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Introduction
Wal-Mart may have grown too big and too dominating for its own good. Conducting an internet search on Wal-Mart yields interesting results. As the largest private employer in the world it is intuitive to think that consumers have a positive impression of Wal-Mart. After all, Wal-Mart has over 1.9 million employees worldwide and offers extremely low prices on its merchandise; however, there are as many Wal-Mart “haters” as supporters with websites dedicated to exposing Wal-Mart’s “evil” business practices. Wal-Mart has had difficulty meeting their growth goals in the past couple years and will continue to have difficulty in the future. In assessing their business, it is easy to identify many strengths and weakness to build upon and improve in both regards. Utilizing internal analysis of its strengths and weaknesses (internal analysis) and putting them against a backdrop of external pressures (external analysis), Wal-Mart can identify opportunities to grow the business and threats to the long-term success of it.
Internal Analysis
In order to properly assess Wal-Mart’s place in the global business world, it is necessary to conduct a thorough analysis of their business. Ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Zu once said “If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” (Gutenburg Project Translation, 2005) Although Wal-Mart’s “battle” is far from life and death, Sun Zu’s words have some bearing if looked at figuratively: it is extremely important to identify both internal and external factors that may influence future growth.
In order to efficiently conduct the internal portion of the analysis, Michael Porter developed the Value Chain Model to identify activities that allow businesses to create value and a competitive advantage. The next exhibit shows the value chain in graphic format.









The primary...