Competitive Profiles Matrix of Walmart - Essay Example

Competitive Profile Matrix of Wal-Mart Introduction Wal-Mart is a multi national retailer with the main headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas USA, it operates in more than 14 countries, some of its markets include Argentina, Canada, Puerto Rico, United Kingdom, and Chile among others. The Retailer has more that 2.1 million employees with a turn over of $ 408,214,000,000. The main vision of the company is to sell products at lower prices that enable its customer to save in order to attain satisfaction and sustainability.

The main competitors for the Retailer are Kmart, Target, Soriano, ShoKo, Canada’s Zellers, The Real Canadian Supermart, Giant Tiger, Commercial Mexicana and Meija. However Kmart has emerged as the main competitor to the Retailer (Houston, 2006). Company Strengths Compared to Kmart, Wall Mart operates in more countries and this gives it a larger market space that results to high sales turnover. While Wall Mart is based in 14 countries, Kmart is only based in 5 countries. Shopping in Wal -Mart is convenient, Wal -Mart stores are equipped with almost everything a customer would be searching for under one roof, a customer has the liberty and privilege to shop for everything from one point and during any time of the day.

The numbers of products offered by Wal Mart are more varied compared to Kmart’s, this gives it a differential advantage, keeps Wal-Mart ahead of it. Wal -Mart goods are low, this is attained because the Retailer has entered into huge contracts with suppliers like MacDonald’s and Disney enabling it to get substantial discount, more over it buys products in mass attracting quantity discounts. Having a cost advantage over Kmart and other firms in the same industry gives it a higher ranking. This aspect enables families to save on money, some of the items that are sold at a cheaper price compared to other supermarkets are; sugar, fruit, vegetable and soda.

For example a box of Coca cola is Wall Matt is $ 6 and $ 7 into the supermarket, 2 bags of bread is $ 2.00 whereas one bad of bread is $ 1.49 in other supermarket (Wal-Mar Corporate, 2010). Weaknesses Wal- Mart has adversely been reported of promoting racism, sexism, poor working conditions, lowly or poorly paid employees and costly health care for the employees (Demko, 2006). In addition the company has on several occasions broken labour laws in areas of operation. This negative aspects result to low customer reception especially when setting the company in new markets.

Its main competitor, Kmart has set positive precedence and goodwill that gives it an advantage over Wal-Mart. Compared to Kmart, Wal-Mart does not allow its employees to form unions, besides their pay rate is relatively low. When employees are poorly paid, they tend to offer poor services to the customers or become drained or burned out leading tot low quality of service delivery In addition a wide number of customers claim that some of the electronic and fashion products are of low quality and the fact that they are cheap does not add value to them (Cox,2003).

Conclusion Wal- Mart should focus on rectifying its weaknesses to be in a position to achieve its company vision. It should look for ways that will retain customer who visit the stores, such initiatives like ensuring that all the products sold are of high quality, introduction of loyalty cards, and treating their employees well should be put in place. To deal with the negative publicity from different quotas of the market, the company should allow its employees to form unions, denying them of their rights only indicates the magnitude of negligence practiced by the retailer.

    Wal-Mart   Kmart   Critical Success Factors Weight Rate Score Rate Score Global Expansion 0.25 3 0.75 3 0.75 Customer Loyalty 0.2 4 0.8 3 0.6 Market Share 0.05 3 0.15 1 0.15 Advertising 0.2 4 0.8 3 0.6 Financial Position 0.15 4 0.6 3 0.45 Competitiveness in Price 0.15 4 0.6 3 0.45 Total 1 3.5     2.55 References Adam. (2009, August 15). CPM (Competitive Profile Matrix). MBA Tutorials. Retrieved February 28, 2011, from http://www.mba-tutorials.com/strategy/85-cpm-competitive-profile-matrix.

html Black Enterprise Magazine .July 1996 Vol 26 No.2 Earl G. Graves, Ltd. Marketing Teacher.com SWOT Analysis Wal-Mart Accessed on 11th March 2011 from http://www.marketingteacher.com/swot/walmart-swot.html Cox ,Stan. June 10 ,2003 ,Wal-Mart Wages Don’t Support Wal –Mart Workers ,accessed on 2nd Feb from http://www.alternet.org/story/16111/ Demko, P ,The Minnesota Independent .Wal-Mart accused of labor –law violations. Accessed 2nd March 2010 from http://minnesotaindependent.com/37852/wal-mart-accused-of-labor-law-violations.

Houston, B. (2006). What actual space does Wal-Mart compete in? Retrieved from http://walmartspace.blogspot.com/2005/09/what-actual-space-does-wal-mart.html Kmart (2010)About Kmart Retrieved from http://www.kmart.co.nz/ Linn, A. (2007, June 20). Target thrives in Wal-Mart's shadow - Business. msnbc.com - U.S. business. Retrieved February 28, 2011, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19293533/ns/business-consumer_news/ Marquard, W. H. and Birchard, B. Wal-smart: what it really takes to profit in a Wal-mart world.

New York: McGraw-Hill Professional. Tuchman, G and Mattingly, D.CNN ,Nov 20 2009 . Wal-Mart Scuffle prompts racism claims Accessed from http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/19/walmart.trial/ Wal-Mart Corporate. Saving People Money so that they can live Better. Accessed on 6th March 2011 from http://walmartstores.com/aboutus/246.aspx