Wal-Mart: Internal Analysis sample essay

Wal-Mart is the largest company in the world (assuming the last year’s prices for energy resources). It is a huge company that has revenue comparable to GDP of a small country. Wal-Mart is a multinational company with huge potential, and huge pressure as well.

The internal analysis of the company constitutes the detailed discussion of its strengths and weaknesses. Some of the major Wal-Mart’s strengths are:

• Wal-Mart has its own satellite-supported global communication system, which allows people in America to trace sales of a particular item in any store in the world. Its powerful privately owned global intranet is one of the largest in the world, and it was one of the 10 Best Intranets of 2002.

• Wal-Mart is a global, rapidly growing company; it expands by both acquisitions of other companies and opening new stores. Wal-Mart has opened over 1,000 discount stores in the United States, acquired English retail giant ASDA, and opened many stores in different countries such as Germany, Brazil, Mexico, China, Canada, United Kingdom, Argentina, and others.

• Wal-Mart itself is a very powerful brand, known to people in nearly all developed and developing countries. The company’s slogan is very attractive to the public. In addition, Wal-Mart discount stores offer very low prices, which attracts the public even more. In addition to discount stores, Wal-Mart has several other successful types of stores.

• Their focus of human resource management is another strength. Wal-Mart does not treat employees as subordinates, but rather as associates. Thus, management is given much decision-making power. They make employees feel important and motivated.

And some of Wal-Mart’s major weaknesses include:

• Public relations of the company are deteriorating; whether with the help of competitors or justly, it still is a fact. Wal-Mart has experienced intense criticism from its customers and competitors. Some of the mast widely spread topics of concern are discrimination at workplace, and mistreating their employees. Although Wal-Mart does pay much attention to its public relations, still there are several occurrences of job discrimination, which had cost Wal-Mart millions of dollars.

• Wal-Mart is the biggest company in the world (after Exxon), and regardless of their great communication systems, such an empire is very difficult to control. With their corporate culture, which gives managers power to make decisions, this giant becomes even more uncontrollable. The span of control is tremendous. Each separate store is a unique little corporation, despite the fact that it is connected to the entire Wal-Mart intranet. The public relations problems mentioned above are the results of this scarce control. If power were more centralized, then many problems could be avoided.

• Although the company is multinational, still it has presence in relatively few countries, as compared to, for example, Coca-Cola or McDonalds. Currently it has 2,135 stores outside the United States. 786 in Mexico, 375 in United Kingdom, 278 in Canada, 156 in Brazil, etc. Altogether, Wal-Mart operates in 14 countries outside the U.S. Coca-Cola, for example, operates in more than 50 states. So there is much room for improvement in this area.

• Wal-Mart sells many items across many sectors; and so by offering very broad variety, it cannot focus on one single sector, which gives room for its focused competitors. Groceries, toy stores, apparel outlet networks, - all these are small competitors of Wal-Mart. But even though they are very small compared to Wal-Mart, they can offer the clients what Wal-Mart cannot. These small competitors can focus on a particular sector and offer some specialized services or products, this way winning customer battles. Thus, Wal-Mart needs to pay more attention to its separate product sectors.

Bibliography

1. Wikipedia contributors (2006). Wal-Mart. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved April 17, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart

2. SWOT Analysis Wal-Mart. (2004). Marketing teacher. Retrieved April 17, 2006 from http://www.marketingteacher.com/SWOT/walmart_swot.htm

3. 10 Best Intranets of 2002. (2002). Useit. Retrieved April 17, 2006 from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020903.htmlOrder custom essay now!