 PESTEL Analysis of Walmart PAGEREF _Toc513410030 \h 4Task 2: Walmart and Climatic Change PAGEREF _Toc513410031 \h 52.1 Statistics on Climatic Change PAGEREF _Toc513410032 \h 52.2 Walmart’s negative contribution to climatic change PAGEREF _Toc513410033 \h 62.3 Walmart’s positive contributions to climatic change PAGEREF _Toc513410034 \h 7Task 3. Reflection PAGEREF _Toc513410035 \h 83.1 The most and least enjoyable lessons PAGEREF _Toc513410036 \h 83.2 Lessons Learnt from this module PAGEREF _Toc513410037 \h 93.3 Brief Summary of Feelings PAGEREF _Toc513410038 \h 104. References PAGEREF _Toc513410039 \h 11 Task 1. A detailed description of the firm's business 1.1 What does Walmart do? Walmart is the current world’s largest American retailer whose scope of operations involves grocery stores, discount department stores, warehouse clubs and hypermarkets. In every week, the company is able to attract approximately 270 million members and consumers who visit the company’s stores that match up to approximately 11,700 stores in number (McGee, 2018). These stores are run under sixty-five banners, managed in 28 countries on a global scale and also through the company’s ecommerce sites. The company also focuses on its employees as key stakeholders whose needs also need to be met within the organization’s pathway to success (Meeks and Chen, 2011). This for the organization has been achieved as the organization has been classified as the globe’s largest private employer with an employee base of more than two million people as at 2017 (Walmart, 2018). Walmart deals with a myriad of products which include electronics, music, moves, apparel, furniture, home improvement, health and beauty products, groceries amongst others. 1.2 Who are Walmart? Walmart is an organization that focusses on providing solutions to both the consumers they serve and those who they intend to serve, by venturing into diverse business sectors. The company is currently one of the leading organizations in terms of its sustainability initiatives, the philosophes of the organization and the providence of employment opportunities in America and other countries that it operates it. At the heart of the company’s operations is the need to provide value to the consumers that they serve. An example of value that they provide to consumers which is a very imperative part of sustainability as pointed out by Huang et al. (2015) is that the company provides hefty cash and in-kind contributions to near by communities that were valued at 1.4 billion dollars as at last year. This was with the aim of improving the livelihood of the less fortunate in the community that they operate in on a global scale. 1.3 When did Walmart start? Walmart was started by a visionary leader known as Sam Walton whose main aim was providing exemplary consumer service and providing value to consumers. These are the values that the company have adopted fifty years later. In the year 1950, Sam Walton opened his fist store known as Walton’s 5&10 followed by the first Walmart in 1962 inspired the success of his first store. The company was able to achieve success because of its differentiation strategy of providing value in comparison to the adaptation of cost leadership (Leuprecht, and Sokolsky, 2014). In 1970, the company was publicized whose proceeds allowed the company to expand. He was able to attract a number of his associates to partner with him to expand the organization with new technological advancements and diverse approaches to the retail business. Walton was an experimental leader and through this, he was able to redesign store formats and expand to other countries including Mexico. 1.4 Where are they? Physically, Walmart’s headquarters are located in Bentonville which is in Arkansas. The company has thousands of retail stores opened all over the United States and operates in more than twenty-seven countries as mentioned above. Some of the countries in which Walmart operate in include Mexico, Japan, India and Canada. The organization also has wholly owned entities in South America particularly in Argentina, Brazil and Chile. Strategically, Walmart are leading the way for other retail organizations with revenue margins of more than 500 billion dollars as of the year 2018 (Walmart, 2018). This has been achieved under the leadership of Doug McMillion who is the company’s chief executive officer under whom the company is able to follow their vision: that if they work together, they will be able to lower the cost of living for all their stakeholders; giving the world an opportunity to see what it is like to have better savings and an improved life. 1.5 Porter’s Five Forces Porter’s Five Forces is divided into: the bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, the threat of substitute products, the threat of new entrants and the competitive rivalry within the industry which guide the organization to understand the industry in which they operate in (Fung, 2014).The bargaining power for buyers in the retail market in which Walmart operates in is quite low considering the company also adopts low pricing making it difficult for consumers to switch to other retailers. The bargaining power of suppliers is also low considering the size of the organization. Considering their wide range of operations and revenue margins, suppliers will want to do business with Walmart. The threat of substitute products is low as Walmart’s unique pricing strategy keeps consumers coming back for their products. The company’s adaptation to technological advancements also offers an added edge over their competitors lowering this threat (Ferdinand, 2013). The competitive rivalry within this industry is quite high due to the increased number of retailers in the United States and on a global scale; both physical and online retailers. 1.6 PESTEL Analysis of Walmart The PESTEL Analysis as described by Zhiyong (2017) focusses on an organization’s macro environment and how it affects the company’s operations. Politically, the company’s main operations in United States ensures that it benefits from a region that has high stability in relation to politics and good support for globalization as a strategic. Economically, the company is able to contribute to the American economy by aiding to lower the rates of unemployment. They are also able to benefit from the growth of economies of developing nations increasing their scale of operations. The sociocultural environment in America is characterized by people who are diverse in terms of culture and are shifting to healthy products which is an opportunity for the company. USA is considered to be a powerhouse in technology with significant investments in technology allowing the company to benefit from automation and the use of mobile devices to increase their scope of operations. Environmentally, USA is keen on ensuring conservation of environment with increased awareness of environmental friendly operations and products. Task 2: Walmart and Climatic Change 2.1 Statistics on Climatic Change Before assessing the company in relation to its positive and negative contributions to climatic change, it is imperative to review the current climatic conditions that the earth faces. In the United States 2016 was the warmest year for its citizens followed by 2015 which shows the effects of global warming that disrupts the climate in which countries usually enjoy. August of 2016 was the hottest month ever recorded on earth which has been attributed to yearly increments in global temperatures that average at 0.17 degrees. Out of the 16 hottest years that have been recorded on a global scale, 15 of them have been recorded within the 21st century showing the urgent need to re evaluate the climatic effects caused by organizations that operate on a global scale. The volume of ice in Greenland has an annual reduction of approximately 375 cubic kilometers per year which is matched with a decrease in the Arctic sea ice by 13% every decade. From the year 1993, the sea level on a global scale has experienced annual rises that match up to 3.39 millimeters attributed to more than 130 billion tons of ice that thaws into the sea on a yearly basis. Scientists estimate that it will take approximately 5000 years for the world’s current ice to melt which would lead to an increment in sea levels by more than 200 feet. As at the year ended 2016, it was estimated that approximately 90% of the globe’s natural disasters are contributed by climatic changes with over 600,000 deaths being attributed to weather related causes within the past ten years (Henderson-Sellers, 2010). On the positive side, the Paris Climate Agreement which was adopted on December in 2015 and which was agreed within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climatic Change (UNFCC) aims at dealing with the adverse climatic change through mitigation strategies on the emission of greenhouse gases (Savaresi, 2016). Every country is required to monitor, plan and make regular reports on their contribution to the aforementioned mitigation strategies. The United States as the base region for this report aims at reducing their emissions by 26% below 2005 levels before the year 2025 (Cozier, 2017). 2.2 Walmart’s negative contribution to climatic change Walmart has also been tied to several cases of pollution in the areas within which they operate that have adverse effects on the climate. In Washington, Pennsylvania and Connecticut as example states, the organization has been accused of violating several water qu...