International Marketing Strategy for Multinational Company - Essay Example

International Marketing strategy for Multinational Company Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 Introduction 3 Company Background 3 Wal-Mart in India 4 Wal-Mart’s Entry into India 5 PESTLE Analysis 5 Porter’s Five Force Analysis 7 SWOT Analysis 9 Marketing Strategy Employed by Wal Mart 10 Reasons for Failure of Wal-Mart in India 13 Recommendations for entering India market 16 Wal-Mart’s entry strategy in UK 18 Introduction 18 Strategy Replication by ASDA 19 Effect of Wal-Mart on the UK retailers 20 Secret of Success in UK 21 Strategy for growing in UK market 22 Reference 24 Introduction The leading organizations in the present era are trying to capitalize on the advantages that are created due to globalization. Several factors like economic development, modern and advanced technology, skilled employees and several macro and micro factors is influencing the organization to do global expansion. The global expansion helps a company in many ways. It increases the brand value in global market, due to globalization an organization can earn huge revenue and can maximize the profit. Moreover, global expansion can give a huge market share to the operating company. The companies may face several internal and external challenges while practicing international business. Depending upon the core competency, strengths and competitive advantages the particular organization has to develop their global business plan. For the purpose of the study the project should highlight the market entry strategy of Wal-Mart in UK and India. Moreover, the study will determine the challenges regarding the business operation in UK and Indian market. Finally the study will provide some recommendation plans for the further growth of the company. Company Background Wal-Mart is the largest American multinational retail chain established in the year 1962 currently headquartered in Bentonville, United States. The company has ranked top in the list of fortune 500 in two consecutive years. It is the third largest public limited company in global market. The employee strength of Wal-Mart is more than two million internationally. Wal-Mart has made it position under New York stock exchange in the year 1972. The company operates by their own in countries like Canada, Brazil and Argentina. They have the outlets in China, South America, UK. They have ventures in countries like South Korea and Germany. ASDA, one of the leading UK base retail chain is the Subsidiary of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart offers different luxurious and consumer durable goods to its customers. Broad range of different product categories that include crafts, movie DVDs, gift items, shoes, jewelries, cosmetics, garments, home appliance, video games, outdoor living, grocery, college essentials, toys and many more are available in a Wal-Mart outlet globally. The various product ranges has increased the core competency of Wal-Mart in global market. Wal-Mart in India Wal-Mart opened their first outlet in the year 2009 in Amritsar under the name of “Easy Days” with joint venture of Bharti Group. The giant retail chain has involved in selling of vegetables to hospitals, vendors and restaurants. Wal-Mart is planning to open more than 10 outlets in the potential cities in India within next two years. The important fact to be noticed is that the outlets of Wal-Mart do not carry the traditional “Wal-Mart Logo”. The organization use “Best Price” as their physical identity. It is an interesting strategy in order to avoid political issues against the multinational retailers entering into the Indian market. Key objective of this study is to identify the entry barriers that are faced by Wal-Mart while entering in Indian retail market. The Bharti-Walmart joint venture would develop the Indian retail industry revolution. Moreover, it will raise the buying experience of Indian consumers. Conventionally, the whole uneven retail industry consisted of 15 million units that are considered as the largest in the world. In the year 2006, India became the fastest growing economy in the world. Moreover, the GDP growth of India reached 8.1% in that time. Although the global recession has affected several economies, economy of India did not affect much by the recession in 2008. High population growth and increasing per capita income of people represent the potentiality of Indian retail market. Increase in shopping centers and malls replicated the boom in the Indian retail industry. Wal-Mart’s Entry into India PESTLE Analysis PESTLE Analysis is used to determine the impact of external environment factors on the Indian Retail Industry that may or may not affect the business operation of Wal-Mart. Political Analysis Strong opposition to FDI in the retail sector of India. Inadequate taxation policy for foreign retailers. Limited access to banking facilities. Economic Analysis Advantages of Foreign Investments. Money supply in market. Higher GDP, rising disposable income of people and increasing per capita income will help Wal-Mart to operate in India. Recession and inflation has slowed down the pace of economic development of the country. Social Analysis Ease of shopping and the concept of large retail chain can consume the time of people. CSR activities will help to raise the brand image of the company. People of India are slowly and gradually adopting the western culture of shopping. Technological Analysis India is technologically developing country. Offering the facility of online shopping, effective logistic and supply chain need the implementation of advanced technology. The availability of EPR system, Retail Media Network and CRM system in India will motivate Wal-Mart to enter in the competitive market. Legal Analysis Labor and Wages act. Shop and Establishment Act. Octroi, Weights and Measures. Environmental Analysis Environmental Safety rules and regulations by Govt. of India. Seasonal Products and short life cycle of products. Porter’s Five Force Analysis Porter’s Five Force analysis will determine the impact of Micro environmental factors on the business performance of Wal-Mart in India. Threats of New Entrants New retail organizations are facing high entry barriers like huge capital investment, employees, infrastructure in order to enter in the industry. The threat of new entrants increases as the entry barrier reduces in a competitive market place. The new companies require huge capital, labor and infrastructure in order to enter in the retail industry in India. If the brand loyalty of existing players is high then it is difficult for the new players to enter into the market. The strict government policies like said location must have more than 10,00,000 people, the organization has to invest more than 5 million dollar and the firm has to recruit local unskilled labor may made it difficult for the new players. The new firms will face problems through the existing distribution of distribution channel. Therefore it is feasible that the threat of new entrants is moderate for Wal-Mart. Buyer’s Power In India there is large quantity of buyers in retail industry. Moreover, there are several options for the people in India in order to buy the retail goods as there are huge numbers of retail outlets that exist in India. People from rural areas buy the goods from the kirana stores and people from the urban areas look to buy products from the both sources of suppliers. Several competitors within the retail industry in India used to provide discounted price in order to `increase their customer base. Therefore it is feasible that the force of bargaining power of buyers is high for Wal-Mart in India. Supplier’s Power Wal-Mart enjoys the significant part of high market share. Moreover, their business has spread out in global market. The organization offers large number of business opportunities to the suppliers and manufacturers as they do not manufacture products, they just procure products. These give a huge dominance power to Wal-Mart over their suppliers (Naylor, 386). If Wal-Mart identify that a supplier is charging more, then they get several alternative suppliers due to their wide network in global business market. Wal-Mart gains the opportunity of vertically integrating. Wal-Mart does not believe to deal with the major suppliers like other leading organization. Choosing small suppliers creates limited threat to Wal-Mart. Threat of Substitute In global retail market nobody can offer variety of products that include crafts, movie DVDs, gift items, shoes, jewelries, cosmetics, garments, home appliance, video games, outdoor living, grocery, college essentials, toys and many more in a retail outlet. Only Wal-Mart offers these product ranges. Moreover, they used to sell the products 15% lesser than their competitors. The organization has ensured their customers that they will get everything under a roof, what they want to consume. With the help and application of advanced technology the online stores of Wal-Mart have allowed their customers to take the price advantages (Bergdahl, 127). Industry Rivalry In terms of consumer retail sector there are three potential competitors who compete with each other in global market place. These three are K Mart, Sears and Target. Target is one of the leading companies in retail market. They have effectively applied their niche marketing strategy in order to compete within the industry. On the other hand, K Mart and Sears do not create that much challenge to Wal-Mart (Beard, 80). The effective business model, cost leadership and product differentiation strategy has made Wal-Mart the leading retail chain in global market. SWOT Analysis Strengths Cost Advantages. Unique and successful global expansion strategies. Strong Brand image. Customer orientation and low price of products. Strong and effective supply chain. Implementation of advanced IT in order to support international logistics. Weaknesses The organization is one of the leading organizations in global market but operates in few countries globally. Hugely depends upon bulk sales. In adequate adoption of different cultures. Less success beyond US. Poor flexibility. Opportunities Developing Economics and rising disposable income of people. New upgrade and advanced distribution channel. Joint venture with leading player like Bharti Group. Doing social activities in order to to raise the brand image. Threats Huge price competition and competitive retail market. Several political and legal issues like restriction on FDI. Global dumping law. Law against monopoly; The Anti-thrust Policy. Regional competitors and small end retail and stationary stores. Marketing Strategy Employed by Wal Mart Wal-Mart has ranked no.1 for the second time in the fortune 500 list. The organization that was founded in 1962 by Sam Walton has generated revenue of $421, 8490.0 million in the year 2011. Moreover, the organization has made a profit of $16, 389 million. The effective marketing mix is one of the key reasons for the success story of Wal-Mart. The marketing mix is consist of product, price, place and promotion mix. In order to achieve the research objective the marketing mix has described below. Product Wal-Mart is the leading multinational retailer in global market. A pin to elephant everything in different category can be found in the outlet of Wal-Mart. A buyer can consume every product of almost every brand that is essential for daily life. Moreover, Wal-Mart offers different luxurious and consumer durable goods to its customers. Broad range of different product categories that include crafts, movie DVDs, gift items, shoes, jewelries, cosmetics, garments, home appliance, video games, outdoor living, grocery, college essentials, toys and many more are available in a Wal-Mart outlet globally. The various product ranges has increased the core competency of Wal-Mart in global market. Price The business model of Wal-Mart is selling products in high volume and in low price level. The organization does not produce any product. They just procure several products in large quantity across the world in order to enjoy the reimbursement of economies of scale (Hicks, 2007, p. 147). As a result Wal-Mart has able to offer the products at 15% lower price to the customers than other retailers in global retail market. Wal-Mart offers the electronic goods in low prices compared to the other retailers. The effective discount strategy of Wal-Mart based on the demand of hour and time is the example of high quality pricing strategy of product and services. Place Wal-Mart has expanded their business in 27 countries. They have more than 10,000 retail outlets in global market. The company used to operate by both traditional stores and e-commerce formats. The average area of Wal-Mart including global market place is more than 1, 00,000 square feet (Friedman, 221). The store operation of Wal-Mart is categorized into Wal-Mart supercenters, Wal-Mart discount stores, Wal-Mart express stores and Wal-Mart neighborhood market. Wal-Mart has set up their stores both in centre of city and in country side place in order to give effective service to the people of country. Promotion Wal-Mart believes in own store promotional activities. They do their sales promotion through its pricing strategies and product bundling. The Wal-Mart online stores generate major revenue through the online customers by placing online gifts (Zaltman, 77). The unique online slogan like “Grab it before it’s done” pushes customers to make the immediate purchasing decision before the offer for particular product or service get expired. The pricing strategies itself and captions like “Value of the day”; “Everyday low Prices” through the stores completes the promotional campaigning for Wal-Mart. Reasons for Failure of Wal-Mart in India It is highly important to say that one of the global retailers of the US, Wal-Mart has entered into India through the process of forming a joint venture with Bharti Enterprises, which is an India based business conglomerate. It is of tremendous importance to highlight the fact that the strategy employed by the US based retail giant to enter the market of one of the fastest growing emerging economies of the Asia Pacific region is a splendid example of entering a market with high growth potential by forming a joint venture in with a local company. However, it has to be increasingly accepted that the market of India is highly different from the market of the US, which has been a strong battlefield for the global giant for the past couple of decades. Also, a series of critical factors exists in the Indian market. While starting the discussion with regards to the critical factors, the very first factor that needs to be significantly taken into consideration is the fact that the retail market is highly unorganized in India. Talking in regards to statistical data, as of the year 2007, 98% of the retail sector in India was unorganized in nature and as a result comprised of counter stores and street vendors. The entire valuation of the Indian retail industry stood at 320billion USD in the year 2007 and it is of high relevance to mention that the retail sector was supposed to grow at the rate of 5% on a compounded annual basis (Stanford Technology Ventures Program, 2007, p. 1). However, with the significant advancement in the Indian market because of rapid penetration of technology and faster catching up of the online shopping trends, the organized global sector comprises of around 4% of the total retail market as of today’s date (SME Times New Bureau, 2010). So, unorganized nature of the retail market can be counted as the first reason for failure of Wal-Mart in India till date. Another factor that has to be considered as very important is the consumer behavior existing in the Indian market. It is highly interesting to mention that Wal-Mart focuses on selling its products to the consumers while using the tactics of Every Day Low Pricing (EDLP). Wal-Mart tries to generate its profitability by focusing on delivering products on the basis of high volume (India Knowledge@Wharton, 2006). Though Indian consumers do look for quality products at the best prices, yet they do look for a variety of other factors. One of the most important factors that are highly prominent in the consumer behavior of the Indian masses is the Indian consumers need for small quantities of product, which simply means breaking of bulk. Two other important aspects of the Indian consumer behavior is their need for convenience and home delivery as well as making monthly payments at their grocery stores. Wal – Mart, which focuses on conducting its operations in a particular and streamlined fashion, cannot match with the advantages provided to the consumers by the local kirana stores, which are present in numerous numbers all over the country. Hence, it can be said that the diversified consumer behavior present in the Indian masses was in a great extent responsible for the failure of Wal-Mart. The format of stores which is promoted by Wal-Mart also needs to be taken into consideration. The stores layout of Wal-Mart is mostly spread over a large area. The high price tag of the land near a city makes its financial unviable to set up stores that requires large surface areas (Asthana, 2012). Since, the setup and design of the store requires a large amount of ground clearance, it is mostly located in the outskirts of the city. This also contributed to the failure of Wal-Mart in India. A factor of political nature also acted as a catalyst for the failure of the Wal-Mart in the Indian market. It can be said that the lobbying of multiple Indian political parties in regards to restricting of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Indian retail sector also acted as a negative influence of the growth prospects of Wal-Mart in India (IANS, 2012). The existence and implementation of various percentages of sourcing limits in the case of single brand and multi brand retail has increasingly played a serious effect in limiting the business prospects of Wal-Mart in the Indian region. Recommendations for entering India market Wal-Mart is the leading multinational retailer in global market. A pin to elephant everything in different category can be found in the outlet of Wal-Mart (Kitchen and Proctor, 315). A buyer can consume every type of product of almost every brand that is essential for daily life. The global expansion helps a company in many ways. It increases the brand value in global market, due to globalization an organization can earn huge revenue and can maximize the profit. Moreover, global expansion can give a huge market share to the operating company. Wal-Mart has expanded their business in 27 countries. They have more than 10,000 retail outlets in global market. The company used to operate by both traditional stores and e-commerce formats. The companies may face several internal and external challenges while practicing international business. Depending upon the core competency, strengths and competitive advantages the particular organization has to develop their global business plan. Wal-Mart enjoys the significant part of high market share. Moreover, their business is spread out in global market. The organization offers large number of business opportunities to the suppliers and manufacturers as the company does not manufacture products, they just procure products. These give a huge dominance power to Wal-Mart over their suppliers. Although the threat of new entry is emerging but the effective supply chain management, global customer service, variety of product ranges, reasonable pricing compare to the other retailers, strong brand image and the locations of outlets have increased the core competency level of Wal-Mart. In a retail outlet nobody can offer variety of different products like Wal-Mart globally. The effective business model, cost leadership and product differentiation strategy has made Wal-Mart the leading retail chain in global market. Talking in the lines of making its presence felt in the Indian markets, it can be said that the global retail giant needs to design a strategy while taking into account the various macro and micro level issues that exists in the Indian retail sector. Hence, while discussing on this note, it can be said that the US based global retail giant needs to design an inclusive growth strategy that will obviously address the concerns it has faced in the Indian markets. Wal-Mart needs to design a strategy that will provide unique needs of the masses. It is of considerable importance to mention the fact that for the purpose of garnering the attention of the Indian consumers, Wal Mart needs to implement a series of new and innovative techniques, which will be highly unique in regards to its global strategy that is implemented in various other international markets. Talking in broader details, the factor of convenience needs to be highlighted in special light. It can be said that the US giant already promotes EDLP based pricing tactics as well as multiple value based deals for the consumers. However, by making its presence felt in various locations in multiple Indian cities in small store sizes with different store layouts and store design, Wal-Mart will be able to address the convenience factors which garner high level of importance from the Indian consumers. For the purpose of designing a monthly credit program similar to the small time local neighborhood retailers, Wal Mart can implement a highly unique strategy. By increasing its store count in various locations in the Indian cities, the stores can attract footfall of the Indian consumers. Wal-Mart should then look forward to implementing a loyalty card based program. The uniqueness of the loyalty card based program is that it will allow members of the loyalty card to shop for any product at any time of the month from the local Wal-Mart store and make payments at a later date, which can be either towards the end of the month or the beginning of the next month. Wal-Mart’s entry strategy in UK Introduction It is of high interest to mention the fact that whenever the US based retail giant Wal-Mart tries to enter a new market it always focuses on the formation of either a joint venture or going for an acquisition of an already existing retail chain in the desired market of entry. Wal-Mart after becoming the United States’ most preferred retailer in the US in the early 1990’s focused on a highly aggressive expansion strategy (Walmart China, n.d.). It is highly interesting to state that during the period the retail giant during this period developed a vision of installing successful Wal-mart stores in every country of Europe. It is to be said that the Wal-Mart’s entry in the market of UK was a highly strategic move taken by the company for the purpose of entering various new global markets, which are supposed to become future avenues of growth for the company. The US based retail giant entered the market of UK by making a hostile takeover of 10.8 billion USD to the UK based supermarket chain ASDA in the year 1999 (BBC News -2, 1999). It is of high importance to highlight the fact that the takeover of UK based Asda by the US retail chain Wal-Mart can be viewed as a ongoing process which lasted over a couple of years to match in regards to operating compatibility of the retail chain which are operating in different countries, which signifies different patterns of consumer behavior from the buyers. The UK based chain was replicating the business model practiced by Wal-Mart for the past few years before the acquisition by the UK based retail giant. Talking in more details about the process of model replication by the UK based supermarket chain, it can be said that ASDA focused on implementing the pricing tactic and value generation strategy for the end consumers, which is followed by Wal-Mart in its stores in the US. During the course of acquisition of ASDA with Wal-Mart, it was estimated that a major alternation of strategy in the retail markets of UK is on the way, as Wal-Mart is well known for indulging highly competitive pricing for its products. Talking on this note, it needs to be mentioned that Wal-Mart often tries to squeeze its profits generating abilities by focusing on sales volume (Clark, 2010). This automatically enables the US based giant to easily practice a series of hostile and highly competitive pricing tactic for luring consumers and thereby making it difficult for other retailers to compete in regards to price. Because of the sheer volume of business operations of Wal-Mart, it becomes impossible for other businesses to compete on level terms. Strategy Replication by ASDA It has already been highlighted that during the conduction of individual business operations in the most of the 1990’s, the UK based chain focused on the replicating a part of the model followed by Wal-Mart in its US stores. Talking on the lines of store layout, store location and store design, that is followed by ASDA, there was a high similarity with the store features that are practiced by Wal-Mart. It can be said that in the US, Wal-Mart employs the strategy of setting up outlets in little distant locations, which is spread over a large surface area. For the purpose of aligning and complementing the successful model of Wal-Mart, ASDA tried to copy the strategy of Wal-Mart in generating continuous value for the consumers at a regular basis. Needless to say, that by copying the pricing and value generation strategy of Wal-Mart, ASDA was able to promote its products to the local consumers without incurring high costs on advertising (Corporate Watch UK, 2004). Effect of Wal-Mart on the UK retailers During the time of Wal-Mart’s entry in the UK market through the acquisition of the UK based supermarket chain; a series of negative and positive effects was bound to create ripple effects in the UK region. In an attempt to highlight the negative issues, the pricing issue of Wal-Mart needs to be discussed. Because of the global chain’s tremendous obsession with charging low prices for its products, it will create a negative impact on the profit margin of other retailers who will have to lower their product prices in order to remain competitive. Also, because of the highly diversified product assortment offered by Wal-Mart, customer footfall will automatically fall for other retailers. It also has to be mentioned that because of the high bargaining power that will be developed by Wal-Mart in the course of conducting their business operations in the UK, there will be a negative and inverse impact on the wholesale prices of the region. While Wal-Mart can be successful in getting the best prices, yet the wholesalers might charge the other retailers to pay more prices for the same products in order to maintain their profit margin. Now while discussing the positive effects that might have happened in UK because of Wal-Mart’s acquisition of ASDA, the issue of spillovers needs to be discussed. Because of Wal-Mart’s high focus on quality, the suppliers will be forced to inculcate various quality drives to attain global product standards. The suppliers by inculcating the practices preached by Wal-Mart can also enhance their productivity in their businesses. Also, because of the fact that the global retailer is highly dependent on the managerial efficiency that exists in various tiers of the organization, it can be said that there is a tremendous advantage for other large retailers who can poach the skilled and well trained employees of Wal-Mart. This could have automatically helped the rival in replicating the process techniques practiced by Wal-Mart and significantly enhance their own business model and thereby increasing their business efficiency and productivity (Gielens & et.al, 2008, p. 520). Secret of Success in UK It can be said that through the process of a successful acquisition and merger with the UK based supermarket chain ASDA, the US based retail giant has achieved significant amount of success in the UK market. However, while analyzing the factors that contributed to the success in the UK region, a series of issues has to be considered very seriously. The very first factor that has to be considered is that ASDA was already making significant changes in its operations by inculcating the business model and tactics followed by Wal-Mart in the US markets throughout the 1990s. This resulted in the fact that the operations of ASDA were already aligned in a similar nature with that of Wal-Mart’s operations in the US market. So the entire UK chain after the acquisition process did not face much of a change in its operations in a top down manner. Also, the application of Wal-mart’s strategy by ASDA in the UK market resulted in the shaping of consumer demand in manner which is similar to the US market over the next couple of years. So, when Wal-Mart finally acquired the chain, it did not encounter a highly different consumer behavior of the UK masses. It has to be said that Wal Mart gains its advantage from bulk buying from the supplies at highly discounted rates (BBC News -1, 1999). Since, ASDA also started on implementing value based deals on a regular basis to the consumers, this process was naturally inculcated by the chain as well. Another unique factor that highly favored Wal-Mart in the UK region is that because of lack of space in the out of town areas in the UK because of government policy based restrictions, the stores of ASDA were located within the cities in a little smaller formats. This helped in getting more customer footfall which automatically resulted in high sales for Wal-Mart once it acquired ASDA. Strategy for growing in UK market It can be said that because of the running of operations for a considerable amount of time, the Us based global retail giant Wal-Mart has already developed a significant amount of expertise in handling the retail market of UK. Due to its long term presence, Wal-Mart has also developed familiarity in regards to the consumer behavior existing in the English market. Talking in regards to attaining growth in the UK market, it can be said that the consumers all over the world are getting increasingly tech savvy in nature. It also has to be said that because of the high level of penetration of well sophisticated connectivity devices like the I-pads, l-phones etc., consumers are spending more time on various networking as well as micro blogging sites like Facebook, Twiiter, Digg, MySpace etc. As a result for the purpose of attaining growth in the UK market, the merged Wal-Mart-ASDA retail chain should focus on engaging with its customers using the online forum. Hence, it is very important for the retail chain to focus on attaining growth in the business by connecting with its customers using the online forum. Also, the trend and future associated with retailing is shifting towards the internet with the increase in focus in integrating the traditional format of doing retail business with the internet based model. Because of the high advancement of ecommerce as well as development of trust amongst the consumers in regards to making online payments, the trend of making online shopping is picking up very fast in the developed as well as the developing nations. Hence, it has to be said that to attaining more growth in UK, Wal-Mart should focus on developing its online business so that the younger and more technology friendly consumers find it easier to shop as per their preference (Annual Report, 2012, p. 12). Also, to boost the model of online shopping of Wal-Mart amongst the young consumers, the retail chain should focus on providing free home delivery of products shopped using the online store. This combined offering of product and service to the UK consumers will automatically help in a great way in the process of attaining future growth in the market of UK. Reference BBC News -1, 1999. 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[Pdf.] Available at: http://cs.stanford.edu/people/thathoo/retail.pdf [Accessed 9 March 2013] Walmart, 2012. Walmart 2012 Annual Report [Pdf.] Available at: http://www.walmartstores.com/sites/annual-report/2012/WalMart_AR.pdf [Accessed 9 March 2013] Gielens, K. & et.al, 2008. Dancing with a Giant: The Effect of Wal-Mart’s Entry into the United Kingdom on the Performance of European Retailers. [Pdf.] Available at: https://lirias.kuleuven.be/bitstream/123456789/175100/1/EntryofWal-Martpaper.pdf [Accessed 9 March 2013] Read More