Walmart Business Strategy and Competitive Advantage - Research-Methodology (2024)

By John Dudovskiy

March 28, 2016

Walmart Business Strategy and Competitive Advantage - Research-Methodology (1)Walmart business strategy is based on ‘everyday low prices’ philosophy of the company. In other words, Walmart pursues cost leadership business strategy enabled by the economies of scale derived by the company in a significant extent. An efficient utilization of online sales channel contributes to the level of cost-efficiency of retail operations and about 75 percent of walmart.com sales come from non-store inventory[1].

Constant improvements of assortment, price and access are basis of Walmart business strategy. In simple terms, Walmart strives to offer the widest choice of products for the cheapest price, along with giving customers the opportunity of choosing the most convenient channel to facilitate the purchase.

Wall Mart competitive advantage relies on cost leadership. Moreover, the strategic level management consistently aim to associate Wall Mart competitive advantage with price, access, assortment and experience. Since his appointment as CEO in February 2014, Doug McMillion introduced important changes in Walmart business strategy in the following three directions:[2]

  1. Increasing focus on customer services. In February 2015, the company announced a USD1 billion investment in U.S. hourly associates to provide higher wages, more training and increased opportunities to build a career with Walmart.[3]
  1. Improving groceries. Due to increasing level of health-consciousness of consumers, Walmart is attempting to increase its range of organic options and fresh produce. This change is more evident in the US market and it is being actively integrated into marketing communication message of the brand.
  1. Enhancing the flexibility of the shopping experience. It has been noted that “Wal-Mart is working to integrate its physical stores with the digital business”[4]. For example, thanks to the latest changes, customers are able to collect their online orders from stores and they can also get text reminders from the pharmacy.

Generally, Walmart competitive advantage can be sustained in the global marketplace in long-term perspective. ‘We Operate for Less’ and ‘We Buy for Less’ programs saving us USD150 million in China[5]. The company can replicate this strategy to other markets in order to gain and sustain its cost advantage….

Walmart Stores Inc. Report contains more detailed discussion of the company’s business strategy. The report also illustrates the application of the major analytical strategic frameworks in business studies such as SWOT, PESTEL, Porter’s Five Forces, Value Chain analysis and McKinsey 7S Model on Walmart. Moreover, the report contains analyses of Walmart leadership and organizational structure and marketing strategy and discusses the issues of corporate social responsibility.

Walmart Business Strategy and Competitive Advantage - Research-Methodology (2)

[1] Annual Report (2015) Walmart Stores Inc.

[2] Lutz, A. (2015) “Wal-Mart is making 3 changes so people will want to shop there” Business Insider, Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/wal-marts-new-strategy-2015-2

[3] Annual Report (2015) Walmart Stores Inc.

[4] Lutz, A. (2015) “Wal-Mart is making 3 changes so people will want to shop there” Business Insider, Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/wal-marts-new-strategy-2015-2

[5] Annual Report (2015) Walmart Stores Inc.

Walmart Business Strategy and Competitive Advantage - Research-Methodology (2024)

FAQs

What competitive strategy does Walmart use? ›

Walmart Inc.'s generic strategy is cost leadership. Michael Porter's model defines cost leadership as a generic competitive strategy that focuses on achieving low costs. As a low-cost producer of retail services and related business outputs, Walmart is able to compete based on low selling prices.

What is Walmart's strategy what is the basis on which Walmart builds its competitive advantage? ›

Wal - Mart 's strategy is to sell branded products at low cost . Wal - Mart 's competitive advantage is cost leadership . The basis on which Wal - Mart builds its competitive advantage are the company 's management controls , organizational structure , human resource management , and culture .

What type of market research does Walmart use? ›

Walmart uses mono-segment type of positioning and accordingly, Walmart marketing management appeals to single customer segment who place greater value on the price attribute of products compared to other attributes.

How did Walmart continue to strengthen its competitive advantage over time what does this teach you about the source of a long term competitive advantage? ›

It expanded by being able to offer both groceries and other merchandise under one store. It also diversified into the warehousing business by establishing Sam's Club. These allowed Walmart to continue to grow and sustain its competitive advantage.

What is Walmart's biggest competitive advantage? ›

Strength in Both In-Store and Online Grocery Sales

Consumers that shop for online groceries at Walmart are drawn to low prices, one-stop convenience, brand selection, and curbside service. However, competitors may be able to exploit Walmart's weaknesses in the future as online grocery shopping becomes more commonplace.

How Walmart has retained its competitive advantage? ›

Walmart will sell its products at a lower price than any of its competitors and consistently done so for decades. The company also doesn't rely on gimmicks and sales to get customers through the door because it doesn't have to.

How is Walmart doing How does it compare to its competitors? ›

Comparing the results to its competitors, Walmart Inc reported Total Revenue increase in the 3 quarter 2022 by 8.74 % year on year. The sales growth was above Walmart Inc 's competitors average revenue growth of 2.7 %, recorded in the same quarter.

How did Walmart achieve low cost competitive advantage? ›

Economies of scale and supplier pressure: Wal-Mart uses its volume to reduce its costs of purchase from vendors, as much as possible. Wal-Mart also leverage it economies to provide relationship with its suppliers that could would out volume discount that Wal–Mart would pass on to its customers.

What makes Walmart so successful? ›

Walmart's success can be attributed to having their own supply chain to streamline fulfillment and cut down on costs. It also provides them with more control over their logistics network. In this article, we take a closer look at the Walmart supply chain and why it continues to be so successful decades later.

What is Walmart's main marketing strategy? ›

The store uses phrases like "Save money, live better," "lowest price store," "worry-free fresh," and "everyday low pricing" to get the consumer excited. Walmart uses many different ways to advertise, such as commercials on TV, billboards, social media, and eCommerce websites.

Does Walmart do research and development? ›

The text cluster provided by Innography's patent portfolio tools shows us that shopping is the focus of a great deal of Walmart's research and development aims.

Does Walmart use marketing research? ›

The Walmart store is the giant in the market and the performance of the company is much effective, the main idea of Walmart in conducting market research is to identify the various tastes and the preferences of the consumers and to customize the product accordingly, the market research also aims in understanding the ...

What is competitive advantage and its examples? ›

For example, if a company advertises a product for a price that's lower than a similar product from a competitor, that company is likely to have a competitive advantage. The same is true if the advertised product costs more, but offers unique features that customers are willing to pay for.

Who is Walmart's main competition? ›

Walmart competitors include Costco, Amazon, Target, Rakuten and Sears Holdings Corporation.

Who is walmarts biggest competition? ›

  • Amazon is a global eCommerce powerhouse and Walmart's top competitor. ...
  • Costco is a members-only wholesale retailer and competes with Walmart and its subsidiaries. ...
  • Best Buy is a consumer electronics retailer with 1779 stores in North America.

What is Walmart competitive environment? ›

Competitive rivalry

To begin with, there are numerous retail companies in the market. Walmart's competitors are typically stable retailers such as Whole Foods and Costco, but also online sellers such as Amazon and eBay. All of those companies are retail giants making profits of billions of dollars.

How does Walmart impact the economy? ›

The presence of a Walmart store can hurt the business of smaller companies and lower wages for local workers. Much of the Walmart Effect can be attributed to Walmart's immense buying power. The Walmart Effect can also affect suppliers, who must drive their production costs down in order to afford to sell to Walmart.

Why has Walmart been so much more successful than its competitors? ›

Every Day Low Price

In turn, everyday low prices mean discounts are avoided, so consumers are generally more loyal. For the business, this translates to stable cash flows, higher revenues, and greater margins. In addition to the pricing strategy, Walmart offers the convenience of one-stop shopping.

What are the current challenges of Walmart? ›

What Ethical Issues Is Walmart Facing? Being the world's largest private employer, Walmart still faces a range of ethical issues. Those most current involve company's employees: they face exploitation, gender discrimination, poor working conditions, and inadequate healthcare.

How Walmart attained competitive advantage and superior performance? ›

The company also has warehouses where it stores its goods. This ensures that there is a constant supply of goods in its stores and customers get what they need at all the times. The efficiency further improves customer satisfaction, thereby giving Walmart a competitive edge.

What is the main goal of Walmart? ›

We aim to build a better world — helping people live better and renew the planet while building thriving, resilient communities. For us, this means working to create opportunity, build a more sustainable future, advance diversity, equity and inclusion and bring communities closer together.

What is Walmart's growth strategy? ›

The retailer has built its massive scale largely through expanding its brick-and-mortar stores, as well as its foundational promise of broad access to low prices on everyday goods. But in the last 2 years, Walmart has ramped up investments and partnerships in e-commerce and even areas outside of retail.

What is Walmart's business model? ›

At the core of Walmart's business model is price leadership. The brand has led the US retail market through its lowest prices. Today, it operates more than 11000 physical stores in 28 countries and has ecommerce websites in more than 11 countries.

What is Walmart objectives and strategies? ›

The long-term objective of the company is expressed in its mission and vision. Walmart aims to sustain a low-priced strategy to serve busy families and save money for them while being presented anytime and anywhere across the US and leveraging knowledgeable employees to help customers.

What is Walmart's sustainability strategy? ›

We plan to hit this goal without carbon offsets by: Harvesting enough wind, solar and other energy sources to power our facilities with 100% renewable energy by 2035. We power around 46% of our operations with renewable energy.

What is Walmart's profit strategy based on? ›

Price leadership has been a cornerstone of Walmart's business strategy and model. By leading on price, Walmart earns customers' trust by providing a broad assortment of quality merchandise and services at everyday low prices (“EDLP”).

How does Walmart approach and manage ethical issues? ›

Walmart's Approach

We do this by: Setting ethics and compliance program foundations, including having the right program structure, developing standards and controls to maintain compliance, training associates on compliance and controls and monitoring for and responding to issues.

How has Walmart been innovative? ›

Over the past three years, Walmart has been working to scale its in-house Express Delivery service, which promises delivery in two hours or less. This service now offers 160,000+ products at some 3,000 stores, reaching nearly 70% of the U.S. population, the company says.

What is Walmart's mission statement 2022? ›

Walmart's mission can be summarized as “helping people around the world save money and live better – anytime and anywhere – in retail stores and through eCommerce.” While its vision is to “make every day easier for busy families.” Walmart defines “busy families” as the bull's eye of its business strategy and Walmart ...

How does Walmart use business analytics? ›

Walmart not only uses BI and big data analytics to make smarter decisions around assortment, merchandising, online promotions, and operational resources but also builds data-based apps for customers that help to grow their loyalty.

How does Walmart use statistics? ›

Walmart uses data mining to discover patterns in point of sales data. Data mining helps Walmart find patterns that can be used to provide product recommendations to users based on which products were bought together or which products were bought before the purchase of a particular product.

Why did Walmart do business analytics? ›

This helps the company to analyze the sales for every store in all the locations on a daily basis. This detailed data feed and analytics help Walmart to better strategize the products sold both online and in stores.

What is your competitive advantage answer? ›

What Is a Competitive Advantage? Competitive advantage refers to factors that allow a company to produce goods or services better or more cheaply than its rivals. These factors allow the productive entity to generate more sales or superior margins compared to its market rivals.

What are the benefits of competitive advantage? ›

A clear competitive advantage:
  • Helps your organization increase certainty.
  • Allows you to focus resources (time, talent, and treasure) for maximum ROI.
  • Adds constancy and predictability to your revenue streams.
  • Helps you achieve organizational momentum.
  • Reduces unnecessary marketing, recruiting, and fundraising expenditures.
7 Apr 2020

Why are competitive advantages important? ›

The purpose of having a competitive advantage is to distinguish a company from its competitors by offering something different and of superior value to its customers. Competitive advantage also means the business can outperform its competition in the market and make a higher profit.

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