Strategy Implementation, Evaluation and
Control Grading Guide
MGT/498 Version 4
Strategic Management
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Strategy Implementation,
Evaluation and Control Grading
Guide
MGT/498 Version 4
Individual Assignment: Strategy Implementation, Evaluation and Control
Purpose of Assignment
Week 3, 4 and 5 Individual Assignments are integrated to generate a Strategic Management Plan. This is part
three of the three part Strategic Management Plan addressing strategy implementation, evaluation and control.
The Purpose of the Week 5 individual assignment is to allow the student to discuss and explain how the
strategies discussed in prior weeks are converted into implementation activities both domestically and
internationally, in alignment with legal, social and ethical considerations. Furthermore, the student has an
opportunity to explain and discuss how the strategic plan and implementation activities will be monitored.
Resources Required
Textbook Chapters 9, 10, 12, 13 and 14
Grading Guide
Content
Met
Partially
Met
Not Met
Total
Available
Total
Earned
6
#/6
Comments:
Student addresses the following regarding
strategy implementation:
a. Discuss International Strategy.
b. Discuss Strategic Implementation.
c. Explain the influence of Governance and
Ethics.
d. Discuss the Company Social Value.
e. Discuss Innovation and Diversification.
f. Discuss Legal limitations.
Student addresses the following regarding
evaluation and control:
a. Explain Strategic Metrics.
b. Discuss Key Financial Ratios.
The paper is 1,050 words in length.
Writing Guidelines
The paper—including tables and graphs,
headings, title page, and reference page—is
consistent with APA formatting guidelines and
meets course-level requirements.
Met
Partially
Met
Not Met
Comments:
2
Strategy Implementation,
Evaluation and Control Grading
Guide
MGT/498 Version 4
Writing Guidelines
Met
Partially
Met
Not Met
Total
Available
Total
Earned
3
#/3
9
#/9
Intellectual property is recognized with in-text
citations and a reference page.
Paragraph and sentence transitions are
present, logical, and maintain the flow
throughout the paper.
Sentences are complete, clear, and concise.
Rules of grammar and usage are followed
including spelling and punctuation.
Assignment Total
Additional comments:
#
Comments:
3
Running head: STRATEGY FORMULATION
Wal-Mart’s Strategy Formulation
Hank Stump
MGT/498
April 22, 2019
John Hawes
1
STRATEGY FORMULATION
2
Long-term Goals and Objectives
Strategy Formulation
The process of strategy formulation at Wal-Mart follows the understanding the company
has of its target market. However, the first step is setting up the objectives of a particular
business year. Thompson et al. (2015) note that such a strategy requires a keen analysis of the
market and the position of the organization in the industry. The next step is to evaluate the
environment; the position of the competition is considered to ensure the company maintains its
competitive advantage. Additionally, the company focuses on its performance of the previous
business year. The analysis will provide critical information on the performance of the company
in comparison to its competition. Finally, the company settles on a strategy from the list
developed from the above steps.
The markets the company will pursue
Wal-Mart Inc. is an organization that has 8500 branches in over fifteen countries.
Pursuing more markets for the company involves exploring the penetration of international
markets. It is in this sense that the company is considering Canada and Asia. In these markets,
the company plans on focusing majorly on clothes and most specifically children’s clothes. In
the process, the company will expand its brand name and develop more revenue resources. A
keen analysis of the situation indicates that the company will rely heavily on market research that
will create a better perspective of the target market in Canada and Asia. The company will also
have an understanding of the level of competition in the markets.
STRATEGY FORMULATION
3
The value the company will add in the new markets.
Once the company successfully penetrates the markets, the customers will receive highquality services that will play a significant role in marketing the company (Coursaris et al. 2013).
As a result, the customers will have high satisfaction levels that will assist in building the
company’s reputation in the region. Additionally, the clients in the area will benefit from the
affordable prices that are part of the company’s marketing strategies. Besides, the economy of
the regions will improve as the company will hire employees from the local regions.
Furthermore, the supplies will be acquired locally in a bid to suit the needs of the local markets.
The required resources and capabilities
One of the significant resources that Wal-Mart utilizes is human capital. The fact that the
Wal-Mart is in the sale of consumer products makes it necessary for the company to have a vast
number of employees. Depending on the organizational structure, the company will hire local
employees and supervisors. However, the managers will be from the headquarters (Smith et al.
2015). In this way, the company will ensure that the local region benefits from the existence of
their branches. Additionally, the company requires having a highly reliable communication
infrastructure. Therefore, there will be a need for the use of technology to ensure there is
effective communication between the branches and the headquarters.
How the company will capture the value and sustain competitive advantage
In the consumer products industry, there is a need to build and maintain reputation
(Coursaris et al. 2013. To achieve a solid reputation, Wal-Mart will place importance on
STRATEGY FORMULATION
4
consistency in affordable prices and quality services. Irrespective of the competition in the
region, the company will maintain its prices and ensure its clients have access to a variety of
consumer products. The company will seek means of maintaining its competitive advantage by
providing situations where it makes a high amount of sales to cover the low prices and increase
profits margins.
Business Management Strategy
Cost and differentiation advantages
Through differentiation, Wal-Mart will have high productivity levels that will give the
company an opportunity of maintaining its competitive advantage which is the low prices.
Furthermore, the company will have a chance of taking advantage of its capabilities to further its
goals and objectives (Thompson et al, 2015). A keen analysis of the situation indicates that the
company will have better use of the available technology. In this sense, Wal-Mart will utilize
social media to develop real-time marketing strategies that will increase the company’s market
share. In the end, the company will maintain its competitive advantage that involves low prices
as it will have a more significant market share.
Describe the corporate strategy
Wal-Mart Inc. has a keen understanding of the changing market trends in the consumer
products industry. From this understanding, the company maintains the clients’ interest through
the assurance of great service. As a corporate strategy, the company assesses the importance of
increasing its employees’ job satisfaction levels. With highly motivated employees ensures the
link between the organization and the consumers is healthy (Smith et al. 2015). Additionally, the
company focuses on the environment and ensures its suppliers operate under the required
STRATEGY FORMULATION
5
environmental conservation regulations. In this way, the company protects the environment and
ensures that all its business associates are in line with environmental conservation.
Vertical integration
Wal-Mart is a company that is a form of a distributor and acts as a middleman between
the suppliers and the consumers. The company, therefore, does not grow its agricultural products
or manufacture its electronic products for instance. However, its vertical integration consists of
the suppliers and the relationships between the two factions (Coursaris et al. 2013). The
association is primarily a form of a raw material in which it plays a significant role in the
company’s ability to having products for sale. The company thus integrates with the suppliers as
they are the lifeline between the company and the source of their products.
Strategic alliances
As noted above, the company’s relationship is of great importance to its survival. The
company, therefore, has an alliance with the suppliers that protect its relevancy. Notably, the
company must develop collaboration with the hosting state to ensure there are protection and
universal good-will from the relevant authority. The developing alliances ensure there is no
interruption of business (Thompson et al. 2015). Additionally, having an alliance with the
hosting state ensures the company has a steady supply of products and employees. The strategic
alliances are contributing factors to the existence of the company in the new markets. In essence,
the strategic collaborations bring the company closer to the market and ensure business
continuation.
Wal-Mart competitive advantage
STRATEGY FORMULATION
6
Wal-Mart has a variety of competitive advantages that have assisted the company to
remain in business for decades. For instance, low prices are one of its significant competitive
advantages (Thompson et al. 2015). The company’s pricing strategy focuses on offering the
products at the minimum cost possible. The organization then survives by ensuring it makes high
amounts of sales to create consistent profits. A keen analysis of the situation indicates that the
low prices are a marketing strategy for the company as the company has a history of high
amounts of sales. The low prices make Wal-Mart a significant competition for other players in
the industry.
Wal-Mart’s organizational chart
Michael T. Duke
President and CEO
S. Robinson Walton
Chairman of the
Board of Directors
Sam's Club
Walmart International
Wal-Mart United States
Rosalid Brewer
Doug McMillan
William.S. Simon
CEO
CEO
CEO
STRATEGY FORMULATION
7
References
Arthur, T., Stricklan, A. J. & Gamble, J. (2015). Crafting and Executive Strategy: Concepts and
Readings. DuraSpace.
Coursaris, K. C., Osch, V. W., & Balogh, A. B. (2013). A Social Media Marketing Typology:
Classifying Brand Face-book Page Messages for Strategic Consumer Engagement.
Association for Information Systems: AIS Electronic Library.
Smith, L., Wen, S. T. & Popkin, M. B. (2015). Gains Made by Wal-Mart’s Healthier Food
Initiative Mirror Preexisting Trends. Health Affairs.
Running head: ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING
1
Environmental Scanning
Hank Stump
MGT/498
April 15, 2019
John Hawes
ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING
2
Environmental Scanning
Environmental Scanning
Walmart Inc. is an American multinational retail company that was established by Sam
Walton. Walton believed in leadership through service since his goals were bringing great value
and quality customer services. The first store opened by Walton was a small dime store in
Bentonville which received huge success influencing him to open the first Walmart in Arkansas.
The success experienced by Walmart was due to the values by Walton of offering lower prices
and with great customer service to his clients. The company experienced steady success which
led to it going public in 1970 and the proceeds from the company financed an expansion of the
business. Walmart is currently a global company operating in several regions in the World and
the major focus of the company is its investments in the people, stores and also the advancing
technology. The company has been able to bring new approaches to technology and also, trying
out with new store structures which include Sam’s Club and the Walmart Supercenter
(Finkelman, 1997). In this paper, we will be discussing Walmart Inc. management functions.
Environmental Scanning
Environmental scanning as a business management function involves the procedure of
collecting organizational information and understanding the relationship between the
organization’s internal and external surroundings. Walmart is a company that has experienced
success in its operations due to its associations with technological advancements which has in
turn greatly influenced the corporation’s business approach of “everyday low prices”. Walmart
ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING
3
was the pioneer company in some of the leading technological advancements such as bar code
scanning and analyzing point of sale information. Walmart also launched its own satellite in
1980 which had a lot of impact on the company’s business practices most profoundly on its
supply chain management process. Some of the strategic systems spear headed by the industry
luminary, Kevin Turner such as Retail-Link was significant it is enabling data integration and
sharing between the company and its suppliers. The strategic systems were also significant in
enabling the concept of vendor managed inventory. In the mid 1980’s Walmart developed a
$4billion software and hardware system whose aim was to gather consumer-behavior
information on what they were buying which was to aid the company in knowing how to store
the correct products in the appropriate store. The most competitive e-commerce companies
include Amazon and Jet.com which have a vast ecosystem of prime membership and they are
able to deliver a wide variety of products and they also have a secure payment system that makes
them to be more attractive to their customers. To respond to these emerging technologies
Walmart has held the belief that information technology provides a competitive advantage over
other industry leaders which has made them move from the traditional business strategies to the
suitability of e-commerce. Walmart allocated resources to invest in digital capabilities that would
allow the company to compete effectively and better align their resources with the consumer
preferences (Chatwin, 2013).
Competitive Advantage
Walmart’s historical information strategy was focused on an internal approach which has
created innovative business strategies that have allowed the company to gain competitive
ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING
4
advantages globally. The emerging technologies have influenced the need for Walmart to revise
its business strategies to increase their geographical reach and transform their existing retail
infrastructure to be able to compete with online retail companies such as Amazon. Walmart has
recently revamped its cloud-based technology by developing information centers and also
creating cloud-based business tools. Walmart natured in e-commerce to enable them effectively
to compete with online retail companies by recently combining Sam’s Club with Instacart for
delivering real-time services. The company has built their efforts in e-commerce expansion plans
and strategies which has accelerated their online sales giving them a competitive advantage over
other brick and mortar stores in the United States. Walmart has also recently improved its
merchandise listing on their web with more innovative informative descriptions to present new
initiatives on their online sites. Although, Walmart are still grasping on their traditional business
strategy due to the challenging nature of online retail. The company’s United States e-commerce
sales soared to 23% in the fourth quarter and its shares also rose to 31.1% over the past year as
compared to the previous 24.5% (Lakdawalla et al, 2005).
Strategies to Create Value and gain Competitive Advantage
Walmart’s investors influence the strategic choices of the organization and they are the
individuals, groups and companies that impact the organization. Walmart has had little resistance
from their investors on its e-commerce venture due to its ability to increase company revenues.
The customers and suppliers have also gained from the online venture due the easy transaction
modes in place and the availability of a wide variety of products. There are a series of
organizational changes that have taken place in Walmart Company to enable them cope with the
ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING
5
changing technological nature of the retail environment. Walmart is not a technological company
but over the years it has had to embrace technologies in its business strategies which has
influenced organizational change and interdepartmental collaborations. The recent advancement
to e-commerce has led to the development of a common system for the entire company together
with its subsidiaries which has eased communication between departments both locally and
globally. Walmart due to the technological change to e-commerce it developed a common
platform where all its stakeholders could have real-time interaction which is both economical
and efficient (Price, 1996).
Measurement Guidelines
Walmart makes use of sustainability guide which functions as an instrument to for
refining merchandises that their clients prefer, assimilate sustainability into the company,
augment the quality of their merchandise, upsurge competes in their supply chain and improve
the output loop by decreasing expenses. Walmart believes in building sustainability as a
measurement guideline that the organization uses to verify the effectiveness of its strategies.
Walmart collaborated with the Sustainability Consortium to develop metrics to evaluate
significant indicators for examining the efficiency of the organization’s strategies. The company
together with its partner developed a standardized system for relaying of information on
sustainability all through the merchandise value chain. The system is identified as the
sustainability measurement and reporting method which serves as an international podium for
states to evaluate and report on merchandise sustainability. According to Walmart’s
ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING
6
management, the company’s goal is to acquire the right metrics to advance their measurement
guideline for assessing the effectiveness of their strategies (Feng et al, 2010).
Effectiveness of Walmart’s Measurement Guidelines
The sustainability measurement and reporting system has been an effective measurement
guideline since it enables a rigorous product level life cycle assessment and offers an arena to
communicate sustainability information through the supply chain. This measurement guidelines
are effective since it enables sustainability of the organization’s strategies that ensures increased
product quality, supply efficiency and an increase in productivity loop. Walmart has heavily
benefitted from these measurement guidelines since they are able to measure the sustainability of
their suppliers and develop effective strategies to easily integrate their global supply chains
effortlessly. Walmart is however in the process of identifying better metrics to include in their
measurement guidelines to ensure the organization gains its business potential in the global
technological business environment.
ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING
7
References
Chatwin, R. E. (2013, June). An overview of computational challenges in online advertising.
In American Control Conference (ACC), 2013 (pp. 5990-6007). IEEE.
Feng, S. C., Joung, C. B., & Li, G. (2010, May). Development overview of sustainable
manufacturing metrics. In Proceedings of the 17th CIRP international conference on life
cycle engineering (Vol. 6, p. l2). PRC Hefei.
Finkelman, P. (1997). Dred Scott v. Sandford: A brief history with documents (p. 2). Boston,
MA: Bedford Books.
Lakdawalla, D., Philipson, T., & Bhattacharya, J. (2005). Welfare-enhancing technological
change and the growth of obesity. American Economic Review, 95(2), 253-257.
Price, R. M. (1996). Executive forum: technology and strategic advantage. California
Management Review, 38(3), 38-56.
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