Wal-Mart in German Market - Case Study Example

Walmart entered the German market in the late 90s. To be able to participate in the market Wal-Mart acquired two main hypermarkets. By doing that, Walmart stood a strong chance to thrive in the new market. This never happened as the German retail industry had reached a maturity stage with well-established retail firms (p. 1). The competition became too stiff as there existed many firms that offered retail products at lower prices. To cope with the competitors, Wal-Mart decided to adopt their cultural ways of doing business.

They thought their ways of serving customers like creating a strong relationship between customers and the employees would make them successful in Germany. Instead, their ways of doing business never impressed the Germans therefore; the company lost the market to the local firms (p. 4). Wal-Mart's decision to join the German market without carrying out an analysis to understand its culture was an enormous mistake. Walton could have thought about the difference between Germans culture and the Wal-Mart ways of doing business.

This could have helped him come up with ways of integrating the Wal-Mart culture with the German culture (p. 5). This could have helped them understand the best approaches to adopt in order to grasp the German market. He could have thought of the effect of the language barrier between customers and the American heritage employees. The best move that Walmart was to follow was to get German-origin employees who usually understood the cultural and customs practices of the Germans. This could have helped them to offer services effectively as per the cultural principles of the customers.

With this, Walmart could have succeeded in maintaining its identity without offending German customers. Following the recommended six steps, an organization research group will have enough time to interact with the people thus helping them to understand their needs and consumption behavior, thus creating a deep relationship with the locals which would help the company. This will enable them to have a better relationship with the employees when the time comes to launch their business overseas (p. 6). Secondly, they can have reviewers to check for any cultural variation between the company culture and the people’s culture.

This will help the company take foreign culture into its operations to avoid resistance from the people. Wal-Mart's experience has helped us to know that if any company wants to improve communication, it first has to use the local people who understand the customers’ language, customs, and traditions. This will allow customers to communicate with the management as they will be talking to people who know their needs (p. 7). Secondly, the company needs to understand and appreciate the customers’ culture.

This will help it avoid imposing the organizational culture on customers without knowing. By doing this, the company will carry out its activities as per the customers’ expectations thus boosting the business relationship and communication with customers (p. 6). It is clearly shown from what Walmart went through in Germany that whenever any company thinks of opening a branch in any new market then it has to consider taking into consideration different cultures, norms, and the way of life of the new place to avoid being a stranger in a new market (p. 7) . This will avoid a closing of a larger company in a field dominated by smaller firms.