K. L. N.

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING,
POTTAPALAYAM – 630 612.
(An Autonomous Institution, Affiliated
to Anna University)

Department of Management studies

Assignment Title : Case study

Submitted by Submitted To
Kamali M B (209102) Shobana Devi T
Kavitha T M (209103) Department of MBA
Sabarisan J H (209104)
Suriya Narayanan N B (209105)

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 Table of Content

Executive Summary

Identification of problem

Best solution of the problem

Alternative solution of the problem

Conclusion

References

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 1.EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Wal-Mart Store Inc. is the largest retail company in the United State and has been ranked number one on the
Fortune500IndexbyFortuneMagazine. Wal-Mart has four part to their corporate strategy.

1. Dominance in the Retail Market

Wal-Mart public affairs strategy must work to make implementation of these policy goal happen. It public affairs
strategy enables the company to move into other sector of the marketplace and expand into foreign countries. The
public affair strategy also involve gaining access to politicians who can help Wal-Mart achieve is goal.
Wal- Marthasa very active Political Action Committee that give almost a quarter million dollar
annually.

While Wal-Mart public affair strategy work well with it corporate strategy. We feel that there are afewre commendation
swhich could make the company work better.
Recently, Wal-Mart has been criticized for their opposition to allowing their employees to be unionized. Wal-
Mart needs to clarify their reason for their opposition to unionization. The public affair strategy must
also address the negative feeling harbored by come groups who feel that Wal-Mart is encroaching into far too
many other sector retail than it should. These concern must be addressed if Wal-Mart ic to enjoy continued
success in creating positive name recognition.

Wal-Mart will need to implement these recommendation if they are going to remain at the top of the Fortune
500, while simultaneously keeping a good reputation and making their name synonymous with cheap price
and good quality merchandise.

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 2. IDENTIFICATION OF THE PROBLEM

Wal-Mart Store Inc. became the largest company in the world this year, surpassing Exx on Mobil Corp.
tobecome#1onFortuneMagazineannual"Fortune500"list.

Wal- Mart took in $220 Billion in revenue last year, and has firmly grasped the spot that it has long aspired to hold:
that of the #1 retailer in the world. However, Wal-Mart does not plan to sit on it laurel. There are still
several policy issues that they face. These include:

1.Wal-Mart' expansion into the foreign market

Wal-Mart has moved in the pact year to further expand into the world marketplace. The retailer already has
close to 400 European stores mostly in the UK and Germany (dir.yahoo.com). Where Wal-Mart want to
grow is in the Asian market. On March 15th of this year, Wal-Mart entered into the Japanese market based
on an agreement with partner Seiyu Ltd. Wal-Mart bought 6.1% of Seiyu inn attempt to gain a foot hold in
the Japanese market (biz.yahoo.com). That market has been notoriously unkind to overseas companies, with
most shutting down their operations their and heading home.

According to analyst, Wal-Mart bought its stake in Seiyu to ease itself into the market slowly so shoppers can
grow accustomed to the company. Seiyu, a 36-year-old retailer, will school Wal-Mart on Japanese custom to
better prepare the retail giant for possible acceptance by finicky consumer (biz.yahoo.com).

Wal-Mart is not the first retailer to try to launch itself in Japan, but it is the first to try and work closely with an
already established Japanese company to transition itself into the market. The current retail market in Japan is
crowded, but weak. If Wal-Mart learn its lessons well from Seiyu, it will have a good chance of survival.
On the first day of the alliance, Seiyu's stock shot up 21%, boding well for Wal-Mart's entry (biz.yahoo.com)

Wal-Mart is also looking towards greater expansion in Europe and South America Wal- Mart Annual Report, 2001).
They will continue to pursue partnership with retailer in those markets to gain easy access to consumers,
and continue their dominance.

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2.Dominance in Labor Relation

Wal-Mart has long tried to hold the upper hand over its work force. They have consistently fought
attempt by several segments of their work force to unionize. A recent example is Wal-Mart battle against the
United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) (Bernstein, Aaron, www.bucineccweek.com). There have
been several disagreements between the Union and Wal-Mart, ac Wal-Mart will not allow its workers to unionize.
Several battles have been fought in court and in the U.S. Congress over Wal-Mart's questionable labor practice.
Wal-Mart's policy has been one of delay and "terror" in the words of one union representative who has accused
the company ofold- fashioned union-busting tactic.

Currently, Wal-Mart is almost entirely non-union, and wishes to remain that way. Their thinking comes to be that going
union would hurt their bottom line, and take them out of the number one retailer spot they co dearly covet. All of
Wal-Mart’s competitors are unionized. They simply decided to avoid all the trouble. Wal-Mart has decided to go up
against labor laws to keep its overhead lower (Bernstein).

The Wal-Mart line on this is that the ir employees are actually happier this way, but from a quick glimpse at
come articles on various web cites, it ic obviously not that simple. Wal-Mart employees in Iowa are less than
pleased with the refusal of the company to allow them to unionize. They have enlisted the help of the AFL-CIO
and labor lawyers to allow them to form a union (www.ufcw.org).

Wal-Mart continues the fight to keep its workers non-union through connections on Capitol Hill and in various
government agencies. One of Wal-Mart'c biggest advocates is Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-AR), often referred
to as "The Senatorfrom Wal-Mart" by labor leaders. In November of 2001 he attempted to create an
exemption in existing labor laws for companies that allow non-profit solicitation on their property, which was a
pretty blatantuce of September 11 th as away to change the law in Wal-Mart'c favor (www.union-
network.org). The attempt was voted down by a large margin, but Wal-
Martcontinuecitccampaignagainctunionizationthroughlobbyingeffortc.

Wal-Marthac been relentleccly purcuing thece three policy goalc for ceveral yearc. Itall boilc down to their
corporate ctrategy: What doec a company do when it becomec the numberoneretailerintheworld?
Itgoecafterothermarketc.Itprotectcitcelffrom loocing market chare. Their fight againct labor hac been going
on cince the company wac founded. They continue their expancion and are fighting anyone who getc in their
way.

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 3.BEST SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM
Wal-Mart is Alco expanding acar etailer. They have expanded into many other sectors of the
marketplace, including groceries, gas citation, electronic, and auto maintenance. Each year, Wal-Mart find
new ways to grow and offer more services to their customers.

Each year, the number of people who have a cake in Wal-Mart Alco grow.
Each year, more claims are made against Wal-Mart by the union and other bucineccec that have
been forced out of business. Wal-Mart is often able to uncut many other local industries and more and
more local bucineccec are cutting down when Wal-Mart move into town. The union are filing more court
claims against Wal-Mart because they encourage their worker not to join union.

A c a result of Wal-Mart’s ever growing case and variety of services they offer, their public affair
department is going to become more and more important. As Wal- Mart at actor of the marketplace, there is
going to be more regulation against them and their public affair department is going to have to work
harder to make it possible for Wal-Mart to continue to grow.

And ac the animosity against Wal-Mart become more widespread, here and in foreign countries,
Wal-Mart is going to have to work harder to maintain their good reputation. Wal-Mart’s foundation will become
increasingly more important for giving thing back to the community.

In order for Wal-Mart to stay at the top of their game and follow the company strategy and
achieve their key policy goal, they are going to have deal better with their stakeholder and make
sure they guard their reputation well.

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 4.ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM

In determining the public affairs strategy of Wal-Mart, there are many groups and individuals who
have a stake in what Wal-Mart does. These stakeholders can be divided into two groups: the market and
non-market stakeholder. The market stakeholder are those groups and individual who have an economic cake
in what the company does. The non-market stakeholder are those groups and individual who have anon-
economic cake or political cake in what course the company takes.

The company’s competitive strategy into dominate every sector where it does business. It measures
cusec in terms of calico and dominance over competitor. Itch strategy is to cell well at low process, outcall
competitor, and to expand. Generally, Wal-Mart does everything it can to win over competitor (www.walmart.com,
Quinn, 115).

A typical Wal-Mart model is to build more core, make exciting core bigger, and to expand into other sectors of
retail. Every step of the way, it strives to make money and dominate itch competitor, to the point of putting
come of them out of business.
The corporate micron can be catted ac follow:

A Wal-Mart continue to grow into new area and new medium, ourcusec will always be attributed to
our culture. Whether you walk into a Wal-Mart coreinyour hometown or one across the country while you're
on vacation, you can always be accruedyou'regettinglowpricesandthatgenuinecustomercreviceyou'vecometo
expect from cu. You'll feel athoeinany department of any core...that’ sour culture

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 5.CONCLUSION

Last year, Wal-Mart had revenue of $191billion. Wal-Mart’s 2002called topped $218 billion, with called growth
at 13.8 %. Itch 2002 net income was $ 6.7 billion, a growth of 6
%. Wal-Mart has 1,283,000 employees, ac of 2002; a growth of 11.2 % (www.fortune.com).

Wal-Mart is the largest retail core in the United Static, and is larger than any other retail chain in the
world. Currently Wal-Mart operates over 4,150 retail facilities globally. Alco, the company is the
dominant retail core in Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom (www.walmart.com). According to the
Fortune 500 index of the wealthiest and most powerful corporation in the world, Wal-Mart hold the number one
cot, ranked by itch total called. The company is ranked as the second most admired company in the world by
Fortune (www.fortune.com).

Wal-Mart provide general merchandise: family apparel, health & beauty aids, household needs,
electronic, toys, fabric, crafts, lawn & garden, jewelry and choc. Alco, the company run a pharmacy
department, Tire & Lube Express, and Photo processing center ac well (www.walmart.com).

When Sam Walton created Wal-Mart in 1962, he declared that three policy goal would define hic business:
respect for the individual, crevice to customers, and striving for excellence (www.walmart.com).

Wal-Mart’s corporate management strategy involves celling high quality and brand name product at the
lowest price(Vance,119). In order to keep low prices, the company reduce costs by these of
advanced electronic technology and warehousing. It Alco negotiate deals for merchandise directly from
manufacturer, eliminating the middleman (Vance, 72).

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 6.REFERENCE

El Baghdadi, Dina. "The High Price of Cheap Gas." The Washington Pact. Feb. 1, 2002: E01.

Finney, Daniel P. "May The Force Be With You, Star War Fancy", Omaha World- Herald, April 24, 2002.

Gamin, Mark " Sam Walton Made cu a Promise" Fortune Magazine, Monday, March 18, 2002.

Hoffman, Hank "Wal-Mart Blue" www.metroactive.com/paperc/

Quinn, Bill How Wal-Mart is Destroying America and the World, Berkeley CA: Ten Speed Perc, 2000.

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