Wal-Mart for a Strategic Management and Business Policy - Research Paper Example

Running head: WAL-MART FOR A STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS POLICY Wal-Mart for a strategic management and business policy: Strategic Management Author Author Affiliation November 2008 Abstract This paper discusses the strategic management and business policy of Wal-Mart and suggest the better business strategies that will be good for their business and economy. It will also provide recommendations for implementing the strategy for the better business management. Then lastly it will discuss how we can control strategic management implementation. For this we will discuss the recent business figures and reports to find out the best business policy for the Wal-Mart. The Wal-Marts enormous and large size, makes it wields incredible power and economic king. It has driven lesser retailers out of commerce; forced companies to be well-organized, commonly leading these suppliers to move industrial jobs overseas; and changed the routine that yet large and reputable productions do. Wal-Mart has existence over all the customer supplies industries that endure in the US, for the reason that it is the number-one supplier-retailer of the majority of our customer goods, not still toys, clothes, shoes but home applications, electronic goods, sporting products, food, bicycles, groceries (Anderson, 2003). Business strategy: By viewing the universal compaction and such a huge working structure of the Wal-Mart, I will suggest that they need to adopt low cost leadership theme for Wal-Mart. The reason behind this business strategy selection is that: in the present era we are facing a very hard competition from lot of competitors and the low prices Business strategy is the only solid and more attractive strategy in present environment (McCune, 1994). How this business strategy will facilitate and help the Wal-Mart in becoming a well established business? By this business strategy they can emphasize on selling high-quality. Wal-Mart low price philosophy will cut advertising expenses and reduce other expenses. It will create an image of reliability and fair play in the minds of clients. This Business strategy will become a defense against competition in the industry. Implementing the strategy: This section will elaborate the challenges and tradeoffs for these strategy implementations. While implementing this strategy they can face many challenges. A few of them are given below: Challenges of organizing value-creating activities in the entire value chain Handling the erroneous evaluation of sources of revenues and profit pools in business The challenge is how to run further stores with fewer operating expenses. Understanding the noteworthy components of cost leadership strategy and observing how it has been functional by a company Understanding how a company would be able to emerge as an industry leader by successfully implementing a generic strategy Next I will present the program and main decision that they should take for the successful implementation of the strategy. They should develop a mechanism by which management controls the processes for directing, development, scheming, organizing, and controlling program operations. They should create a financial control that comprise comparison of what they have really accomplished with what they have premeditated in their budget and as such it is individual business task amongst a lot of, and encompasses but one facet of the wider practice of management control (Thompson et al, 1995). Let have a look at procedures and stages for corporate development by this business policy, here I will present these procedures in form of steps, by following these steps they can achieve better implementation. (Anderson, 2003) They should focus directly on strategic attributes Then they should give more concentration regarding product features, complexity, and location Then main point to launch successful business is establishing enhanced relationship with customer Next important point is to launch product customization, their exclusive brand building Next for effectively handling the business they should create the linkage between firms and secure communication channel They should establish the enhanced supply chain, product mix, service and hold up The main point they should visualize is the target customer: for this low prices business policy they should concentrate on the small business owner Low cost leadership business policy requires eminence to reflect their condition and they should establish this standard. Now I will present how they can control this new business strategies for this I will discuss the enterprise risk management, strategic information system, guidelines for proper control. First point is enterprise risk management that they have to manage before other implementations. They have to cater all risks related to this new business strategies implementation. First risk they have to manage is current strong competitive position and its earlier period rapid growth performance so they remain as the business leader or uphold its strong business place in the future. Then the main risk they have to handle in information security management. In this present age they have to deal with several business entities and for this reason they have to establish the communication network. There is great challenge of the information security management. They have to establish the strong policies and management decisions to implement these guidelines for appropriate control and management; here below I have presented few guidelines for the superior control enterprise risk management do that the policy they have adopted can be a success. They have to develop a single-business strategy: for this purposes they should have concentration on a single-business strategy. Social responsibility: they became a market leader so they have to compete on several bases: Service, Price, Exclusivity, Quality, and Fashion Employee’s management for better (proper) control and management of new business strategy, (Anderson, 2003). Conclusion I have discussed the new business strategy for the Wal-Mart, and then I have discussed its implementation related issues such as risks, control management and challenges etc. The important question of discussion was why is Wal-Mart so unbeaten? It has the good strategy or it has the good implementation of the strategy? I have pointed out; they have to concentrate on both aspects of the Strategy. Because the good strategy provides the road map and good implementation of the strategy will take us to the desired destination. They should also have to concentrate the better implementation of the strategy on the buyer attitudes, technology, demographics and the initiation of a worldwide financial system those are all unite to rewrite the rules for success (Longo, 1994). References 1. Anderson, J. (2003). Running the gamut at Wal-Mart, Inc., No.November, pp.92-102. 2. Longo, D. (1994). New generation of execs leads Wal-Mart into the next century. Discount Store News, pp. 45-47. 3. McCune, J. (1994). In the shadow of Wal-Mart. Management Review, Vol. 83 No.December, pp.10-16. 4. Thompson, A. A., Jr. & Strickland, A.J. III. (1995). Strategic management concepts and cases (8th ed.). Chicago: Irwin. Read More