Case Study Of Strategic Human Resource Management

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Introduction: Michael E. Porter (1980) in his famous book said there are three basic competitive strategies for a company, which are overall cost leadership; differentiation and focus strategy. Companies use these competitive strategies to achieve competitive advantage. In this case, Walmart Company is obviously taking the cost leadership strategy, that is to say, it aims to become the low-cost leader in the retail industry. Walmart maintains its competitive advantage through its satellite-based distribution system, and by keeping store location costs to a minimum by placing stores on low-cost land outside small to medium-sized towns, no matter in the US or in its abroad affiliations. Part 1: the analysis of corporate strategy and HR strategy at Wal-Mart. From this case material we could also see that Walmart purchased massive quantities of items from its suppliers to form scale economy, and with the efficient stock control system helping make its operating costs lower than those of its competitors. It also imported many goods from China, “the world factory” for its low cost. So in a word the company-level strategy of Walmart is low cost and low cost, with little differentiation strategy. Managers engage in three levels of strategic planning (Gary Dessler, 2005): the corporate-level strategy; the business-level strategy and the function-level strategy. The functional strategy should serve the overall company strategy so the corporate strategy could be implemented more effectively and efficiently. As for Walmart, its corporate-level strategy and business-level strategy, as we analyzed above, is the low cost leadership. Then we’ll focus on its functional strategy, especially its HR strategy. Besides the above factors, Walmart builds its low cost leader on employment policies that help it to achieve extraordinarily low employment costs. Through low-cost HR

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