DEVELOPMENTS IN BUSINESS AND ORGANISATIONS

Developments in Business and Organisations

Developments in Business and Organisations

Task 1: Describe and analyse the primary internal and external influences to which the organisation/industry-sector is subject.

Wal-Mart is a company that has always presented the image to go the extra mile to meet customer satisfaction. They have been able to grow in times when most companies were facing hardship. The implementation of walmart.com in January 2000 was a major step for the Wal-Mart organization. Their globalization, e-business, and ethics have been essential in the success of this and any company. Many people claim the ethics of Wal-Mart has changed greatly, and not for the better, since the death of Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart.

External Factors

Globalization: Globalization is the application of making something worldwide. In today's day and age, as far as competition is involved, Wal-Mart has an advantage over their competition. They have grown so powerful in such a short period of time that it has become its own entity. This super store is the world's largest retailer and company. Unbelievably, it is bigger than General Motors, General Electric and Exxon Mobile. Fast Company reports:

"Wal-Mart sold 244.5 billion worth of goods last year. It sells in three months what number-two retailer Home Depot sells in a year. In a category of general merchandise and groceries, Wal-Mart no longer has any real rivals. It does more business than Target, Sears, Kmart, J.C. Penny, Safeway, and Kroger combined."

This great power-wielding retailer has one purpose and that is to bring the lowest prices to its consumers. It is clear that this goal is never met because this mega store continues striving to drop its prices every year.

"Wal-Mart is the essential retailer, in a way no other retailer is," says Gib Caret, a partner at Bain and Company, who is leading a yearlong study of how to do business with Wal-Mart. "Our clients cannot row without finding a way to be successful with Wal-Mart." It is a known fact that this retailer continually strives for improvement on all levels of its merchandise and expects no less from its suppliers. They demand quality at cheap prices and if these demands are not met then necessary pressure is assumed. This is how Wal-Mart survives. If they cannot get the product from you at the price they want then they will go to another supplier. Simple as that, it becomes almost futile not to do business with them.

New Stores: New stores are being built world wide at unbelievable rates. Stateside they are as many as two stores in each city. Naturally, it has become a household name. In the process of globalization, many companies have moved their businesses over seas. The fact being that it is much cheaper running and maintaining factories off shore then it is in the United States. Wal-Mart regulates companies in Mexico and Bangladesh and scores of under developed countries. In the simplest fashion it get what it wants when it wants it.

Innovation: Wal-Mart does not have to worry about a thing, ...