Case: Walmart, Inc.

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Case: Wal-Mart, Inc. Doris M Willis January 14, 2017 Planning & Budgeting OAD-40264 Case: Walmart, Inc. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. What is Walmart’s strategy? What is the basis on which Wal-Mart builds its competitive advantage? Per a study conducted by Professor Vijay Govindarajan and Julie Lang Wal-Mart’s strategy is based on selling products at a low cost (as cited by Anthony & Govindarajan, 2007). Wal-Mart’s strategy dominates the retail sector in both domestic and foreign markets (Anthony & Govindarajan, 2007). Wal-Mart calculatingly made certain it did not become too dependent on one supplier. Govindarajan and Lang mention no single supplier handled more than 4 percent of Wal-Mart’s entire purchase volume (as cited by Anthony & Govindarajan, 2007). To give Wal-Mart a competitive advantage it persuaded its suppliers to adapt to the radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip technology for strengthening the monitoring and management of its inventory, which boosted supply chain efficiencies. The company initially introduced RFID to track pallets of merchandise traveling along its supply chain (Bisk Education, 2017). Walmart sought every prospect to restructure its supply chain and cut costs to live up to its pledge of everyday low pricing and warehousing. Wal-Mart takes advantage of the “saturation” strategy to expand market presence by dominating the market. Wal-Mart uses its size and its ability to buy in large volumes to help effect its strategy. The ploy is to be able to drive from the distribution center to a store within a day and to have operations around the clock while using an efficient distribution system according to the study. Moreover, Wal-Mart has an enormous fleet of trailer trucks and drivers. As cited by Anthony and Govindarajan (2007), Wal-Mart’s marketing strategy is to appeal to the customer with the promise of

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